I've been thinking a lot about incest fics for a while now, but especially since I read this Stuck on You fic, in my endless search for decent Matt and/or Ben fic
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Incest is definitely one of my squicks. I feel a strong need for non-sexual relationships both in life and fic, and even siblings are too close for me to feel comfortable.
I feel like there's a spectrum on the age thing. I started having sex when I was fourteen, and it was not such a great idea for me but I don't think waiting would have helped. My son is fourteen and as far as parents can tell, he doesn't have those sexual urges. So I don't have an arbitrary age, it has to be character and context-based.
Incest fanfic is just so abhorently wrong that I actually found myself surprised to learn it even existed in any kind of open internet. Jesus, that is so absolutely abhorently wrong.
I can understand the appeal of slash in general, and in taking ownership of a popular text by reshaping it into new and not necessarily intended patterns. I can even understand the appeal of real person slash in terms of the formation of cultural fictions and the fictional identity that forms through the media of celebrities.
But incest slash, like kiddie slash (hello Harry Potter) is just absolutely and unquestionably wrong to me.
My first knee-jerk reaction was just the same as yours (*wrong* *wrong* *wrong*), which is why I stopped to examine it. It just appalled me that such a broad range of fandoms exist in which incest fics are a large sub-group. It made me wonder *why* people wanted to read and write these stories, and whether my reaction was all social programming, or whether there was something more hiding underneath
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I think it depends on the author. In the right hands I can read incest without being squicked. I guess I have to trust that it isn't a case of exploitation - or that if it is, that the issue is dealt with in the fic.
But, now that I think about it, I'm only not squicked by FPS. Boromir/Faramir, Hector/Paris even Godfrey/Balian. But the idea of Woodcest, for example, is totally ew.
I can read it (and write it) in FPS, but I don't get any thrill out of it happening in anything remotely like the Real World. But, at arm's length, surrounded by the trappings of Fantasy, and it doesn't seem so bad anymore.
When I wrote FPS twincest recently, I did however feel the need to increase my disclaimer to cover the incest material too.
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I feel like there's a spectrum on the age thing. I started having sex when I was fourteen, and it was not such a great idea for me but I don't think waiting would have helped. My son is fourteen and as far as parents can tell, he doesn't have those sexual urges. So I don't have an arbitrary age, it has to be character and context-based.
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I can understand the appeal of slash in general, and in taking ownership of a popular text by reshaping it into new and not necessarily intended patterns. I can even understand the appeal of real person slash in terms of the formation of cultural fictions and the fictional identity that forms through the media of celebrities.
But incest slash, like kiddie slash (hello Harry Potter) is just absolutely and unquestionably wrong to me.
Reply
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But, now that I think about it, I'm only not squicked by FPS. Boromir/Faramir, Hector/Paris even Godfrey/Balian. But the idea of Woodcest, for example, is totally ew.
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When I wrote FPS twincest recently, I did however feel the need to increase my disclaimer to cover the incest material too.
Reply
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