Male Pregnancy [MPreg]

[fantasy_trance]

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Hi, scribes. Today, I want to discuss male pregnancy. I have two characters who will be in my story who fall in love; they are both males.

In the world they live in, they can transform into anything they want but it doesn't change who they are at their core so they could get female or male reproductive parts if they really wanted to. It's like something fun they can do. However, males can get pregnant without intercourse, and I'm leaning towards the idea they can give birth without a reproductive system as well.

When I think about it, sometimes I get confused until I go into it more like I am here. Does anybody else have elements like this in their story? I am interested. *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Thanks!

 

[Chasejxyz]

Trans men exist We can get pregnant and it works the same exact way cis women do! So you don't need to re-invent the wheel there.

You do mention that you want them to get pregnant without sex AND to not have a reproductive system as well? You're going to run into some issues there.

• Sexual reproduction (most of the time) requires 2 different people, each making 2 different sex cells (sperm + egg) which are then combined to create a new mix of DNA. The mixing/gestation doesn't have to happen inside the individuals (like with fish), but they still need reproductive organs (which make the sex cells AND the sex hormones).
  • There are some normally-sexually reproducing species that can undergo parthenogenesis, which is when an egg is "fertilized" without a sperm. This hasn't happened naturally in mammals but does happen in reptiles, birds, and insects. The sex of the offspring would be whatever is two of the default sex cells in eggs. So in humans it would be XX (female) and in birds it would be ZZ (male).
• Organisms without a reproductive system are either individuals in a colony species (queen and drone ants/bees are meant for reproduction, not everyone else) or reproduce asexually, like bacteria. They reproduce the same way our normal cells reproduce, so you don't need anything fancy there. But also the rate of mutations/new DNA is very slow. But also they can reproduce very fast. But also they're very susceptible to "diseases" or changing enviornements.

So you CAN do this but you're going to really need to change the definition of "pregnant" and "give birth," because you kind of can't have those things without a reproductive system.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Within the paranormal romance and reverse harem subgenres, Mpreg is very much a thing. A great place to go to ask questions is the FB Group Reverse Harem Readers and Authors, of RHRA (pronounced "Rahrah"). I haven't read any of it, personally, but there is a small but rabid fanbase for it.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

You could go with one of them being a transman, as Chasejxyz mentioned. Or they could be something like seahorses. When seahorses mate, the female lays her eggs inside the male, and he fertilizes them internally and carries them and births them.

But then, how do we define female and male? For most of human history, sperm and eggs would have been a foreign concept. The idea that the male plants seed inside the female is millennia old, but how that seed is defined has shifted over time. By the old definition, female could simply mean the one who carries and births life. In that case, the sperm carrying seahorse would be female, and the egg carrying seahorse would be male, by definition. If your characters see it that way, then the one who gives birth is female, at least during gestation and giving birth.

 

[Queshire]

I haven't really done a lot with it, but I've made the decision for my setting that just about anyone that wants a kid can have one. There's numerous methods and compared to say.... a golem and the living spirit of a mountain two guys having a kid is pretty simple.

 

[Chasejxyz]

But then, how do we define female and male? For most of human history, sperm and eggs would have been a foreign concept. The idea that the male plants seed inside the female is millennia old, but how that seed is defined has shifted over time. By the old definition, female could simply mean the one who carries and births life. In that case, the sperm carrying seahorse would be female, and the egg carrying seahorse would be male, by definition. If your characters see it that way, then the one who gives birth is female, at least during gestation and giving birth.

In Ye Oldene Timese, one of the theories was that the sperm was just a tiny little baby man, a full grown human but really small. And it would just grow inside the womb until it was baby sized. So you could go with something like that, one group of people (gender, caste, could be many things) makes these tiny people and the other gestates it.

If you really want to look at non-standard biology and how it influences society, just look at any alpha/beta/omega dynamics/verse story. They usually call a/b/o a "dynamic" or "secondary gender" since the sex cell making isn't restricted to just one (primary) sex.