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[te_non_sum]

Welcome, ladies (and we few and lonely gentlemen of slash fandom) to the te_non_sum Notcapade discussion post! Vis à vis here, I thought I'd try and contribute a little something to the discussion for those of us who want all the slash with none of the airfare. ;)

So.

WHY exactly is incest so much more popular in slash fandom than in het?

Comments

[executrix]

I'd just like to point out that, cf. kassrachel 's discussion on families of choice, a lot of pairings are "emotionally incestuous" because they are within the family of choice.

I don't read HP but I think that there is also sibling Weasleycest involving Ginny?

And, as of a few weeks ago in Heroes, Peter/Claire is now officially incest!

[kapvik]

I think you hit it on the head; one of the big reasons slash incest is so permissible is that no tentacled, Jabba the Hut-looking circus freak babies can come of it. (Yes, I believe that's exactly the kind of child you produce from het incest). Additionally, you must remember that a good chunk of fanfic is written by fat sixteen-year-old girls, who squee over two hot guys getting it on and don't give a crap if they're related or not. I can't really speak for lesbian incest, as like unicorns I have never seen it.

Personally, the other reason I tolerate slash incest and will not put up with het incest is that any het is ickier than slash incest, no matter what. Also, I will also give an automatic thumbs-down to cross-generational slash incest; brothers doing it together I can handle, but when you drag parents, grandparents, and children into it - oh heeeeeellll no.

[kattahj]

I think in part it's because slash writers are more used to thinking outside the porn box (gross generalization here). But another reason came to me when I saw your fandom examples - just how many brother/sister shows are there? To me it seems like deep canon brother/brother relationships are common, sister/sister less common, but there, and brother/sister very rare.

[anyone625]

Peter/Claire is the largest Heroes ship and it's now incest. River/Simon was pretty popular in Firefly.

[mecurtin]

Given the comparative popularity of Pevensiecest, CrazySpace!Incest (Simon/River), and others cited here, I think the difference is in the sources.

Basically, there are a *lot* of brothers out there.