themostepotente | Fandom Discussion: Incest -- Keeping It in the Family

Fandom Discussion: Incest -- Keeping It in the Family

Is incest really best?

What spurred this discussion on incest was a reply from my last inquiry about disturbing fics.

dphearson mentioned anything James/Harry being certifiably squickable.

So I asked what she had to say about Lucius/Draco. I was not surprised to find out she wasn't quite as bothered by this. And you know what? She's not alone in thinking this way. Many people have issues with light sider incest.

So this just begs the question;

Where do we draw the line in the sand concerning incest in fanfiction?

What makes one pairing more justifiable than the others? When it all comes down to it - it's still incest.

There's Malfoycest, Pottercest, Weasleycest, and Blackcest.

Any why does it seem confined to the males? Lucius abuses Draco but Narcissa abusing Draco is almost inconceivable.

Since purebloods marry within their circle, incest seems inevitable.

Sirius is related to Narcissa Malfoy and Arthur Weasley.

And since Sirius is Harry's godfather, isn't he considered family?

Does incest have to be blood related to be considered taboo?

So many questions regarding this topic. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

--P

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I think I only have an issue with Pottercest because James is dead. If he's still alive in the fic, I don't care much.

I've read some Narcissa/Draco, that was interesting. It's more disturbing than Lucius/Draco, somehow. Maybe because Narcissa is so cool (as in, cold) in the books; losing control like that is not something you'd expect from her. Lucius is more prone to losing control, if you just go by the books.

I think all kinds of incest would be taboo, also if there's no blood relation. Stepfather/stepchild is also a taboo. I think the taboo is more on the trust of the child a parent is abusing nowadays, than the bloodline. Although...Cousincest still isn't acceptable, either.

I have seen some Narcissa/Draco, though not much, and I there is the Ron/Ginny and Percy/Ginny factions, but, yeah. That gals are rather under-represented.

And, personally, I see no difference between Pottercest and Malfoycest. I admit that I enjoy both of them, because I'm a sick puppy, but I don't understand how Malfoycest can be "better" simply because they're supposed to be the bad guys.

Also, Harry/Sirius is completely incest. Just because they're not related by blood doesn't make it not incest - the same way that a stepfather with their stepchildren, or a parent with their adopted child. I realize that it's lega in a lot of places, but I'd argue that the emotions are exactly the same. In fact, the reason I can't read a lot of Harry/Sirius is that it doesn't deal with that.

Eh.

My only comment is that THAT ICON ROCKS.

Interesting! First off, I should note that I don't consider sex between cousins to be incest. Anything closer than that, sure.

In HP, I'm pretty much squicked by any incestuous pairing, consensual or not. (The only exception is Narcissa/Bellatrix and I'm not quite sure why. It just is.) And I don't think I really like cross-gen incest at all. Only your post has just given me an idea for some, so if I write it, it's all your fault!

But in some fandoms, I very much enjoy consensual brother-sister incest. Eomer/Eowyn. Simon/River. Luke/Leia, so long as they *know* about it. Not so much about the same-sex twincest, though. (Well, OK, Jessica/Elizabeth would be pretty hot.)

Maybe the light- versus dark-side prefs is that most people view incest as wrong and they don't want the nice Weasleys portrayed that way. Or maybe the Malfoys are just a more attractive family. *g*

Personally, I find all incest disgusting. I won't read a fic that has incest in it, I don't care who the characters are. So I draw the line very firmly. I don't understand what people find appealing about it at all. It's their right to write about it, but I won't have anything to do with it. I feel the same way about chan as well.

I occasionally had to read incest fics when I was on the DA fic committee, and I have to say that was my least favorite part of the job.

Pretty much all incest, blood relation or not, squicks me. I consider it a personal preference and don't really enter arguments for or against. After all, I've got my kinks and everyone is entitled to theirs. It's all fiction - so no real harm is done. At least I see it that way.

As for my personal opinion on incest, it doesn't matter if it's male/male, female/female or male/female it's just squickable to me. It doesn't matter if it's Pottercest/Blackcest/Weasleycest or Malfoycest. I don't care if it's light or dark. For me the line is drawn at family relations.

I don't consider myself a prude - just not into incest.

I don't like Parent/child incest. Other than that I've got no problems with it in fic. Weasleycest, Lestrangecest, Blackcest. Siblings and Cousins I can deal with - Parent/Child with the exception of Draco/Lucius squicks me.

Given that these are fictional characters (who - if they become traumatised by incest - are going to be fine in the next story), I don't much care what kind of hanky-panky any of them get up to in stories.

Having said that, I can't read it. Personal choice, of course...I have friends who love it (and who write it), but I don't enjoy it, probably for many of the the same reasons I dislike Dom/sub scenarios: it's all about the power dynamic - and the lack of balance therein. For me, this extends all the way to Harry with Sirius or Harry with Remus (since I see both of them as acting in loco parentis to him) or even Snape with Dumbledore in *most* people's stories, since a lot of those stories have a very strong incest vibe.

Oddly enough, I *don't* have the same reaction to Fred/George stories. I don't seek them out, but when I come across them, I'm usually fine with the relationship because it feels natural to me, for some reason (and equal).

Cousins, though? No problem. The nature of the relationship is more important to me than the blood tie.

Interesting questions.

I first had a taste of incestfic quite a few moons ago when I read Simon&Simon brotherfic. Back then it was considered very squicky by the majority of fans, was quite an underground thing in fact. I enjoyed it because the relationship between the character was so loving, and going from that to a sexual relationship was very 'easy' for me.

See, incest has been taboo for many thousands of years between the different sexes for a very good reason - it prevents interbreeding. Having been involved in the cat breeding world for some years, I know what problems you can get with line breeding (that is, breeding fathers to daughters and mothers to sons). So, aside from any moral aspects, its bad for the breed/race to allow parents to have sex with their children.

We humans, of course, add another layer to the pure biological aspect by - quite rightly - saying that it is wrong for parents to have sex with their children and for siblings to have sex. In real life, it is very wrong, and that tends to colour our opinions of incestfic, the same way that paedophilia colours our opinions of chan/underage fic. Sometimes its difficult to differentiate between fantasy and reality, or at least, to differentiate our opinions of the two.

Take Lord of the Rings for example. That fandom has a substantial brotherfic body of work for Faramir and Boromir. I would hazard a guess that interest in this pairing is very much triggered by the fact that two very attractive males play the characters in the movies, that in the few scenes they are seen together they obviously have a strong bond in the face of their father's dislike to Faramir, and all that triggers a desire to put them together.

For Lucius/Draco, you have two blondes, the eldest of whom is attractive, powerful, manipulative and erotic. That's a receipe for slashdom right there. Since they live in an environment where bad behaviour is considered the norm, it wouldn't be that big a step to imagine them indulging in sexual activity.

I've never felt any interest in Harry/James, because James is pretty a well a non-event for me, and personally I'd rather pair Harry with someone far more interesting, like Snape. It's more that lack of interest in one character than any particular aversion to the notion.

I don't see Sirius/Harry as being incest, because they have no blood relationship (at least, no close relationship). There are certainly issues of control and trust, but that's true in the teacher/student set up, too.

Thanks for the chance to ramble, I should shut up now. (-:

i dont like a lot of incest in fics/art but i deal. lucius/draco doesnt squick me at all, nor does twincest. but ron/ginny is THE WORST. i just HATE IT. maybe its just how people write ginny, i dunno.. but.. UGH its annoying :P. and james/harry isnt my favorite either, but it doesnt really bother me. nothing really bothers or squicks me :P cept ron/ginny *shudder* its like... hrmmm *scratches head* james/harry squicks me more when its chan, but that seems to be the only james/harry that is, at least the ones ive seen :P or theres some weird obsession going on. GARGH i cannot explain myself.

my point is... nothing squicks me cept ron/ginny slightly. yeah.
):

but of course i find incest horrible in real life. its just.. fic it doesnt matter to me. i dunno :P im just jaded to internet stuff now

For me incest mainly has to do blood-relation and/or if they were raised in the position of father/son/relatives-of-some-sort. Sibling incest I have less trouble with, but parent/child incest just.. no. Can't read it.

However, if Harry decided he wants to shag Sirius, I would have little or no qualms with this because 1) there's no blood relation and 2) honestly, I don't really see any sort of father/son relationship between the two of them. They just don't know each other that well. Does Harry look up to him and trust him? Yes. Is he a father-figure? Not really. He doesn't have the chance to be one. Sirius would have some serious angst and thinking to go through first before a relationship could start, but I can see it. If anything, Remus could possibly be considered a father figure, but should he and Harry hook up, it wouldn't squick me because, again, he's not around for Harry to start to truly see him as a father-figure. *shrugs*

Pottercest? Don't like it. Especially if it's necrophilia. But even if James/Lily were alive, I still wouldn't like it.

So far as Malfoycest goes, I don't like it either. I just can't see it happening. Lucius/Narcissa crucio-ing his son? Sure. Raping him? No. However, considering the pureblooded society as a whole, I can see Draco marrying a cousin to preserve the "quality" of their blood and the only mild problem I would have with that if it were a first cousin he was hooking up with.

Despite all that, I find myself strangely attracted to twincest when it's twins/someone. I just... like twins, especially when they're sandwiching someone. *shivers*

Beth, I'm replying to your comment because you express how I feel about a lot of this, especially this part: it's all about the power dynamic - and the lack of balance therein. For me, this extends all the way to Harry with Sirius or Harry with Remus (since I see both of them as acting in loco parentis to him) or even Snape with Dumbledore in *most* people's stories, since a lot of those stories have a very strong incest vibe.

While I also have friends who love incest stories, I usually can't enjoy them. The power balance is just too off for my tatstes. I can do student/teacher especially with a powerful student like Harry and a non fatherly teacher like Snape. I'm bothered less by sibling incest and not by cousin incest.

As for dom/sub, when it's consensual play between equals rather than a natural part of an uneven power dynamic, I love it. However, a d/s parent/child fic would bother me immensely. I guess I can kind of see Malfoycest because Lucius is evil and liable to do all manner of nasty things.

OK, done rambling for now.

"...a non fatherly teacher like Snape."

Exactly. Snape - regardless of the fact that he's protecting the students (and particularly Harry) - is really nobody's idea of a father-figure. *g*

Incest as a whole squicks the hell out of me. Has much to do with RL here and having met folks who went through it. Just can't erase the consequences I have seen in RL from my head to get into the fic. Since I can't I don't read about it. I can tolerate alot in fanfic, but incest is definitely one I won't read. Doesn't matter if it's Weasley, Malfoy, Potter, Black or whoever, I won't read it.

It sounds wierd, but I think anytime a Mother is involved in incest it's more disturbing than a father. I would be really interested in any links to Narcissa/Draco, but really I'd like to see if anybody has written any Molly Weasley incest slash.

I think maybe the whole mother/father thing... it's a stereotype, but the father is less closely connected to the child since he didn't bear it so he can ignore the fact that it's related by blood, but the mother... dom!mom incest is almost like severely twisted masturbation, that kid's a part of you! Sorry to ramble, just trying to think it out.

Interesting question.

I'm completely un-squicked by incest fic - in fact, I didn't even realise that I'm a... supporter(?) until I really thought about it. In my last fandom (Star Wars) I read all the Vader/Luke I could get my hands on, which at the time wasn't much at all (no idea if it's more popular now... I hope so!), but I don't think that it interested me for the incest angle - more the power dynamic between the two. Even though my preferred Vader/Luke was post-ESB. No, I don't get it either.

But recently, I've been really hooked by James/Harry bunnies, and I've actually given the issue some thought. James/Harry is the only scenario where I'll tolerate an outright AU, for instance. And to be honest, I can't really be sure why I'm suddenly so interested - with J/H, there's no obvious power struggle (apart from the usual cross-gen aspect) like there is with Vader/Luke, unless you make James the bad guy.

But I'm not sure it's the actual incest that interests me. I don't read Lucius/Draco, but only because I can't stand Draco. I don't read Weasleycest, because I can't work up any real interest for Weasleys. But I will read Blackcest, even though I don't like Sirius (in canon) or Andromeda (in fic). So, I guess I can conclude that it's more about the characters than the power dynamic.

I don't know, I don't think any of that made sense. :-)

I will admit, I find myself drawn to James/Harry even though it's by definition an AU, and I usually avoid AUs.

I prefer the "long lost" scenarios to the stories where the Potters never died and Harry is totally raised by James.

I suspect some of the Lucius/Draco abuse comes from Jason Isaacs' portrayal. In the book Draco is chastised for having lower marks than a Mudblood, not smacked up by the pimp cane.

Any why does it seem confined to the males? Lucius abuses Draco but Narcissa abusing Draco is almost inconceivable.

Eh, I've read a few abusive!Narcissa fics. Obviously they're not as violent as the Lucius ones, and are far more twisted and Freudian, but 'cest seems to have less popularity in a lot of het circles when compared to the slash ones, so this could be the reason.

I find Sirius/Harry to be very very close to incest, or sometimes, if it's written so, practically incest itself. Doesn't put me off reading it though. I do love my Sirry.

There's very little I won't read if it's well written, so I've read Pottercest, Weasleycest and Malfoycest, never any Blackcest though. My favourite is still the Weasley Twins though, cos they're just sex incarnate.

It's true about the "light sider" thing, and I think that's why there's more Malfoycest out there than there is Pottercest. Even though I think really abusive!Lucius is totally OOC, there seems to be a perception of the man that there are no levels which he will not stoop to, which I also think is very fucking misguided and wrong.

I love your icon btw. Mmm milk.

I'm not much into parent/child, but I'm very much a sibcester. The main type of dynamic I like is very much the older sibling/younger sibling, where the younger grows up looking up/revering the older brother who protects them.

I do like chan, but I don't like much parent/child because it usually falls into the betraying the trust of the child, and noncon perpetrated by a "nice" character bothers me enough that I steer clear. Lucius/Draco is probably one of two parent/child pairings I like (the other being Denethor/Faramir) and in both cases the parent is already shown as being somewhat abusive/uncaring to their child. I think mother/child is a bit more taboo because there's more of a built in thing of being closer because of giving birth to and the perception that a mother must/will always protect their child.

One interesting thing that I've come across in other discussions on incest is that people who don't like brotherslash often have close relationships to their own siblings which mirror those that people like to slash. So while not everyone has siblings, most everyone has parents, and it could be that subconsciously comparing their own relationship with their mother/father makes the incest fic unappealing. I've also discovered that some people who like twincest, don't like other forms of incest because it's written much more like selfslash or two bodies, one person.

Interesting anyway. *waves brotherslash banner*

Incest isn't a squick for me, but then, it's not a kink either. As a result, I have trouble reading incest PWPs and finding them interesting or exciting.

Speaking only for myself here, there needs to be something a bit more to the story than just the kink--maybe some psychological creepiness or wizarding culture weirdness for instance--in order to get me hooked in. As a result, I'd probably find a generic Narcissa/Draco story more interesting than a George/Fred story, since the latter pairing seems (and I fully admit, I haven't sampled them all! :-) to foster more pure kinkfic than the former. I have read numerous Draco/Lucius stories that were intriguing, and nifty Harry/Sirius ones, and Arthur/One-Of-His-Kids stories, and so forth, but generally, there was always something else about them that kept me reading, it wasn't the kinky transgressiveness of the incest. How near or far the familial relationship is doesn't play a role in whether I like or dislike the story.

There is also the problem that I need to be (at least somewhat) interested in the characters involved in the story, and since I find it difficult to work up much enthusiasm for George or Fred (or Percy or Ginny or Charlie or Parvati, etc. for instance) so I'd have to overcome *that* hurdle first. :-)

Honestly I don't draw the line at all with incest, at least as far as squick is concerned, because it's one of my favorite kinks. I guess I would draw the line of interest... for me the interest in incest IS the kink, so if the strong sense of family isn't there I'm not interseted.

I don not consider pseudo-parents or chan incest, like Harry with Remus, Sirius, or Snape. Those all have their own dynamic but not incest... I don't consider Sirius/Harry incest because they're not related by blood and they do not have a long standing pseudoparent relationship in canon, Harry actually feels more mature than Sirius most of the time.

Weasleycest of all kinds I enjoy just because it's a big family which suggests an overabundance of sex in the first place to produce all those children, and then all the likelyhood of older children bathing or caring for younger etc. etc. Twincest is almost old hat to me, and Bill/Charlie is absolutely endearing to me because they are older almost by a generation to the younger children which sets them apart together. Ron/Ginny is easy to understand because of his protective/possessive dynamic with her... other pairings would be new and interesting to me... I have never read any Weasley parent incest but I would be interested.

I guess the whole thing with me is, I'm interested in incest when it explores when loving affectionate family relationships cross over into sexual affection. For that reason I'm pretty much mostly concerned with Weasleycest. Pottercest is too AU unless it's necrophilia, and sometimes I'll read it just to get a taste of that kink. Blackcest just doesn't interest me at all because the tight family dynamic isn't there. Incest in an already dark affectionless family is uninteresting to me because it's just another form of already prevelant abuse/neglect so it doesn't really stand out.

I like incest fics if they're written well. I'm very much an avid Lucius/Draco fan (preferring chan with a willing Draco), and that's the pairing I'm most notorious for writing. It just seems very enticing for the reason that Malfoys appear to be a law unto themselves. I'm not so into Narcissa/Draco as I'm not a het fan, but I've actually written a very dominant Narcissa with Draco, in a universe where Lucius/Draco incest was also going on. Femdom is the only way het doesn't squick me, but even then I prefer slash or femmeslash.

Other incest pairings - whether I read them depends on the author and how IC they make the characters, what the plot is etc. Otherwise I don't read them as much, but they don't squick or bother me. Just my two Knuts.

Love & Serpents' Kisses,
Anath.

I'm not sqicked by incest fic at all. When it's written well, I'm even kinked by it.

I do draw two lines though, one between 'het-incest' and 'homo-incest', and one between blood-related and not blood-related. This is mostly, because I think very biological about those things.

The first: there is indeed one special reason why incest in general should not happen. (That is not abuse, because abuse can happen everywhere, not only in incest.) That reason is genetics. For a child from an incestuous relationship, the chances of genetic problems are increased. Thus, there is of course a major difference between het and homosexual incest. MalePreg and FemmePreg are just not remotely real and won't be quite for a while. Those biological thoughts have a lot of weight for me.

The second: I absolutely cannot get myself to see something like Sirius/Harry as incest. The concept of a godfather is bound to certain cultural, mostly religious ideas. I don't believe in those ideas. Sirius is not really Harry's family. He's simply supposed to watch over him in place of his real family. The same with many non-blood 'family' members. So yes, of course there is a difference.

Why incest can still kink me? Because of the questions of trust, power and social conventions. Which of course can be done in any other relationship as well.

BTW, when I talked to a friend, who was squicked by incest, about her reasons, she said she would project fictional incest on her own reality, and she just didn't want to imagine getting it on with her brother. When I think of my own siblings, I find her arguementation quite convincing ;)

I've read a Molly/Ginny before. Ginny, oddly, was the one to initiate it, and they were polyjuiced as each other for easons I do not remember. I think it was on the hp_girlslash community, but I might be wrong. It was awhile ago.

I admit I have a squick response to light sider incest--I think it's me twitching and saying, 'God, [light sider person] would never do that!' I don't *want* to believe it possible of characters I think of as 'good'. However, I can totally believe it of the Malfoys and the Blacks. (*have written Draco/Narcissa*)

It's weird, but I do have a strange 'levels of badness' system in my head--I find parent/child incest more squicky than sibling, and I find mother/child a bit more squicky than father/child. I'm not sure why... well, I have an idea, but it would take a while to fully explore.

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Fandom Discussion: Incest -- Keeping It in the Family

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