sibling incest poll

[schmerica]

So the other day dsudis and I were talking about incest fic, because ... well, we're both perverts, mostly. Fans' reactions to the topic can be really interesting -- the range from kink to squick to "it's morally wrong and sick" to "not my thing, but whatever" to "normally wrong, but in this one specific case it's okay, because I like it."

I find myself curious. Thus, poll.

[Poll #476743]

Please feel free to comment with any other considerations. (Obviously, if you read my journal, you know I fall into the category that finds incest fic to be pretty interesting under certain conditions, so you might want to keep that under consideration if you're more in the "SICK SICK SICK WRONG" camp.)

Comments

[mosca.livejournal.com]

I said that I do read incest sometimes, because I have before and probably will again, but it's not something I read very often. Pretty much, I'll only read it when it's written by an author I know and trust.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*nod* Duly noted. I think that's actually a fairly common reaction, actually; it's definitely one of those topics that one is disinclined to read blindly.

[quincykat.livejournal.com]

Hmm. The only incest fics I've read, and am even interested in reading, are the Faramir/Boromir fics from the Lord of the Rings universe. But I don't have anything against other incest fics.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*nod* I think most people do read incest fic at all, it comes down to specific pairings; I just thought it would be interest to see if the types broke down in any meaningful ways.

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think the appeal is "grew up together," whether or not there's actual blood relations. Which makes no sense, given that I was totally creeped out that my (four years younger) stepbrother kind of had a crush on me until he was a teenager. *g*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

It's not that weird, I don't think -- it's another part of what interests us in fiction has nothing to do with real life, yeah?

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

When I say "never", I mean "never if there's a warning or paring note that makes it clear it's incest". I've read part of some fics that didn't have such a warning, and click the back button as soon as I see it's an incest fic.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Heh, yes. That was basically the intent of the question -- whether or not it's something you read on your own, not so much whether you have ever been exposed to it at all.

[norah.livejournal.com]

I read it, but I don't seek it out, and the rec has to be pretty strong for me to touch it in the first place. I think there have only been a few fics of that nature I've actually enjoyed. My theory is that I can love almost anything (except foodsex and maybe a few other ultra-icks) if it's done really well.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*grins* Ew, foodsex. (I'm assuming we mean sex involving play with food, not actually having sex with a piece of food. Although the latter would be disturbing, as well.)

[cereta.livejournal.com]

Answering here instead of the poll: I have a serious personal squick with the first type. I'm adopted, and not related by blood to any of my siblings, and every time I see something like a V.C. Andrews novel or a soap* having a man and woman/boy and girl who thought they were siblings find out they're not and immediately decided they should sleep together (or decide it ever. at all.), I shudder and go "eeewwwwwww." Oddly, incest between blood relatives doesn't bother me per se, but I think that's because there's usually a sense in the story that it's twisty and bad, whereas the stories about siblings who aren't blood related often convey a sense that this is just fine and a perfectly natural response. And dude: so not.

*my personal fav is the one where a guy got involved with a girl he thought was his daughter for the first five years of her life, and his half-sister for the ten or so years after.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

That's actually one of the things I find most interesting in the results to this poll so far -- while I'm writing this comment, two-thirds of the respondents find "grew up together but not blood related" more taboo than "grew up seperate but blood related". And that's the opposite of how I actually responded. Psychologically, at least, the last is a latter more likely to happen, I think; the taboo isn't a physiological response, after all, but one formed by the relationships. Hm.

[byob-kenobi.livejournal.com]

Incest is one of those black-and-white total squicks for me: I don't care who wrote it, or what the scenario is, I won't read it. I have very few taboos, but that's one of the strongest ones.

Plus, besides all the squickiness, it nullifies the "feeling of discovery" that I love and look for in fanfic. As someone who's been in a committed relationship for years, part of the "thrill" of reading first-times is recapturing that feeling of excitement. Incest pretty much guarantees that the two people already know each other VERY well.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Incest is one of those black-and-white total squicks for me: I don't care who wrote it, or what the scenario is, I won't read it. I have very few taboos, but that's one of the strongest ones.

*nod* Which is totally fair; a squick is a squick. My own squicks tend be random and inexplicable, but I have much respect of those of others.

Plus, besides all the squickiness, it nullifies the "feeling of discovery" that I love and look for in fanfic. As someone who's been in a committed relationship for years, part of the "thrill" of reading first-times is recapturing that feeling of excitement. Incest pretty much guarantees that the two people already know each other VERY well.

And see, that's really fascinating -- it's not a point I've ever heard before, actually. Though I do wonder how the "blood relations who didn't grow up together" fits into that idea?

[runpunkrun]

I generally stay away from incest because I don't find it interesting, but I cannot help my unholy love for The Royal Tenenbaums' Ritchie and Margo. I've also been known to read SV AUs where Clark and Lex were raised as brothers and may or may not have grown up together, but those have varying level of success and squick with me.

Wait, maybe I lied about not finding incest interesting. I read my fair share of VC Andrews in high school, also this book, This Body which I *did* find interesting. So maybe it's just incest in fanfic.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Huh, that book *does* look interesting. *makes note*

[visionshadows.livejournal.com]

I'll be honest. I haven't read much of it outside of HP fandom. I don't like Malfoy-cest, but I love me some Fred/George or various Weasley fics. I've even written a couple of twincest fics. But outside of it the HP fandom, I'm not so much about it.

dayse and I were just talking the other day about what gets written in HP and is considered almost mainstream but is considered serious kink in other fandoms. You can go waaaay out there in HP and very few will blink an eye. But in other fandoms, you'll get shot down *fast*.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Heh. That seems to be the going statement about HP fandom. Well, also that everyone's crazy. But mostly the pervert thing.

I was going to say that it does seem like fandom in general is slowly becoming more open to stuff, but then I realized I really have no basis for saying that. Really, all I know is that my specific circle seems to be all for it, which really doesn't equal the same thing at all. I mean, Dira's story "Wept" got almost no feedback, despite the fact it's a sweet, hot, incredibly well-written story by a popular author, and it's almost certain it's because she used the phrase that "Fraser has an unusual kink" in the summary.

[lalejandra.livejournal.com]

Because I am a true perv, I really don't find any incest scenarios to be taboo personally; surely if looking at te piece of society I am involved with/in, I could answer those questions, but as for myself? I don't consider too much taboo.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*grins* Fair enough.

[speshope.livejournal.com]

It definitely depends on the author, fic and pairing for me. But I can say that for all fic I read.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hee. True.

[obsessivemuch.livejournal.com]

I keep trying to clarify my own position on incest and running into strange preferences and walls. I truly love the fic dependent on the pairing more than anything else (i.e. the taboo issue). There is just something absolutely compelling to me in certain situations. For example, I'll read Violet/Klaus and Simon/River because in their circumstances, they're the only ones that can be depended on (I guess "The Flowers in the Attic" kind of circumstances) and they just become absolutely essential to each other.

And I enjoy Margot/Ritchie because it's dysfunctional yet compelling in its dysfunction. I was a huge Boone/Shannon person to begin with, but I'm less fond now that the stepsibling issue was introduced. I'll still read it because it can be beautifully done, but I'm less inclined to read everything that I come across (possibly because it's not nearly as taboo as it once was). For Veronica Mars, I prefer reading Duncan/Lilly if it's in some larger context, Lilly/Duncan/Veronica/Logan or Lilly/Duncan/Logan yet I don't particularly enjoy just Lilly/Duncan or even Duncan/Veronica. And in HP, the only kind of incest I read is Weasley siblingcest and only in the hands of an author I trust implicitly (so basically one or two authors).

I suppose the one thing that ties them all together is that it's all related to a brother-sister or brother-brother situations whether they're actually related or not. I can't say that I wouldn't ever read mother-son or father-daughter or uncle-child, but it's not a fic relationship I would seek out on my own.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I suppose the one thing that ties them all together is that it's all related to a brother-sister or brother-brother situations whether they're actually related or not. I can't say that I wouldn't ever read mother-son or father-daughter or uncle-child, but it's not a fic relationship I would seek out on my own.

Yeah, I limited the poll specifically to same-generation incest because that's primarily the type I read or the relationships that I do find interesting. And I am the poll maker, and have the power! Ahahaha! *cough*

[engenda.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much an entire squick for me. I've known people who've experienced incest. I know how it fucks people up, and not just the people involved - the people around them. I've seen how it's been used to score points. I've seen how it can almost tear a family apart - and not even the family involved in it. I've seen how being a victim of incest has lead to claims of unjust claims of paedophillia. Again - through trying to score points and cause trouble.

So, it's one of those emotional things that I will not have anything to do with - and as has been said before - if there's no warning and it ends up incestfic I'll go back as soon as I realise.

[nebulist.livejournal.com]

For some reason the "blood relatives" thing is worse than the "grew up together" thing for me, though I think that it should be the other way around. Ah, hangups.

I'll read anything if it's good (or hot). There are certain things I won't read, like violence or bloodplay, because I have a bad physical reaction to that stuff. For things like incest, I want the problem to somehow be addressed, even if it's not the most accurate or complex representation of the subject.

I love The Royal Tenenbaums.

[nebulist.livejournal.com]

Also, for the last question, I choose all three, even though I'm not sure if I actually have read all 3 types. But I could see myself reading and enjoying any of them, if the characters interested me. :D

[lovekeller.livejournal.com]

I used to have a line, but then, Harry Potter's third movie and the Weasley twins just threw everything out the window for me.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

[dsudis.livejournal.com]

I feel like my most/least taboo responses are fairly mechanically selected, because my sample size is pretty small (I think all the incest fic I've ever read or considered reading dealt with blood siblings raised together) and because I don't think those are the axes along which my discomfort rises or falls. For example, I'm less comfortable with Simon/River than Don/Charlie, because I'm a) irrationally more disturbed by het 'cest than m/m, and b) Simon holds more power over River than Don does over Charlie.

Uh. Except in the scenario I'm planning to write.

I have lines. It's just that they're dotted.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

a) irrationally more disturbed by het 'cest than m/m

*grins* About which, equally irrationally, I feel just the opposite.

because I don't think those are the axes along which my discomfort rises or falls.

*nod* The question wasn't designed with the intent that "level of taboo" = "level of personal squicks" -- I think there probably are a lot of people for whom that's true, but there are lots of whom it isn't, too; it's not a direct positive correlation.

[cranberryink.livejournal.com]

Incest is actually a pretty solid kink for me in fic. I was really surprised when I figured out that I liked it. But, like many things I like in fic, it's something that I'm interested in only in fic and does not cross over into my RL interests at all. Which seems silly to caveat and all, but people like all kinds of things, so.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Really, I find incest is one of those things where I just automatically assume it's a "fic only" thing, you know? I guess the seperation between reading kink and real life kink is strong enough for me that the opposite never occurs me. Which is partly why I'm always taken aback by arguments against use something like the fact that real life incest is destructive and horrible as an argument that it's wrong to read/write fiction about it; the connection isn't immediately apparent.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I pretty much only read incest fic if the incest is near canon (Riff/Magenta from Rocky Horror, to a lesser extent, various pairings for Elizabeth E. Wein's Arthurian books, which have canon aunt/nephew, canon half-brothers subtext, and subtextual half-brother/half-sister).

The only incest pairings I've ever really been fascinated by are the ones in Wein, because everyone's delightfully, fascinatingly fucked-up. For the most part, incest fic for its own sake doesn't do much for me.

No particular brand of sibling incest is more taboo to me than another, unless it's blood siblings who have a child. Parent-child incest is probably the most taboo to me.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Addendum: my biggest incest squick is incest fic that treats it as happy, harmless, and totally not a big deal, emotionally. Unless the characters are from an alien society without an incest taboo, it wigs me out the same way happy pedophilia fic and happy rapefic disturb me. I don't expect fiction to be reality, but I prefer it not to trivialize reality.

[reginagiraffe]

I didn't take the poll because those particular set of considerations aren't relevant to me. I don't care how they were raised. What matters is their sex. Brother/brother incest, of whatever flavor, doesn't bother me. Brother/sister does. I guess it's a "chance of pregnancy and inbreeding" issue for me.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*nod* Which partly goes back to my comment to Dira -- do you find "taboo" and "squick" to be the same in that case? Het is more of a squick, but also more taboo?

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

I have read some incest fics, when they were recced, or because of the fandom, but almost universally I read them with my lip curled and a feeling of distaste hovering around me. So I would say I fit into a category of "don't like it, don't really get it, but chacun a son gout.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

chacun a son gout.

This is certainly a sentiment I can get behind.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

I'm not really a fan of incest fic (or at least I've never found one yet which 'pinged' me), but I don't think you can boil it down to the generic types of sibling relationship and say "This type is acceptable while that type isn't." I think you have to look at the characters, the power dynamics, the behaviour in each situation individually. I know what makes me uncomfortable and feels like one character is exploiting another, and I know what doesn't. But it's the specific relationship which either sends out alarm bells or doesn't, not the type of relationship.

I realize this isn't very helpful to you, but I had to point out that I think the situation is extremely complicated, and 'okay' vs. 'creepy' may have to be defined on a case-by-case basis, or at least defined on the basis of common elements within the interaction of the incest-committing characters, rather than external elements like the characters' blood relation or lack thereof.

Interesting, thought-provoking question, by the way.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

but I don't think you can boil it down to the generic types of sibling relationship and say "This type is acceptable while that type isn't."

Oh, I don't think that, either. Actually, I'm not sure it's really a question of acceptable vs unacceptable. There are specific relationships I find interesting in all of the situations above, and relationships I don't, but I wouldn't argue that any of them are particularly healthy or okay.

I agree with you that specific relationships are really what's central at what one reads and doesn't read, for the most part; I was just interesting in looking at general trends and seeing if anything came up here.

[copracat]

I didn't do the poll because I don't differentiate between those situations. The characters drive the story, whether it's a thoughtful response or aesthetic one. If there's something between the characters, either in canon or cleverly developed by the author, then it works for me.

For myself, I love the George and Fred twincest, but am uninterested in the Lucius or Narcissa/Draco. I think both have just as little support in canon. Fred and George are fun, the Malfoys are tedious.

I adore Ghamima/Leto II from Children of Dune. Simon/River depends on the story - I love a good Firefly story, but am not drawn by the Simon/River dynamic alone. The chance of in-breeding issue is irrelevant - it's a story! The author controls the outcome. In-breeding - eugenics as political tool - was a major plot in Children of Dune, of course.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*nod* The characters and specific relationships are definitely what interests me as a reader; I can distinguish those categories I mentioned as different levels, but that's not what I use to decide what I like to read.

For myself, I love the George and Fred twincest, but am uninterested in the Lucius or Narcissa/Draco. I think both have just as little support in canon. Fred and George are fun, the Malfoys are tedious.

I actually can't think of a single example where I find cross-generational incest stories particularly interesting, but I'm not quite sure why that is.

[wistful-fever.livejournal.com]

Like so many other people have said, it depends on the characters. If I can see it myself, before any kind of convincing, then I'm into it. If not, then I could care less, and I'm not even going to click on the story. Because of that, for the last question I picked all three.

I find it interesting that people (including myself) find it less taboo for siblings with no blood relations that grow together to be involved in an incestuous relationship with each other, than two siblings of blood relationship who have not grown up with each other.

Other things about incest fic -- I can't read parent/child. In fact, I can't read anything other than sibling-cest. And in that, I can't read chan sibcest. It would be interesting to see what other kinds of incest fic people that read sibling incest fics are willing to read.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I think parent/child definitely has issues that sibling incest doesn't. This poll, for example, is pretty much trying to focus on incest, specifically as the taboo/squick/kink/whatever involved. In crossgenerational, there's always consent, abuse, and power relationships to deal with as well, which makes it more complicated.

[the-emef.livejournal.com]

I definitely have a "ew gross" reaction to Simon/River, but I don't think it's that it's taboo, it's just that I have a brother.

Though if you want my opinion, the kind of reaction I (and other squicked readers) have to blood-relation incest fic is akin to that of homophobes seeing men kissing ; something more to put in the I-freudian-slipped-my-brother's-name-when-addressing-my-boyfriend file.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I definitely have a "ew gross" reaction to Simon/River, but I don't think it's that it's taboo, it's just that I have a brother.

Heh. I suppose I was thinking of those things as basically the same. I mean, the reason most humans have an automatic disgusted reaction to the thought of sex with their relatives is because it's a taboo -- or, rather, I suppose, that's just what taboo means.

[countess7.livejournal.com]

Ok, so the thought of incest is like insanely gross (ew! I have brothers!)

But Calico wrote this tremendously hot weasleycest fic years ago where like Fred and George do Lance. And they end up doing each other, too:) That was *scorching*. And I read that.

And there's this SV story by Jenn called "Through the Looking Glass" and this was the summary "Jonathan does something really dumb one night and it comes back to bite him in the ass over and over again but he still doesn't figure it OUT. Oh, and Lana gets addicted to drugs while Clark and Lex laugh and laugh and make faces at the camera. Jonathan's all: OMG I WILL KILL YOU ALL but Clark glares at him over a blanket." So I HAD to read that. Turned out to be incest of the first kind, and was also bien HOT.

So you know if its a writer I love, that I already read everything she writes, I will read her incest-fic. My goodness, I read Sentinel fic, just to read more Bone and Aristide! (PS, there's this one story where Blair just keeps going and going, he's like an energizer bunny. What is that one called? Oh yeah: Out of Whack.)

But I'm not holding my breath for that Ces' or Res' incest-fic. But I have a feeling you might be writing one. And I'll read that!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Heh, I can understand that. Author appeal can lead to all sorts of weird stuff -- there are very very very few things I will not read for the right author; just about anything can work in the right hands.