Is There Straight Mpreg?

When we talk about mpreg, we often think about m/m pairings. That is, there are two guys. But is there such a thing as straight mpreg?

I think the answer depends a bit on what we want to define as “straight.”

A Brief Recap of How Mpreg Works

Mpreg stands for male pregnancy, which means a guy getting pregnant. Purists will say “true” mpreg is when a cis guy gets pregnant, although there’s no hard and fast rule saying that has to be true.

Mpreg authors play with biology on a pretty regular basis, such that the men who can get pregnant in stories often have some sort of “special” attribute. One of the more common devices these days is omegaverse, where some guys are “omegas,” who can get pregnant.

In other stories, it’s a quirk of an alien species or the result of shapeshifting. In fantasy, you might see it as a result of fantastical species or demons or fairies, among others.

A lot of the time, though, this bending starts raising questions, such as “are male omegas just trans men” or “is there such a thing as straight mpreg in this world?”

A lot of the answer depends on the worldbuilding the author is doing.

Is There Straight Mpreg?

The most basic answer to the question is yes, there is absolutely straight mpreg. Some writers likely specialize in that particular niche, between a woman or female character and a man or male character.

How Would Hetero Mpreg Work?

There are a bunch of ways this could happen. Suppose we have an alien species, where the female partner has an ovipositor that is used to lay eggs in the male. Depending on who this character is paired up with, the situation could result in mpreg. If she shacks up with a male of her species, for example, he’d likely end up being the pregnant one. (We’d call this seahorse biology, since this actually happens in seahorses!)

The same would be true in fantasy. If you have shifters or demons or some other mythological creature, it could absolutely be the case that the female characters lay their eggs and the male characters do the incubation part.

In other cases, we may see a more horror-esque approach to mpreg. A fantasy or sci-fi species could, for example, be parasitic. The female might lay her eggs in a host. The most famous example of this is likely Alien, where the alien queen lays eggs in one of the human men. This results in the infamous “chest buster” scene.

In this scenario, the character is, in a sense, “pregnant,” although he most definitely does not want to be.

Examples of Straight Mpreg in the Media

Another famous example is from Fairly Odd Parents, where Wanda and Cosmo end up having a baby. The show simply examples that fairy biology is somewhat “inverse” to human biology: Cosmo ends up carrying the baby.

Exactly how this works, we don’t know (it’s a kids’ show!), but the implication is that this is just how fairy pregnancy works. All male fairies have the ability to carry babies.

A more recent example that works the same way occurs in Big Mouth, where the male hormone monsters are the ones who get pregnant.

Other examples might include where the male character becomes impregnated as part of an experiment or “magical mixup.” At the same time, he might be involved in a heterosexual romance. The mpreg scenario may or may not be a result of his and hers mixing in a Petri dish.

Het Mpreg in Omegaverse

Omegaverse provides building blocks that easily allow for heterosexual mpreg too. If you have male omegas, then it follows you can have female alphas.

We know that male omegas, in many omegaverse stories, can get pregnant. In theory, then, female alphas should be able to do the impregnating.

Given this, it’s not implausible that straight mpreg exists in omegaverse worlds. In fact, unless it’s otherwise stated, it would be pretty safe to assume that straight mpreg exists in most omegaverse stories.

There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. There are some writers who have crafted omegaverse stories that are strictly m/m. Leta Blake’s Heat of Love series comes to mind here—in this world, there are no women. There are only men, some of whom are alphas, some of whom are omegas, and some who are betas.

Blake isn’t the only writer doing this, however. In the m/m romance sphere, this is a pretty popular way to explain why male omegas are even a thing.

By contrast, we have writers like Sienna Sway, whose Alien’s Omega series explicitly includes female omegas and female alphas. In a world where male omegas and female alphas exist, there’s no question that het mpreg is a distinct possibility—even if we don’t see it on the page.

When Does It Stop Being Straight Mpreg?

So, yes, there is absolutely straight mpreg. A bigger question might be when something stops being “straight” and when it wraps back around into being queer.

I’ve talked about female alphas and male omegas in omegaverse before. But biology doesn’t always have to be the root of omegaverse. In Omega on Top, I posited that the alpha/omega designation was simply a linguistic shift—away from using “male” or “female.”

In that world, then, sex and gender are “decoupled,” which means you can have omegas who are men or women. The same is true of alphas: they could be men or women. And, like the character Morgan, some are non binary, choosing not to adopt a “man” or “woman” persona.

Some omegas and some alphas might be what we would call transgender today. In the world of Omega on Top, though, your sex doesn’t matter; gender identity is separate. So the idea of someone being “trans” isn’t necessarily a thing in this world. It’s debatable whether that’s an improvement or not—people are accepted as they are, but omegas and alphas are still forced into particular social roles, no matter if they’re a “man” or a “woman” or something else entirely.

So, “straight” mpreg absolutely exists in this world, in the sense that alphas and omegas can be of “inverse” gender identities, as well as “inverse” sex. Yet there is always a question: is it straight?

Why Wouldn’t It Be Straight?

In this world, some couples would absolutely present as being “straight,” and they would be by the rules of the world. But in our own reality, they might be considered queer couples because they’re “t4t”—two trans people of “opposite” genders who have formed a relationship.

In other worlds, this becomes a serious question as well: if you have a “male omega” who can great pregnant, at what point is this just a trans man in disguise? And at what point is a “female alpha” a trans woman?

A case in point is one unpublished work of mine, Jovian Jive. This omegaverse world includes male omegas, female omegas, male alphas, and female alphas. One of the main character’s parents are a female alpha and a male omega.

That seems straight, right? But the alpha parent presents as a woman, while the omega parent presents as a man, even wearing a moustache and men’s suiting as his regular clothing.

The Real World Equivalent

In our own world, we might call them a t4t couple—the alpha is a trans woman and the omega is a trans man. So, even though we have a man and a woman, we have to ask: is this set-up really all that straight?

The answer is, of course, no. A lot of seemingly “straight” couples aren’t actually straight! Ace people, aro people, bi people, and pan people are all valid and part of the queer community. Yet they can form what look like “straight” relationships, even when they’re not.

Mpreg is specific to intersex and trans people, but trans and intersex individuals can also be queer in other ways (such as being ace or pan). So the relationships and mpreg scenarios we see as “straight” may not be.

In some sense, it is still het. But when we start talking about intersex people, all of that (and even the concept of “opposite” sexes) goes out the window. And, with all the queer twists even a “straight” couple can be given, it seems like there’s a good chance that even het mpreg isn’t exactly as straight as we might think it is.

Is the Mpreg Kink Just a Trans Metaphor?

Some people certainly might argue that! It’s not exactly uncommon for people to suggest omegaverse, m/m, and mpreg are all things that “eggs” often get into.

For trans men, the idea that a man can get pregnant is interesting—because they are quite literally men who can get pregnant. (For some people who are AFAB, they may also feel an affinity with gay men and thus be drawn to m/m.)

When it comes to trans women, there’s the obvious allure of femininity. Pregnancy is often coded “female,” and if you talk to bioessentialists, it’s basically the only thing women are good for. So trans women who haven’t yet realized they’re trans may absolutely find some mpreg appealing.

This, of course, means we need to question how “straight” any mpreg story actually is.

While there may be straight mpreg on the surface, it may not be as “straight” as we think when it comes right down to it.