(no subject)

[selenak]

Randomly, while watching a season 3 House episode: so, does House get an incest case at least once per season? If so, are we sure David Shore isn’t the alias of a fanfic writer? (Come to think of it, the only time House has been wrong about suspecting incest was the case with the teenager having nightmares. This strengthens my suspicions about Shore.)

Which is as good a place as any to do the obligatory “my take on incest in multifandom” post which everyone seems to write sooner or later. I’m afraid mine will be a bit boring, but here it goes. (Oh, yeah: spoilers for Carnivale, Twin Peaks, Jacobean drama and Romantic poet drama of the rl variety, no spoilers for Heroes, Supernatural and three shows created by Joss Whedon beyond basic character constellations.)



1) Having written about Byron and his sister Augusta at 19, I really don’t have a read/write about incest squick level per se, and definitely am not in a position to throw stones about anyone’s interest in writing or reading about it.

2) I suspect people’s theories about incest being the new slash in the sense that people need taboos for their pairing to break and same-sex relationships don’t really cut it for them anymore are probably true for some of the writers, but I’m always hesitant to sweepingly ascribe motives to lots of people I don’t know, not even in the sense of knowing their writing.

3) As with non-incest pairings, sometimes I see the subtext and sometimes I don’t. This seems to be random on my part. For example, based on one season of Supernatural - which will in all likelihood remain the only one, since I wasn’t that captivate – I just don’t see it with the Winchesters (in any combinations). While an overwhelming majority of fandom obviously does. And in the Jossverse, I see it only with the Fanged Four (who aren’t biologically related, but the shows obviously don’t use line like “I’m your son’s other mother” (Drusilla to Anne) or Darla calling Angel her “darling boy” without intention). No Crazy Space Incest for me, sorry. (Not least because River/Anybody has a squick level for me due to her mental state, and Simon is so very protective of her.) Otoh, I started to get an inkling of where the Petrellicesters in Heroes were coming from around episode 1.07 and somewhere between 1.10 and 1.13, I thought, fine, yes, there is deliberate subtext. Now, being a gen writer by talent and inclination, this did not result in me writing Nathan/Peter slash, but I read it now and then. (There is also the problem of there being hardly any gen stories about either Petrelli, but then there are hardly any gen stories about any Heroes character, as I found out when looking for Matt and Mohinder fic this season, and Claire stories that don’t pair her up with anyone, full stop. Since I believe in doing something instead of complaining, I did my share to heighten the quota of gen Petrelli tales as well non-‘shippy Claire fiction, Matt gen and Mohinder gen.)

4) And then there is canon incest, by which I mean you don’t have to agree on whether or not you see the subtext because the book/show/film doesn’t leave room for ambiguity anymore. This more often than not means an intergenerational sexual abuse story (Laura and Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks come to mind). More rarely, it’s a tragic sibling romance. (Check out your Jacobean dramas: ’Tis Pity She is A Whore, John Ford.) And even more rarely, it’s neither abusive nor tragic, just messed up. The couple on my icon, Justin and Iris Crowe from Carnivale, being a case in point. Justin and Iris are also rare in that they’re middle aged and the fact they’re sexually attracted to each other is actually one of the least disturbing things about them. I like my canon incest in the way I like my characterisation in general: are those people interesting, is their relationship plausible or do I get the impression the incest is just there because the writer couldn’t think of anything else and wanted to be daring/deep/dark? Which means in the three cases I mentioned: yes, it is and they are (the Palmers, that is), people complaining about Romeo and Juliet being stupid should take a look at these two (never got the point of Ford), and damm you, Knauf, if you had to dumb down Justin into a one dimensional evil blacker-than-black villain in season 2, couldn’t you at least given us more middle-aged sibling kissing instead of frightened maid(en)s?

5) And to return to the beginning. One of the reasons why I wrote about Byron and Augusta back when I was 19 (which will be 19 years ago this year, yikes) was because he wrote her the following letter from self-imposed exile: I have never ceased nor can cease to feel for a moment that boundless attachment which bound & binds me to you, which renders me incapable of real love for any other human being – what could they be to me after you? We may have been wrong – but I repent of nothing except that cursed marriage - & your refusing to continue to love me as you had loved me – I can neither forget nor quite forgive you for that precious piece of reformation. But I can never be other than I have been – and whenever I love anything it reminds me of some way of you. That, and the fact that when they were together, what he loved most about her was that she laughed both with and about him instead of going with his self dramatizations. Passion and shared laughter. It’s a combination that sounds irresistible when you’re 19, and not just then.

Comments

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

Hm, fascinating idea. I wonder if I should do one of these post myself, but I fear it could go very much into tl,dr territory.
(and speaking of which, this post turned into more of a manifesto than I originally planned, so if you think it's too OT or TMI, feel free to delete, okay?)

2) I suspect people’s theories about incest being the new slash in the sense that people need taboos for their pairing to break and same-sex relationships don’t really cut it for them anymore are probably true for some of the writers, but I’m always hesitant to sweepingly ascribe motives to lots of people I don’t know, not even in the sense of knowing their writing.

That's a very valid point, but the impression I got - not from all writers who do incest stories, but from a very healthy portion - is exactly that; it's fascinating because it's forbidden, and that makes it kind of hot - and I think that always made it kind of hot, because incest in fiction is hardly a new phenomenon. I can't even say that I necessarily have a problem with that, but what gets me is the idea that incest is exactly like slash (starting at such simple things as newsletters sorting Matt/Mohinder with Nathan/Peter), and that, consequently, any negative reaction to incest is basically the same as homophobia. I find the relation of these two issues extremely problematic, since I would usually suspect objections against incest to go a little deeper then either discomfort with same sex relations or worries about canon-accountability. Granted, I am judging from my own personal history here - I have experience with incest, and yeah, it kinda makes me react somewhat sensitively to certain topics or specifically pairings. Now I'm also in my thirties and have a bit of therapy under my belt, so I know what I can deal with and what I can't, and I can also distinguish between people's kinks and fantasies vs their thoughts about real life incidents, but I know that a lot of the stuff that's out there would have hit me badly even at twenty, and the unwillingness in greater fandom to acknowledge the possibility that someone could feel uncomfortable with incest for valid reasons and respect that without feeling the need to blindly defend themselves or to stop writing what they want to write quite frankly distresses me - which is why I usually avoid talking about the topic in the first place.

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine (both LJ and RL) is into Heroes incest (the good ship Nathan/Peter), and I would very much like to have this discussion with her one day. Perhaps I could refer her to this post of yours when the occasion arises.

On the one hand, I don't want to blame her (or any other people, for that matter) for a fic-reading kink when she's perfectly capable of distinguishing between fanfiction and reality; on the other hand, I feel a little uncomfortable about turning an affectionate, even sort of touchy-feely relationship between brothers into something sexual. The emotions between siblings can, IMO, be intense and even screwed up while being completely non-sexual in nature.

Moreover, the treatment of incest pairings like any other slash pairing creeps me out somehow. Not only does it belittle the disturbing emotional impact of incest, but the "incest is the new slash!" slogan (which my friend has never used, though -- thank goodness), even if meant as some sort of flippant joke, seems to point at some rather strange views on non-incestuous same-sex relationships.

Still, I have read a few incest fics myself (Boromir/Faramir and Angel/Connor, to be precise), despite all my misgivings. I found these stories -- who were all written by authors whose other stuff I'd read before I clicked on these -- really well-written, but I simultaneously was squicking myself out in the process of reading them. So I'm not sure what to think...

And if you are talking about the book about Byron I think you might be talking about, I guess I have to thank you and your take on sibling incest for sparking some interest in Byron in me during my teenage years. That was definitely a beneficial result of sibcest RPF. :)

(Edited because I can't type.)

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it doesn't say anything good about me that this made me want a really good Byron biography, because I didn't know that about him. =/

This post is very interesting.

I certainly thought a lot about it when I first started seeing the Peter/Nathan and then writing it. I think that the same things that appeal to me in any fictional romance are there in an incestuous fictional romance that appeals to me, and in many ways are there stronger. It's always the love-in-the-face-of-huge-obstacles thing that makes me interested in a love story, when those obstacles are as little as personality conflicts or as large as something like incest.

And I like it when the characters break upon those conflicts sometimes, which makes me like a good incest story, I guess. I like the tragedy of it.

So I think the taboo/forbidden thing isn't wrong, but it is reductive, it says, "what, gay guys aren't a big enough thrill anymore?" which kind of misses the point.

Thanks for this post!

[cadesama.livejournal.com]

2) I suspect people’s theories about incest being the new slash in the sense that people need taboos for their pairing to break and same-sex relationships don’t really cut it for them anymore are probably true for some of the writers, but I’m always hesitant to sweepingly ascribe motives to lots of people I don’t know, not even in the sense of knowing their writing.

I think that may be a legitimate reason for many people (possibly also why fanfic, where smut and slash are routine, is also the playground for far more explicit kink than pretty much any other written medium). But you know, really, I think that the reason that there's been such an upswing in people writing incest in fanfic is just that there's been more inspiration for it. Back in the 90s, watching Buffy, I wondered just why the heck every single character was an only child. Out of everyone in the Buffyverse, only Angel, Gunn, and Buffy herself have siblings -- two of them died with barely another reference, and Dawn only came about in the fifth season. There's kind of a family renaissance going on right now, where TV is just as interested in portraying family relationships as romances and friendships (if not more).

And, of course, it also doesn't hurt that you have examples like the movie Blades of Glory where Will Arnett and Amy Poehler (real life spouses) play siblings who lunge in for a kiss at the end of the movie before being stopped, or High School Musical which (from everything I've heard) featured fraternal twins who are seeking the leads for Romeo and Juliet.

Otoh, I started to get an inkling of where the Petrellicesters in Heroes were coming from around episode 1.07 and somewhere between 1.10 and 1.13, I thought, fine, yes, there is deliberate subtext.

I can't quite remember when I was corrupted, but there's no denying that the writers intend for us to think something is not quite right with the Petrellis. Mob connections, megalomania, whatever, it doesn't really matter. The feel of the family is deliberately off. And, of course, the fact that they enjoy taunting the fans with lines about how "there's a dark secret in the Petrelli family" just convinces me more that they love messing with us.

do I get the impression the incest is just there because the writer couldn’t think of anything else and wanted to be daring/deep/dark?

I think that's both the most common one where people go wrong, and also the one that circles back to point #1. Because, for a very long time, if you wanted to show that a character was eviiiiil and deviant, you made them gay or kinky. Now people make them incestuous. Which has the plus of actually being illegal and abusive, in addition to being taboo.

[suburbangoth.livejournal.com]

oh man. i'd totally forgotten how terrifying & creepy justin/iris was.

i still hate hbo for canceling that show.