can you deal with incest in fanfic?

[percival]

If you are a mature adult, yes, possibly. But if you are a child or a teenager? Will you know that it is not a good idea to have sexual relationships with your sibling? Or will repeated exposure to the idea and fantasising about the idea somehow start to make incest acceptable to you after a while?

Just a Buddhist thought:

In Buddhism, we try to be compassionate and loving in our hearts. That means that we neither dwell upon violence nor enjoy it. One of the key insights in Buddhist spirituality is that who you are and how you act is closely related to what you think. As a consequence, we need to work on our mind, our thinking. We need to make sure that our thoughts are compassionate, loving, free of clinging desire.

So, from a Buddhist perspective, actively seeking out incest fics because you get a thrill out of the dark, forbidden relationship is clearly wrong because you are indulging a desire to see people harm each other. You invite these fantasies into your mind and nourish them.

How would a Buddhist regard people who read incest fic? Well, non-judgmentally, with compassion and understanding. If they decide they need to pollute their minds, they will have a reason for doing it.

For the record, I myself continuosly pollute my mind with thoughts of anger, self hate, sarcasm, hate of others, petty jealousy. But seeing that I want to be a good Buddhist, I will need to work on that. Sigh. Revelling in anger can be such fun sometimes, just as revelling in fantasies of incest or rape can be fun for people who read those fics. But ultimately, it's nae good for you, says Uncle Gautama. And Uncle Gautama is usually not far off the mark, if you know what I mean.

Comments

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Just to play devil's advocate, there are people who read action/adventure stories to satisfy their cravings for action/adventure which they don't get in their lives. Ditto for trashy romance, and mystery, and other sorts of novels. Incest fics (and rape fics, and other fics about unethical relationships) may do the same thing--give people who have such desires a chance to satisfy them without doing anything of the sort in real life.

Also, for the person writing the fic, I think it *better* that they write the fic rather than ignoring their thoughts and desires about incest--writing a fic about incest would force them to honestly face up to these thoughts and desires, rather than pretending that they don't exist, which IMO is extremely dangerous. (Whether they should *publish* the fic is another matter--I personally see no problem with it so long as it's on a clearly marked NC-17 site.)

[perceval.livejournal.com]

You have a point there. Self-knowledge is better than suppression.

But after a writer has faced the fact that s/he really are into incest fantasies, s/he should then get some counselling to establish why on earth s/he feels compelled to fantasise about children doing each other great harm.

Is it because she wants to explore the depths of human misery with compassion?

Or is it lust?

Then what channelled her sexual desire into these paths?

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

I agree about seeking therapy. I, too, have to wonder about what makes people write about incest.I suspect that in many cases, they're not turned on by the incest per se, but rather by the fact that two hot guys (usually guys) are having sex. For these writers, the fact that the people involved are related to each other is incidental and completely ignored--they're not fantasizing about children doing each other great harm, but about two characters they find attractive, and ignoring the fact that they're siblings.

To me, this is better than finding incest attractive--but it still seems incredibly callous.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

I'm also intrigued by the aspect brought up by ivyblossom: that incest can be used to explore issues of consent.