Male pregnancy
Encyclopedia
Male pregnancy refers to the incubation of one or more embryo
s or fetuses by male
members of any species. In nearly all heterogamous animal species, offspring are ordinarily carried by the female
until birth, but in fish of the Syngnathidae
family (pipefish
and seahorses), males perform this function. By some definitions of male identity, human men have done so in certain instances, and male humans incubating fetuses are a recurring theme in speculative fiction.
family of fish has the unique characteristic of a highly derived form of male brood care referred to as "male pregnancy." The family is highly diverse, containing around 300 different species of fish. Included in Syngnathidae are seahorse
s, the pipefish
, and the weedy
and leafy sea dragon
s. The males of some of these species possess a brood pouch on the trunk or tail; in other species, the eggs
are merely attached to the male's trunk or tail when the female lays them. Although biologists' definitions of pregnancy differ somewhat, all members of the family are considered by ichthyologists
to display male pregnancy, even those without an external brood pouch.
Fertilization may take place in the pouch or in the water before implantation, but in either case, syngnathids' male pregancy ensures them complete confidence of paternity. After implantation in or on the brood pouch or brood patch, the male incubates the eggs. Many species osmoregulate
the brood pouch fluid to maintain proper pH for the developing embryos. In at least some species, the male also provisions his offspring with nutrients such as glucose and amino acids through the highly vascularized attachment sites in or on his body.
This period of incubation takes much longer than the production of another clutch of eggs by the female, leading to a reproductive environment in which sexual selection
is stronger on females than on males due to increased male parental investment. Some species even display classical polyandry because of this unique situation. Male syngnathids usually prefer females with large body size and prominent ornaments such as blue skin pigmentation or skin folds. Intriguingly, syngnathid males in some species are apparently capable of absorbing eggs or embryos while in the brood pouch.
In these cases, embryos with the highest survival rate are those whose mothers display the preferred phenotype.
Syngnathidae is the only family in the animal kingdom to which the term "male pregnancy" has been applied.
(pregnancy outside the uterine cavity) by implantation in biological males has been addressed by experts in the field of fertility medicine, who stress that the concept of ectopic implantation, while theoretically plausible, has never been attempted and would be difficult to justify – even for women lacking a uterus – owing to the extreme health risks to both the parent and child.
Robert Winston
, a pioneer of in-vitro fertilization, told London's Sunday Times that "male pregnancy would certainly be possible" by having an embryo implanted in a man's abdomen – with the placenta attached to an internal organ such as the bowel – and later delivered by Caesarean section
. Ectopic implantation of the embryo along the abdominal wall, and resulting placenta
growth would, however, be very dangerous and potentially fatal for the host, and is therefore unlikely to be studied in humans. Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services, a British fertility clinic, noted that the abdomen is not designed to separate from the placenta during delivery, hence the danger of an ectopic pregnancy. "The question is not 'Can a man do it?'" stated bioethicist Glenn McGee. "It’s ’If a man does have a successful pregnancy, can he survive it?’"
Since 2000, several hoax
web sites have appeared on the Internet purporting to describe the world's first pregnant man. While sometimes relying on legitimate scientific claims, in reality, no such experiment has ever been attested. Fertility clinician Cecil Jacobson
claimed to have transplanted a fertilized egg from a female baboon to the omentum
in the abdominal cavity
of a male baboon
in the mid-1960s, which then carried the fetus for four months; however, Jacobson did not publish his claims in a scientific journal, and was subsequently convicted on several unrelated counts of fraud for ethical misconduct.
people) who interrupt hormone replacement therapy
can become pregnant, while still identifying and living as men. This is possible for individuals who still have functioning ovaries
and a uterus
.
For example, Matt Rice, a transgender man, bore a son named Blake in October 1999 following random sperm donations from three male friends during his relationship with transgender writer Patrick Califia
.
Thomas Beatie, another transgender man, has borne three children. He chose to become pregnant because his wife Nancy was infertile, doing so with cryogenic donated sperm and a syringe, at home. He wrote an article about the experience in The Advocate
. The Washington Post
further broadened the story on March 25 when blog
ger Emil Steiner called Beatie the first "legally" pregnant man on record, in reference to certain states' and federal legal recognition of Beatie as a man. In 2010, Guinness World Records recognized Beatie as the world's "First Married Man to Give Birth." Beatie gave birth to a girl named Susan Juliette Beatie on June 29, 2008. Barbara Walters
announced Beatie's second pregnancy on The View, and Beatie gave birth to a boy named Austin Alexander Beatie on June 9, 2009. Beatie gave birth to his third child, a boy named Jensen James Beatie, on July 25, 2010.
Scott Moore, a transgender man, gave birth to a child on March 9, 2010.
The case of Sanju Bhagat, a man from Nagpur, India
, attracted attention in 1999 for the length of time (36 years) he had carried his parasitic twin
inside his body, and the size of the growth. Since Bhagat had no placenta, the growth had connected directly to his blood supply.
and gender
. Some science fiction
writers have picked up on these issues, in "cross-gender" themes — e.g., Octavia E. Butler
's Bloodchild. Ursula K. Le Guin
's novel The Left Hand of Darkness
contains the sentence "The king was pregnant", and explores a society in which pregnancy can be experienced by anyone, since individuals are not sexually differentiated during most of their life and can become capable of inseminating or gestating at different times. Lois McMaster Bujold
's Ethan of Athos
features an all-male society in which men use artificial wombs, but experience many of the psychological effects of pregnancy
(anticipation, anxiety, etc.). In Marge Piercy
's feminist utopia
n novel Woman on the Edge of Time
, neither men nor women get pregnant, leaving that to artificial wombs, but both sexes may lactate and nurse the infant
; the specifically female experiences of pregnancy and nursing were opened to men in the cause of gender equality
.
The concept of male pregnancy has been the subject of popular films, generally as a comedic device. The 1978 comedy film Rabbit Test
stars Billy Crystal
as a young man who inexplicably becomes pregnant instead of his female sex partner. The 1990 BBC television comedy drama Frankenstein's Baby features a Dr. Eva Frankenstein helping a male patient to become the world's first pregnant man. The 1994 science fiction
comedy/drama Junior
stars Arnold Schwarzenegger
as a fertility researcher who experiments on himself; the screenplay was inspired by a 1985 article in Omni magazine.
The concept appears frequently as a comedic gag in movie and television programs. In Monty Python
's 1979 film, Life of Brian
, there is a political satire scene in which a character demands that any man has a "right to have babies if he wants them," which is ridiculed as impossible. In the BBC
science fiction comedy series Red Dwarf
, a character becomes pregnant after having sex with a female version of himself in an alternate universe. In an episode of Sliders
, the quartet "slides" into an alternate world in which babies develop during their final months in the father because a worldwide disease has kept women from being able to carry children beyond their first trimester.
The possibility of extraterrestrial life having different reproductive sexuality is the basis for many references. In the Star Trek: Enterprise
episode "Unexpected", a human male becomes pregnant with the offspring of a female of another species. In the video game The Sims 2
male characters can be impregnated via cheat codes or alien abduction. In the American Dad episode "Deacon Stan, Jesus Man", the boy Steve becomes impregnated after giving the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the extraterrestrial Roger, then unwittingly passes it on to his girlfriend via a kiss. In the animated series Futurama
the extraterrestrial Kif can be impregnated by a touch. In the SciFi Channel
miniseries, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars
, the extraterrestrial Rygel becomes impregnated with human John and Aeryn's baby.
Virgil Wong, a performance art
ist, created a hoax
site featuring a fictitious male pregnancy, claiming to detail the pregnancy of his friend Lee Mingwei.
Embryo
An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...
s or fetuses by male
Male
Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...
members of any species. In nearly all heterogamous animal species, offspring are ordinarily carried by the female
Female
Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...
until birth, but in fish of the Syngnathidae
Syngnathidae
Syngnathidae is a family of fish which includes the seahorses, the pipefishes, and the weedy and leafy sea dragons. The name is derived from Greek, meaning "fused jaw" - syn meaning fused or together, and gnathus meaning jaws. This fused jaw trait is something the entire family has in common...
family (pipefish
Pipefish
Pipefishes or pipe-fishes are a subfamily of small fishes, which, together with the seahorses, form the family Syngnathidae.-Anatomy:...
and seahorses), males perform this function. By some definitions of male identity, human men have done so in certain instances, and male humans incubating fetuses are a recurring theme in speculative fiction.
In non-human animals
The SyngnathidaeSyngnathidae
Syngnathidae is a family of fish which includes the seahorses, the pipefishes, and the weedy and leafy sea dragons. The name is derived from Greek, meaning "fused jaw" - syn meaning fused or together, and gnathus meaning jaws. This fused jaw trait is something the entire family has in common...
family of fish has the unique characteristic of a highly derived form of male brood care referred to as "male pregnancy." The family is highly diverse, containing around 300 different species of fish. Included in Syngnathidae are seahorse
Seahorse
Seahorses compose the fish genus Hippocampus within the family Syngnathidae, in order Syngnathiformes. Syngnathidae also includes the pipefishes. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek hippos meaning "horse" and kampos meaning “sea monster”.There are nearly 50 species of seahorse...
s, the pipefish
Pipefish
Pipefishes or pipe-fishes are a subfamily of small fishes, which, together with the seahorses, form the family Syngnathidae.-Anatomy:...
, and the weedy
Weedy sea dragon
Phyllopteryx taeniolatus, the weedy seadragon or common seadragon, is a marine fish related to the seahorse. It is the only member of the genus Phyllopteryx. Adult weedy seadragons are a reddish colour, with yellow and purple markings; they have small leaf-like appendages that provide camouflage...
and leafy sea dragon
Leafy sea dragon
The leafy seadragon or Glauert's seadragon, Phycodurus eques, is a marine fish in the family Syngnathidae, which also includes the seahorses. It is the only member of the genus Phycodurus. It is found along the southern and western coasts of Australia. The name is derived from the appearance, with...
s. The males of some of these species possess a brood pouch on the trunk or tail; in other species, the eggs
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...
are merely attached to the male's trunk or tail when the female lays them. Although biologists' definitions of pregnancy differ somewhat, all members of the family are considered by ichthyologists
Ichthyology
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...
to display male pregnancy, even those without an external brood pouch.
Fertilization may take place in the pouch or in the water before implantation, but in either case, syngnathids' male pregancy ensures them complete confidence of paternity. After implantation in or on the brood pouch or brood patch, the male incubates the eggs. Many species osmoregulate
Osmoregulation
Osmoregulation is the active regulation of the osmotic pressure of an organism's fluids to maintain the homeostasis of the organism's water content; that is it keeps the organism's fluids from becoming too diluted or too concentrated. Osmotic pressure is a measure of the tendency of water to move...
the brood pouch fluid to maintain proper pH for the developing embryos. In at least some species, the male also provisions his offspring with nutrients such as glucose and amino acids through the highly vascularized attachment sites in or on his body.
This period of incubation takes much longer than the production of another clutch of eggs by the female, leading to a reproductive environment in which sexual selection
Sexual selection
Sexual selection, a concept introduced by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, is a significant element of his theory of natural selection...
is stronger on females than on males due to increased male parental investment. Some species even display classical polyandry because of this unique situation. Male syngnathids usually prefer females with large body size and prominent ornaments such as blue skin pigmentation or skin folds. Intriguingly, syngnathid males in some species are apparently capable of absorbing eggs or embryos while in the brood pouch.
In these cases, embryos with the highest survival rate are those whose mothers display the preferred phenotype.
Syngnathidae is the only family in the animal kingdom to which the term "male pregnancy" has been applied.
Ectopic implantation
Biological human males do not have the anatomy needed for natural embryonic and fetal development. The theoretical issue of male ectopic pregnancyEctopic pregnancy
An ectopic pregnancy, or eccysis , is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo implants outside the uterine cavity. With rare exceptions, ectopic pregnancies are not viable. Furthermore, they are dangerous for the parent, since internal haemorrhage is a life threatening complication...
(pregnancy outside the uterine cavity) by implantation in biological males has been addressed by experts in the field of fertility medicine, who stress that the concept of ectopic implantation, while theoretically plausible, has never been attempted and would be difficult to justify – even for women lacking a uterus – owing to the extreme health risks to both the parent and child.
Robert Winston
Robert Winston
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and politician.-Early life and education :...
, a pioneer of in-vitro fertilization, told London's Sunday Times that "male pregnancy would certainly be possible" by having an embryo implanted in a man's abdomen – with the placenta attached to an internal organ such as the bowel – and later delivered by Caesarean section
Caesarean section
A Caesarean section, is a surgical procedure in which one or more incisions are made through a mother's abdomen and uterus to deliver one or more babies, or, rarely, to remove a dead fetus...
. Ectopic implantation of the embryo along the abdominal wall, and resulting placenta
Placenta
The placenta is an organ that connects the developing fetus to the uterine wall to allow nutrient uptake, waste elimination, and gas exchange via the mother's blood supply. "True" placentas are a defining characteristic of eutherian or "placental" mammals, but are also found in some snakes and...
growth would, however, be very dangerous and potentially fatal for the host, and is therefore unlikely to be studied in humans. Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services, a British fertility clinic, noted that the abdomen is not designed to separate from the placenta during delivery, hence the danger of an ectopic pregnancy. "The question is not 'Can a man do it?'" stated bioethicist Glenn McGee. "It’s ’If a man does have a successful pregnancy, can he survive it?’"
Since 2000, several hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
web sites have appeared on the Internet purporting to describe the world's first pregnant man. While sometimes relying on legitimate scientific claims, in reality, no such experiment has ever been attested. Fertility clinician Cecil Jacobson
Cecil Jacobson
Cecil Byran Jacobson is a former fertility doctor who used his own sperm to impregnate his patients, without informing them.-Baboon impregnation:...
claimed to have transplanted a fertilized egg from a female baboon to the omentum
Omentum
Omentum may refer to:* greater omentum* lesser omentum...
in the abdominal cavity
Abdominal cavity
The abdominal cavity is the body cavity of the human body that holds the bulk of the viscera. It is located below the thoracic cavity, and above the pelvic cavity. Its dome-shaped roof is the thoracic diaphragm , and its oblique floor is the pelvic inlet...
of a male baboon
Baboon
Baboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. There are five species, which are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger...
in the mid-1960s, which then carried the fetus for four months; however, Jacobson did not publish his claims in a scientific journal, and was subsequently convicted on several unrelated counts of fraud for ethical misconduct.
Transgender people
Some trans men (female-to-male transgenderTransgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
people) who interrupt hormone replacement therapy
Hormone replacement therapy (female-to-male)
Hormone replacement therapy for transgender gender variant and transsexual introduces hormones associate with the gender that the patient identifies with...
can become pregnant, while still identifying and living as men. This is possible for individuals who still have functioning ovaries
Ovary
The ovary is an ovum-producing reproductive organ, often found in pairs as part of the vertebrate female reproductive system. Ovaries in anatomically female individuals are analogous to testes in anatomically male individuals, in that they are both gonads and endocrine glands.-Human anatomy:Ovaries...
and a uterus
Uterus
The uterus or womb is a major female hormone-responsive reproductive sex organ of most mammals including humans. One end, the cervix, opens into the vagina, while the other is connected to one or both fallopian tubes, depending on the species...
.
For example, Matt Rice, a transgender man, bore a son named Blake in October 1999 following random sperm donations from three male friends during his relationship with transgender writer Patrick Califia
Patrick Califia
Patrick Califia , born 1954 near Corpus Christi, Texas is a writer of nonfiction essays about sexuality and of erotic fiction and poetry. Califia is a bisexual trans man.-Biography:...
.
Thomas Beatie, another transgender man, has borne three children. He chose to become pregnant because his wife Nancy was infertile, doing so with cryogenic donated sperm and a syringe, at home. He wrote an article about the experience in The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
. The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
further broadened the story on March 25 when blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger Emil Steiner called Beatie the first "legally" pregnant man on record, in reference to certain states' and federal legal recognition of Beatie as a man. In 2010, Guinness World Records recognized Beatie as the world's "First Married Man to Give Birth." Beatie gave birth to a girl named Susan Juliette Beatie on June 29, 2008. Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
announced Beatie's second pregnancy on The View, and Beatie gave birth to a boy named Austin Alexander Beatie on June 9, 2009. Beatie gave birth to his third child, a boy named Jensen James Beatie, on July 25, 2010.
Scott Moore, a transgender man, gave birth to a child on March 9, 2010.
Fetus in fetu
Fetus in fetu, though not an actual pregnancy, is an extremely rare condition in which a mass of tissue resembling a fetus forms inside the body. This is a developmental abnormality in which a fertilised egg splits as if to form identical twins, but one half becomes enveloped by the other, and an entire living organ system with torso and limbs can develop inside the host. The abnormality occurs in 1 in 500,000 live births in humans.The case of Sanju Bhagat, a man from Nagpur, India
Nagpur
Nāgpur is a city and winter capital of the state of Maharashtra, the largest city in central India and third largest city in Maharashtra after Mumbai and Pune...
, attracted attention in 1999 for the length of time (36 years) he had carried his parasitic twin
Parasitic twin
A parasitic twin is the result of the processes that produce vanishing twins and conjoined twins, and may represent a continuum between the two...
inside his body, and the size of the growth. Since Bhagat had no placenta, the growth had connected directly to his blood supply.
In popular culture
Thematically, pregnancy can be similar to the issues of parasitismParasitism
Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Traditionally parasite referred to organisms with lifestages that needed more than one host . These are now called macroparasites...
and gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
. Some science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writers have picked up on these issues, in "cross-gender" themes — e.g., Octavia E. Butler
Octavia E. Butler
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant.- Background :Butler...
's Bloodchild. Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
's novel The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is part of the Hainish Cycle, a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe....
contains the sentence "The king was pregnant", and explores a society in which pregnancy can be experienced by anyone, since individuals are not sexually differentiated during most of their life and can become capable of inseminating or gestating at different times. Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold is an American author of science fiction and fantasy works. Bujold is one of the most acclaimed writers in her field, having won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record. Her novella The Mountains of Mourning won both the Hugo...
's Ethan of Athos
Ethan of Athos
Ethan of Athos is an English language science fiction novel that is part of the Vorkosigan Saga by American author Lois McMaster Bujold. It is an unusual item in the series in that it does not feature Miles Vorkosigan, the protagonist of almost all the other books.The name "Athos" for the main...
features an all-male society in which men use artificial wombs, but experience many of the psychological effects of pregnancy
Couvade
Couvade syndrome, also called sympathetic pregnancy or phantom pregnancy, is a condition in which a man experiences some of the same symptoms and behavior of an expectant mother. These most often include minor weight gain, altered hormone levels, morning nausea, and disturbed sleep patterns...
(anticipation, anxiety, etc.). In Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.-Biography:...
's feminist utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n novel Woman on the Edge of Time
Woman on the Edge of Time
Woman on the Edge of Time is a novel by Marge Piercy. It is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic.-Plot summary:...
, neither men nor women get pregnant, leaving that to artificial wombs, but both sexes may lactate and nurse the infant
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...
; the specifically female experiences of pregnancy and nursing were opened to men in the cause of gender equality
Gender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
.
The concept of male pregnancy has been the subject of popular films, generally as a comedic device. The 1978 comedy film Rabbit Test
Rabbit Test (film)
Rabbit Test is a 1978 comedy motion picture about the world's first pregnant man, directed by Joan Rivers and starring Billy Crystal.Its title is derived from the rabbit test previously used to determine pregnancy.-Plot:...
stars Billy Crystal
Billy Crystal
William Edward "Billy" Crystal is an American actor, writer, producer, comedian and film director. He gained prominence in the 1970s for playing Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap and became a Hollywood film star during the late 1980s and 1990s, appearing in the critical and box office successes...
as a young man who inexplicably becomes pregnant instead of his female sex partner. The 1990 BBC television comedy drama Frankenstein's Baby features a Dr. Eva Frankenstein helping a male patient to become the world's first pregnant man. The 1994 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
comedy/drama Junior
Junior (film)
Junior is a 1994 American comedy film written by Kevin Wade and Chris Conrad and directed by Ivan Reitman. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a scientist who undergoes a male pregnancy as part of a scientific experiment.-Plot:...
stars Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
as a fertility researcher who experiments on himself; the screenplay was inspired by a 1985 article in Omni magazine.
The concept appears frequently as a comedic gag in movie and television programs. In Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
's 1979 film, Life of Brian
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python's Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian, is a 1979 British comedy film written, directed and largely performed by the Monty Python comedy team...
, there is a political satire scene in which a character demands that any man has a "right to have babies if he wants them," which is ridiculed as impossible. In the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
science fiction comedy series Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...
, a character becomes pregnant after having sex with a female version of himself in an alternate universe. In an episode of Sliders
Sliders
Sliders is an American science fiction television series. It was broadcast for five seasons, beginning in 1995 and ending in 2000. The series follows a group of travelers as they use a wormhole to "slide" between different parallel universes. The show was created by Robert K. Weiss and Tracy Tormé...
, the quartet "slides" into an alternate world in which babies develop during their final months in the father because a worldwide disease has kept women from being able to carry children beyond their first trimester.
The possibility of extraterrestrial life having different reproductive sexuality is the basis for many references. In the Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series. It follows the adventures of humanity's first warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001...
episode "Unexpected", a human male becomes pregnant with the offspring of a female of another species. In the video game The Sims 2
The Sims 2
The Sims 2 is a strategic life simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to the best-selling computer game, The Sims, which debuted on February 4, 2000. It was first released on September 14, 2004 for Microsoft Windows. A port to Apple Mac OS X...
male characters can be impregnated via cheat codes or alien abduction. In the American Dad episode "Deacon Stan, Jesus Man", the boy Steve becomes impregnated after giving the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the extraterrestrial Roger, then unwittingly passes it on to his girlfriend via a kiss. In the animated series Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
the extraterrestrial Kif can be impregnated by a touch. In the SciFi Channel
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
miniseries, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars
Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars
Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars is a television science fiction mini-series written by Rockne S. O'Bannon and David Kemper and directed by Brian Henson. Following the Farscape series' unexpected cancellation in September 2002, it aimed to wrap-up the season four cliffhanger and tie up some elements...
, the extraterrestrial Rygel becomes impregnated with human John and Aeryn's baby.
Virgil Wong, a performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
ist, created a hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
site featuring a fictitious male pregnancy, claiming to detail the pregnancy of his friend Lee Mingwei.
See also
- AllotransplantationAllotransplantationAllotransplantation is the transplantation of cells, tissues, or organs, sourced from a genetically non-identical member of the same species as the recipient. The transplant is called an allograft or allogeneic transplant or homograft...
, transplanting of non-native tissue - Couvade syndrome, a sympathetic condition
- Male lactationMale lactationMale lactation in zoology means production of milk from mammary glands in the presence of physiological stimuli connected with nursing infants. It is well documented in the Dayak fruit bat.The term male lactation is not used in human medicine...
- Male eggMale eggMale eggs are the result of a process in which the eggs of a female would be emptied of their genetic contents , and those contents would be replaced with male DNA. Such eggs could then be fertilized by sperm. The procedure was conceived by Dr. Calum MacKellar, a Scottish bioethicist...