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

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Most advertising is largely visual, not verbal, and there's a big difference between an ad carefully designed to sell a product, service, or idea and a book or story intended to tell a story. Most fiction isn't polemical in the same way ads are.

Is reading romance novels going to make teenagers have sex? Does reading horror novels turn people into serial killers? Words require thought to understand, and on the whole I'm a lot more inclined to worry about the repetitive violence on TV and in the movies, the way sex and violence are so often linked in the media, and the consistently unhealthy portrayals of love and sex in the media, than a few fanfiction stories on the internet.

(And on the subject of incest, or anything else controversial, really -- the reason incest is a taboo is not simply because parents tell their kids it's Wrong -- I'm pretty sure my parents never bothered, but the idea of having sex with one of my siblings is still pretty repellent. The majority of people have a mental barrier against incest in real life simply because of the difference between family relationships and other relationships. I seriously doubt reading fiction that portrays incest as okay is going to go against that sort of programming. Reading about characters you like having sex or a romantic relationship is vastly different from suddenly finding your's obnoxious sister, the one who threw you in the swimming pool when you were six, attractive. Ultimately -- if adults are going to be unduly influenced by what they read, that's their problem. If children are unable to think critically (and I have read books which contained reasonably explicit sex since I was quite young -- I had one conversation with my mom about how sex isn't usually like it is in books, and that was that. Not only am I not a crackwhore, I'm still a virgin), then it's the parents' responsibility to monitor their reading/movie-watching/TV-watching/etc. Even when authors have icky issues, it is not their responsibility to not write; it is the reader's responsibility to be aware of what they're reading, or to choose not to read it.)

[swampfaye.livejournal.com]

I just find it facinating that people think it will have no influence on them 0 of course it will. Comanies would not spend MILLIONS of dollars on it if it didn't - VIsiual may impact you sooner, but words still mean things. Otherwise, am/fm radio would have long ago shriveled up and died.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Again, there's still a vast difference between an ad designed to brainwash and a piece of fiction designed to tell a story, and I still think the visual is much more influential in the case of advertising.

And I think I can say fairly confidently that the vast majority of ads actively repell me, and I don't generally buy things I see in ads.

Anyway, my point still stands: it is perfectly possible to be a critical reader/viewer and analyze what you see and read rather than blindly following it. People do that all the time; it's the people who don't think about what they see who are affected by advertising.

I find it fascinating that you essentially ignored everything I wrote, which was argued and supported, and replied with three sentences which didn't answer my argument and merely reiterated yours, but on the other hand I'm beginning to regret attempting to debate here anyway, since we seem to come from polar opposite views on who responsibility belongs to.

[swampfaye.livejournal.com]

Anything, however unlikely, is still possible

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

What exactly is that supposed to mean?

You seem to want to filter the world; I cannot comprehend that.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Thank you for arguing calmly with somebody who indeed comes from a completely opposite point of view to yours. Now let me jump one step up and reply to some of the earlier posts.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

There's something else going on here that you need to factor in as well: people's gullibility, their tendency to believe in what authorities tell them, and their tendency to want to fit in with their peers.

All outside influences, be they books, media, or other people, can contribute to shaping a person's world view - depending on how that person processes these influences.

So, while it's wrong to say that romance novels make somebody want to have sex, they might nourish ideals of romantic love and fantastic sex which do not correspond to what can be found in real life.

But the "fault" there - if there is any fault at all! - is not with the novel, it is with the reader, who is inclined to confuse the novel with reality.

Likewise, with an incest fic, it depends very much on how it is read, with what intent it is read, and whether it is read in order to reinforce self-harm or other-harm tendencies that are already there.

Does that make sense to you?

(sorry for taking so long to respond: see my next post in my LJ re: being quite busy at the moment)

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

But the "fault" there - if there is any fault at all! - is not with the novel, it is with the reader, who is inclined to confuse the novel with reality.

Exactly what I was attempting to say. Thus I think it's far more effective to try training people to think critically than to try to sanitize the world. The former's unlikely, but the latter's impossible.