Male Pregnancy in Fanfiction

[TheKicking]

Here's the problem that I have with this article; she's biased and has a limited concept of the idea of mpreg.

Here's my argument.

The biggest problem I have with fanfiction including mpreg is that it's not usually about mpreg itself but allowing characters to procreate with each other. She says something about most fics focusing on the male pregnancy part of the plot, but in my experience, that's not actually true.

I think most people are stuck on the idea that a happy ending includes a spouse and kids. Without them, life doesn't seem to be fulfilled, and so it's hard to imagine a story ending with the main character alone and happy about it.

So the character needs a spouse, which is a easy vacancy to fill in fanfiction because for most people that's usually the point of the story in the first place. Shipping characters that you would rather see together than in canon. And since people, especially young people, are growing more and more open minded, the concept of a spouse can be anyone romatically involved with the main character.

The problem then becomes kids. Shipping a girl and a guy presents no problem, but the trend right now is shipping male characters, who obviously can't have kids together.

Another thing a lot of people can't get over is the idea of kids not being biological. There are people out there who are fine with adoption but there are plenty who aren't. There are some people who are hung up on the fact that they can't pass on their own genes. You see this with people who refuse to adopt and instead spend thousands and thousands of dollars in fertility clinic fees, and then still refuse to adopt after the doctors tell them it's impossible.

I'm not indicting these people. I understand feeling like you can't accept what is not your own.

But this bleeds over into fanfiction. The feeling that I get from authors who write mpreg fanfiction is that they can't get over the concept of their characters not having biological children together. Not creating something tangible together. And why would they have to, when there is this magical idea of male pregnancy to exploit? Especially when it's Harry Potter fanfiction, where all they have to say was that it was some spell that went awry (or went well depending on the fic) and that it worked out because now they have proof of the love they have for each other.

That's my biggest problem with mpreg fanfiction. It's mpreg to solve a fundamental problem and not for the sake of the pregnancy itself. Most of these writers don't care about mpreg. They don't find it interesting. If they could fix the fic with some other plot device, they would, but they can't. If mpreg wasn't in the story, they wouldn't give two shits as long as their couple can still make out with each other, and somehow raise a baby that is both genetically theirs.

You can tell by the way they just casually throw it into a story. "Harry gets pregnant by Draco, but they still hate each other!" or "And a year later, Lupid gave birth to their first child." Sometimes the story mentions the pregnancy part, but then almost completely ignores it except for a line or two about the pregnant guy growing or the birth.

It's not about the pregnancy. Not really. It's about justifying the pairing (and keeping them together) or giving them that fabled happy ending. It's about forcing Draco and Harry to not only get along but fall in love, or about Legolas and Gimili having it all.

And it bugs the shit out of me that our community gets lumped in with them. We are not like them. Most of them are not like us. That's why our board isn't flooded with fanfiction.

I think the author of the article must have read some stuff done by our members, because I have NEVER read a fanfic that included "Oh yea, breed me!" or an incredibly detailed birth unless it was done by, a) someone on our site, and b) someone I know has a preg/birth interest/fetish. Most fanfiction authors who include mpreg do not, and I can tell by the way they handle the pregnancy part of their stories.

I was so glad when I found this community, which loves male pregnancy for it's own sake and not the impact it has on a pair of people who were never meant to be together. I was so frustrated with slogging through websites that claimed to feature mpreg, but was all fanfiction. Hours and hours of trying to find stories that focused on what I was searching for and finding next to nothing because most of these people didn't care about it except as a means to an end.