Hot preggyboy action: Listen, fetishists aren't always the masters of PhotoshopThomas Beatie’s wife Nancy can’t get pregnant—she had a hysterectomy twenty years ago—so when the couple decided that they wanted a child, Beatie offered to make like a seahorse and carry it himself. Beatie was born a woman. He switched genders ten years ago, getting chest surgery and beginning a regime of twice-monthly testosterone injections, but he held onto his uterus. Now he’s legally male and pregnant.

Yesterday Beatie went on Oprah to discuss his delicate condition. There’s been some debate about whether he qualifies as a “pregnant man” since he’s still got a uterus, but—lavender cardigan non-withstanding—the clip makes it pretty clear that he identifies as a dude who just wants to have a baby with his wife. As opposed to, like, a hot slutty preggyboy.

What’s a preggyboy? Oh, you people are so naïve. Preggyboys populate the fantasies of mpreg fetishists—guys who get off on the idea of male pregnancy. You can find more mpreg fiction and illustrations (NSFW, obvs) than you’d ever dreamed of at Pregnantman.net, which has all sorts of stories about people like Matt, a sexy trucker who magically turns into a sexy blonde named Maddie who then gets pregnant by—ooh, an ouroborus!—a sexy trucker named Matt. Not to mention stories that end like this:

I'm 20 years old now. So far I've delivered 57 children. Pretty good, huh? I still don't know what exactly happened to me to make me so very fertile, but I've now come to think that it was the best thing that has ever happened to me. I still absolutely love the feeling of being pregnant, and the sex Dante and I have it nothing short of spectacular…. Of course, looking after all of my children is a challenge, but I love them all just so much that it doesn't really seem like a chore.

Mpreg shows up a lot in fan fiction – you know, Dumbledore knocking up Snape, that sort of thing. There’s even a truly niche subset called Pregfur for people whose secret deepest wish is to be a pregnant badger.

I figured that even though Beatie doesn't seem remotely like an mpreg fetishist, the preggyboys would be totally excited about his existence -- I mean, here's a guy living their dream (minus the 57 babies part.) Sadly, though, the Pregnantman.net forum seems to have been colonized by an anti-Israel, anti-Denmark Turkish hacker. As usual, the antisemites ruin it for everyone.

The Jewish Journal has a really interesting article this week about this relatively new phenomenon of fictional retellings of Biblical and Talmudic stories and personalities.

Samson is a blowhard; Sarah a rebellious, headstrong daughter who makes herself barren. Moses' wife is a freedom fighter, Nathan is a prophet beset by doubt and fear and Rashi's son-in-law battles his evil inclination to love men.

The Book That Started It All: And probaby the best of the bunch.
Sounds like the Jewish heroes and heroines of the Bible and the Talmud?
Not exactly.

That's because these are the new heroes of a burgeoning genre of modern literature: Jewish pulp fiction. These historical novels -- and they are novels, despite their various levels of accuracy to the ancient time period in which they are set -- star protagonists of old: from Genesis' Cain, Noah, Abraham and Sarah (they have their own books), to Exodus' Moses, Miriam and Tzipporah (separate and together), as well as characters from the prophets, like David, Nathan and Samson, and even from the Megillot, such as Queen Esther and Ruth (who already have books named after them).

Jewish pulp fiction, ranging in quality from a Regency Romance to commercial literary fiction, feature stories of love, adventure, sex, war, betrayal, politics, mystery, suspense, anguish, murder and death.

Where else can one find such stories but in the Bible?

When King Solomon (who is not yet the protagonist of one of these books) wrote in his own holy book, "Song of Songs," "There is nothing new under the sun," he hadn't read the latest in Jewish pulp fiction.

Actually, it's in Ecclesiastes, not Song of Songs, but whatever.

"This is the story of my life, and it's not a happy one," said the character Samson in "The Book of Samson," by David Maine. "My life has an abundance of frustration and pain, plus a fair bit of sex and lots of killing and broken bones, but it's got precious little hope and joy, comfort and inspiration.... You may think you know the story, but believe me there's more."
There's a lot more when it comes to Jewish pulp fiction. In the last five to 10 years, authors are churning out books exploring even the most minor characters of the Bible and the Talmud.
What is the point of all these books? Who reads them? Why do authors write historical fiction about real people from Jewish history? And, the most important question when it comes to mixing pop culture with religion: is it good for the Jews? Is it beneficial to take our ancestors, rabbis, prophets, kings and queens -- whom many revere and consider holy -- and fictionalize their lives?

Carolyn Starman Hessel, the director of the Jewish Book Council in New York, and one of the most influential people promoting Jewish books, sees many of this type of manuscript come across her desk. She called this genre of religious historical fiction a form of "midrash," like the body of commentary on primary Jewish text.

Full story

I have mixed feelings about these kinds of books. I’ve enjoyed some of them, and I hope to enjoy some more of them in the future, but I also find them a little gimmick-y. And now that they’re so popular, we’ve somehow managed to make Biblical characters into exactly the exotic clichés—dark haired vixens obsessed with sex and idol worship—that I’d prefer to eschew when thinking about the Bible. Ultimately, these novels fail to inspire me.

I’m also irritated by the loose understanding of the word Midrash, here. Midrashim aren’t just stories we get to come up with to go along with whatever reading of the text we’d like. Midrash came from a desire by the rabbis to integrate their ideas back into the original stories in Tanach, so they worked backwards, trying to illustrate legal, moral and ethical points using the characters and situations they had already been given. Midrash was never meant to be taken literally, but I think a lot of people are reading these books and taking them as historically accurate midrashim, which they’re not.

As I think yesterday’s post about synagogues proved, I’m all for alternative ways of accessing Jewish community and Jewish texts. That said, I’m not sure projecting contemporary obsessions with sex, feminism, or Middle Eastern politics onto the Bible is the best way of getting closer to God or any kind of Jewish tradition. Amazingly, the main characters in the Bible are generally rendered with puzzling and wonderful richness. We don’t actually need a 400 page dramatic retelling of Sarah’s life to know that it was difficult and wonderful and full of grace. We already have that. I sometimes think all these new readings and interpretations just take us another step further from whatever it is we’re reaching for.

There’s a pretty interesting article in the Washington Post about the Christian Fantasy genre that is really taking off in the wake of Harry Potter’s success:

Secular and Christian publishers are churning out titles aimed at the lucrative and growing audience of readers, who are snapping up an estimated $2.4 billion in Christian books a year -- about a 30 percent increase in the past four years.

Some Christian religious leaders and Christian parents have expressed unease with the Potter series, believing, among other issues, that humans' use of magic is forbidden by the Bible. The series is on the American Library Association's list of most frequently challenged books at school libraries.

Tapping into that unease are an increasing number of Christian writers who are producing Potteresque books without the elements that some Christians say violate the Bible.
"For a Christian family who's a little skeptical of some of the messages in the Harry Potter books, then they would find my books safe," said Wayne Batson, a Howard County middle school teacher who has written a popular three-book series called the Door Within. His latest book, "Isle of Swords," part of a new series, is due out next month.

Baton's Door Within series, published by Christian publishing giant Thomas Nelson, features Maryland teenager Aidan Thomas, who is suddenly plunged into an enchanted world. He must choose to join the forces of good or evil. The forces of good are led by a saintly king who has risen from the dead after being slain by an evil knight, who now leads a corrupt kingdom.

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My issue with Christian fantasy is that it always seems to have vaguely anti-Semitic undertones. I mean, if, in the Door Within series the “saintly king who has risen from the dead” is Jesus, then the “evil knight, who now leads a corrupt kingdom” is a Jew, no? It just makes me feel kind of yucky.

Elsewhere on Jewcy we’ve got much discussion of Harry Potter fan fiction, and I recently found a disturbing and convincing post over at Sabbath Meals that suggests Severus Snape, the Benedict Arnold of the Harry Potter series, is a Jew.
Severus Snape: a bitter old Jew?

In Snape, Rowling has created a angry villain who has a hooked nose, greasy dark hair, sallow skin and glittering dark eyes, an inscrutable, sneering, untrustworthy double agent -- who hisses. I don't think Rowling was intentionally trading in anti-Semitic stereotyping. Does that sound funny after my litany of stereotypical adjectives? But I don't! I think those are general negative physical characteristics in Western culture, and that a person could use them without intending anything racist. It's just kind of pervasive. After all, Rowling does have at least two very minor characters among the student who actually have Jewish names (Anthony Goldstein in Ravenclaw house, Harry's acquaintance in the DA club, and possibly also Rose Zeller). At least one reader has pointed out that this is part of a concerted effort on JKR's part to show the diversity of present-day Britain. (Though hello, do you see a single Muslim name here? Are there no Pakistani immigrant wizards at Hogwarts?) Her intentions aside, Rowling's Snape does bum me out. What's with the languid movements and the hairy eyebrows and the general ickiness of her Snape? In the Half Blood Prince he's practically Judas ferchrissakes. (Or you could read it that way. At least you could at the end of book six, book seven might turn the whole thing on its head.)

Later on in the post, Balabusta links to a piece of fan fiction that gives Snape a backstory as the son of a German Jewish refugee. Which almost makes Snape into a ruthless Israeli-soldier type.

All of this business of casting fantasy books with a religious light really bothers me, because in fantasy there’s a clear good and evil, and I don’t see religious life as that clearly divided. I don’t want Christian kids reading about the corrupt kingdom of evil Jews, and I don’t want Jewish kids creating fantasy books of their own that cast Pat Robertson as the devil, even though I really don’t like him. When fantasy is really just fantasy I think it’s a great genre for kids. But when fantasy is suddenly religious, I’m not on board. (And yes, I know the CS Lewis books are Christian, but luckily I hated them). The reason I like the Harry Potter books is because they’re so distant from my life. The idea of bringing my own cultural and theological history into a reading of the text takes too much of the fun out of the books.

Anyway, wishing everyone a Shabbat Shalom and a fun time reading the seventh book

I have a sick fascination with fan fiction, those often epic-novels written by ardent fans of movies, television shows, books, boy bands, video games and, strangely, real people. It’s not simply that I’m interested in the intense fandom exhibited by the creators of the work, but also that I wonder what separates the writers from the average student I might have in a writing workshop. There must be something that makes someone decide that they’d rather dream up ways for the Oompa Loompas to get their revenge on that bastard Wonka to share with fellow Magic: The Gathering fans vs. creating entirely fresh characters and worlds.

Fanfic isn’t exactly a new phenomenon: Sherlock Holmes starred in some of the earliest examples (off-line, obviously) and there are those who’d argue derivative works are in the same class. Now, of course, just like any decent form of art, there are different kinds of fan fiction, though the one that seems to get the most attention is slash, which involves, essentially, Kirk and Spock and a sudden realization that the hungry touch of man flesh (or, well, Vulcan flesh) is what both have long desired. Not all fan fiction is slash fiction, but I find slash by far the most amusing and confounding, particularly when I read about how the relationships are clearly in the subtext of the work, and when the characters are played by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Or children. I'm less inclined to find fan fiction stories about real people harmless -- like, you know, stories about the actors from Boy Meets World meeting up in real life for hot sex with their fans. The characters? Fine. The actors? That's just weird. And troubling. And disturbing. And a little hot. Well, I mean, if I wasn't married and didn't have easy access to Cinemax.

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