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

ramble ramble

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

I've read through that conversation, P., but I'm firmly on the Buddhist, Christian and psychological side of this -- let me toss Wiccan (I'm moderately well-read) into this, that extremely close to the Christian concept, thought puts the same energy out into the universe that action does. The thought is indeed the deed itself, the decision was made.

I thought ataniell93's comments were interesting, despite the fact that she is twitchy and rude, especially when challenged. She said, and I quote without permission:

People who write rape fantasies do not want to be raped. They are fantasizing about having someone they find attractive chase them down and force them to do only those things that they want to do anyway, without having to deal with all that awkward disclosure and negotiation stuff safe sex and relationships require in RL.

People who write chan do not find real children sexually attractive. Chan characters don't act like real kids, at least not usually. In a fantasy, being young means you get to not have to make decisions, or that you're blameless for the decisions you make, and that people have to take care of you, and all kinds of other stuff.

And people who write incest do not fantasize about getting it on with their relatives. (Yuck! You've clearly never met my brother!) It's about sameness, about aesthetics, about blurring the boundaries between nurture and eroticism. Or it's bdsm ageplay fic.

OK, I'm a really literal Dog, quite often. So I'm looking at this, and wondering, 'So why don't you just write not being in control or blurring or something, but have it be between equals'? What's with the power tripping here? I don't think I understand.

[looking at her userinfo, because I can and I'm nosy] Hm. A Thelemite who's only two years younger than me and 15 different kinds of Slytherin. Aren't the Thelemites related somehow to Aleister Crowley? Talk about living the snakey life. No wonder I don't understand her attitude.

It's my literalism that makes incestfic, chan and the porny sort of slash (romance, if it doesn't drip sugar-syrup, I can usually handle the same as any other story) squickworthy for me. Oh, hatefic. Hurtful things. All that stuff. Cf: anything directed by Paul Verhoeven, who you'd think would be their patron 'saint' by now.

Re: ramble ramble

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

The problem is that you can't say precisely why a person writes a particular sort of fic, or why someone reads it.

I agree about the fantasy element - sometimes it's about being in control of a situation that would be out of control usually. When dealt with realistically, or with some intelligence these can be quite insightful.

Generally I've found them tosh.

Re: ramble ramble

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm 15 different kinds of Thelemite and very proud of it. Aleister Crowley was the founder of the tradition.

Re: ramble ramble

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Pride in one's beliefs is a good thing.

I'm just glad I remembered my magickal history.

Re: ramble ramble

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Ooops, 15 different kinds of Slytherin, Thelemite, and very proud of it, and I wouldn't put it in my userinfo if I didn't like people to know.

And I wouldn't expect you to understand the way I look at things if you're so "literal"--whatever that means. I'm a ceremonial magician. I'm not a Buddhist, not a Christian. I write Death Eater fic. It's really not a secret who I am, I gave a talk at Nimbus. I'm not hiding anything.

I'm as polite as I perceive my opponents to be.