Mpreg

[wildestranger]

So. Mpreg. Do you love it? Hate it? Can't be bothered to think about it?

I find myself curious about the phenomenon of mpreg in fandom. Some people seem to hate it with an unholy passion. Some perceive it as OMG the cutest thing eva. A plot device, a source of crackfic, an embodiment of patriarchal control system, an embodiment of feminist subversion, mostly an embodiment of bad writing?

I want to know what you think about mpreg, and most importantly, why. If you dislike it, what do you dislike about it? If you enjoy it, what do you think is good/interesting/sexy about it?

Is it the association with bad writing, silly teenagers who cannot imagine romance without babies and marriage? I used to be wary of such things until I read eutychides's Things That Change (which is not only a devastatingly well written mpreg, but a fic so moving and memorable that after finishing reading it at three in the morning, I had to go back the next day and reread the whole thing).

Also, if I were to write an mpreg fic, would you read it? That said, I am writing one so you shall be put to the test in a few weeks. ;)

Comments

[starrysummer.livejournal.com]

I have no desire to read pregnancy fic in general. MPREG, femmepreg (a word I may have made up), preg the old fashioned way, in vitro, immaculate conception.

Actually, scratch that. Immaculate conception fic could be cool, but probably only because I like blasphemy.

But anyway, where I stand I feel like fic about pregnancy is about love and creation and life. I want my fic about hate and destruction and death.

I do also feel a vague discomfort with the school of slashfic that wants no female characters anywhere near their fic. Not saying that most slashers are like that, but I have seen ficathon requests where people say that they don't want females anywhere in their fic, and while that's not an mpreg thing necessarily, it does creep me out a bit. And there's something philosophically weird about placing something that in reality only women can do and men cannot physically accomplish into the male domain. But that's me being over-analytical. Most of what bothers me about MPREG is in the PREG and not the M. To quote Eric Cartman, "don't care."

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

And there's something philosophically weird about placing something that in reality only women can do and men cannot physically accomplish into the male domain.

Yes. That's one of my issues with MPreg as well. Among many others. But I am not a slasher, and I like women in my fic, I like them to have sex- with both men and with each other - and kick ass, so...

I don't read MPreg unless it's parody, and even then I have a low tolerance for it.