Male Pregnancy

Male Pregnancy

I have to say, I have probably tried to write this blog so many times that I lost all interest in doing it. I thought the best way to approach this topic is to do some research about it myself. It was going good, however, then my laptop took a crap, so now I'm stuck writing my post on my iPad. Not that I will complain, I love my iPad and this blogger app is pretty cool. What sucks the most is that I had a post almost fully written stuck on my laptop and I can't get to it because it's in the shop getting worked on.

Then I thought to myself, "what really am I giving you by researching this topic?" When I looked, there wasn't much to say about animes that talked about Male pregnancy and the only RL (real life) male pregnancies that I know about is Mr. Lee, and that one guy that was really a girl who got pregnant and then went through her gender change to become a man.

So what does that prove? One, if you want fame, get pregnan as a woman and then become a man, and two, that male pregnancy is possible. Now, I'm pretty sure that Mr. Lee is most likely old news. A man living, I believe in New York, who was pregnant. An impossible feat, but apparently he did it. I'm not entirely sure how he is, if he survived, if he carried the baby full term and delivered or not. All I can go by is the medical website they have up for him and the few clips that show him moving around in public.

But it is very possible, dangerous, but possible. Just a little background on it, obviously men and women are different. Women have a womb, men do not. Women have a vagina and ovaries, men do not. So if a man got pregnant and this would be in RL, the baby would only be half his if he were in a gay relationship. However if he were in a straight relationship, like I believe Mr. Lee was,  then the baby would still be biologically theirs, just carried by the father.

The pregnancy though would be very high risk and must be monitored at all times. It would be considered an eptopic pregnancy, because the placenta is attaching itself to organs in the body, such as the intestines, colon or even the stomach, while in a ' normal' healthy woman, it would attach to the uterin lining. 

Many things could go wrong with the pregnancy, mostly because the baby is not protected like it would be in a woman, where it's surrounded not only by the embryonic sac, but by the uterus. In a man, the baby is only protected by the abdomen wall. So any sharp jostle or trauma to the are could cause a rupture in the sac or even the dislodgement of the placenta.

Now, if any of my readers have read Twilight: Breaking Dawn, then they would know that this is similar to what happened to Bella when she bent over, though the movie doesn't give good credit to it, basically the placenta detached from her body and all hell broke loose. If this were to happen to a man, the risk of death would be very high, because the placenta is detaching from vital organs and if not treated immediately could probably cause a quick, but painful death. That's not something we would like to think about, but all this to bring a baby into the world, despite the fact their bodies aren't made for it. Let's face it ladies, we always complain that men will never understand the pain and suffering we go through, but since it risks their lives and a happy future with them, I would rather go on living in pain and suffering of child labor than to lose the man I loved because he felt the need to go through what women go through.

Yet, despite it all, male pregnancy is a high pervalence among anime lovers, strictly to those who are yaoi lovers and yes, I am not excluded from that. So what is it that makes this whole thing so widely accepted? So popular?

Well it certainly isn't because of the wide variety of animes that cover it. In fact, I only know of one anime that covers male pregnancy, that doesn't just hint at it, but covers it and that is Sex Pistols, OVA 2, or episode 2, not really sure because I've only seen the two. (and they do have a manga series by the way, called Love Pistols. I have read it and if anyone is interested in aquiring it from me, leave a comment and I'll give you the link for it on my amazon accont!)

But male pregnancy, for me, came long before I discovered there were actual yaoi animes! It came to me in the form of a fanfic for YYH (Yu Yu Hakusho). It was basically a story about what would happen to Hiei if he fell into the pond of the drowned girl (or whatever it was called) as mentioned in Ranma 1/2 (which was also a good manga, didn't quit care for the anime). He turns into a woman and becomes pregnant by Kurama.

Now, my memory is a little shady and I can't remember what is fact and what is my imagination, so it either goes, Hiei (as a woman) goes into labor, has the children and then turns into a man again, Hiei (as a man) goes into labor and Genkai preforms some sort of magic that creates a temporary vagina so he can give birth and then it disappears, or Hiei (as a woman) goes into labor with the first child, has it, then becomes a man, yet has a second child, the magic is performed, the fake vagina is made and the other child is born before he returns to his normal state. 

Either way, that was my first introduction to male pregnancy. It struck me as a wonderful idea. Here you have a gay couple, who is completely happy with each other, have lots of wonderful sex and then the ability to get pregnant and start a family, it's perfect! Why can't men in fanfics always get pregnant and have babies and families, it seemed only plausible to me since women were always doing it (especially Mary-Sues).

Of course I realized with every good new idea, you need a back story, but that was nothing to me. I created a wonderful back story for my character Adrian, which remotely stays the same unless I'm in a KKM (Kyou Kara Maou) rp, and then it's different, but still the same in a way.  When I write my male pregnancy, I feel wonderful. It's the most wonderful thing in the world. To give life to my character who is giving life. 

But why? Why do we find it so interesting and irrestible to have characters have children. Is it because deep down we're projecting our feelings into our writings. Not to go Freudian on you, but perhapse that's what it is. Those of us who write male pregnancy (save for the one person I know, who really doesn't write it like I do skipping out on all the good parts) don't we want children in the future? Don't we want to experience being pregnant, to watch our stomachs grow and feel the baby moving inside it. Don't we want to go through child birth and the miracle of bringing a life into the world and then caring for that life?

I never understand why I wrote male prengnacy until recently. I am projecting into my writings the things I want to do in real life but can't. I want to have children, five in fact, and go through all that, but at the moment that is just not possible. So why not, just experience that through fiction, through the world of writing and creativity. For those of us who have a vivid imagination, we can sit there and just image that it's us, not our character that is having those feelings, the joys of buying for the nursery, of going to the doctor and getting ultrasounds. 

It's what we want, either consciously or unconsciously. It's most likely the reason why this is becoming such a hot topic in the fancfiction world, in yaoi. It's really the best of all worlds, male and female, real and imaginary.

And as these wants and desires continue to grow, continue to come about in aspiring artists and the next generation, so will this topic gain huge popularity until it can no longer be ignored, it will become the standard. And when that happens, when looking back at it all, will you be able to figure out when it all started for you? Or will you be lost like the rest of us with the times. Who actually remembers the first anime created? Or when it was first created? 

We were born in the time of anime, when Sailor Moon danced upon our screens at 4 in the afternoon every weekday before being canceled. When Cartoonnetwork aired Mobil Suit Gundam Wing and Tenchi Muyo in the afternoon and Yu Yu Hakusho and Pilot Candidate on Saturday nights. When Adult Swim only came on on Sundays and Space Ghost on it.

Everything for us is all mixed up and jumbled together, that not many people can remember when they first started liking anime, when they first got into yaoi, or who was the first couple they even read about. It's so ingrained in us that it's like breathing, it just happens. 

But by reading this post, and really thinking on the past and how all this came about for you, you'll remember when you first got into male pregnancy and you'll carry it with you until the end of our days. It's rare, it's unique and it's going to be on top, but don't ever forget who first gave the pleasures of having a child between two men, when everyone else in the world said it was completely impossible.

Now, my dear readers, I'm going to ask you, to leave a comment for me, to tell me exactly when you got into male pregnancy, what characters (whether your own or from an anime/manga/game series) were involved and why you still like it today. I'm sure we'll see a pattern and everyone will see that they are not alone in this subject, just like they are not alone in loving yaoi and/or shota.