Jibber on incest in fandom

[Dina Lerret]

Other than the fact my brain matter is processing things even more
sluggishly than usual, it also has this tendency of wandering all over
the place in this mindset and then I can't concentrate until I type
out the thoughts.  I'll probably come back for additional commentary,
once I get some sleep, and finish recording the Katrina levy HBO
documentary Judith asked for.

I'll be touching on Harry Potter, Smallville, Supernatural, and HBO's
Oz because those are fandoms I'm familiar with and they're the ones
the partially dead grey matter are pulling up now.

Believe it or not but I do have squicks; it's just that the number of
squicks has significantly decreased over the years.  I used to have
one against incest but the HP fandom broke that one, along with a slew
of other squicks. {g}

Offhand, there was this one fic, Luna...something, that had Harry
Potter unearthing his father, James, and having sex with his rotting
corpse.  The fic was fascinating from a forensics POV because the
writer left clues the grave had been disturbed before and not just by
Harry either... recently if the maggots were anything to go by.
Anyway, I got into an interesting discussion over the properties of
environment's influence on decay and magic's ability to preserve to an
extent over on Glassesreflect before the group of 4-5,000+ was nuked
by Yahoo.  Note, it wasn't the incest that made the fic disturbingly
fascinating. {g}  When one squick trumps another. ;-)

Among the topics on Glassesreflect, I brought up how Malfoycest (most
on father/son), Blackcest (most on siblings and cousins), and
Weasleycest (most fics focused on siblings) were more, um, 'accepted'
versus Pottercest.  Though, the Malfoys, Blacks, and Weasleys are
purebloods and JK Rowling referenced how the purebloods tended to stay
within a limited circle of partners and the Black family tree reflects
various familiar names over the generations.

With this exposure via the HP fandom, came a certain 'freedom' to
explore taboos in a fictional setting that wouldn't hurt others and
helped to circumvent my morality issues (at one point, I thought HP
slash was squicky, seriously).  As some writers tried to push
boundaries, I found my curiosity piqued.  It's rather similar to the
theory of not being able to look away from a disaster (e.g. various
figurative references to 'trainwrecks'), but it helps that, again, no
one is being hurt/abused in real life.

So, I find myself getting into Smallville via the dynamics presented
onscreen between Clark Kent and Lex Luthor (helps that the actors are
cuties and have chemistry).  Okay, so some may be thinking 'why is
this pairing being brought up as incest', it's because I've
encountered folks creating alternative universe scenarios where Clark
Kent and Lex Luthor are raised together as 'brothers', whether as
Kents or as Luthors, yet they still end up as lovers.  You still kinda
have that 'safety net' of they're not *really* being related but the
writer can still explore a 'forbidden fruit'.  But Smallville fandom
also has its share of straight up (no pun) incest fics between Lionel
Luthor and Lex Luthor (again, helps that the actors are cuties and
have chemistry - DVD blooper/outtakes has them nearly kissing).  This
reminds me of Malfoycest partly because of the father/son dynamics but
also because of the aspect of the wealthy being able to afford to
'make and break their own rules'.

While the Harry Potter and Smallville fandom had plenty of room for
non-incest pairings, I discovered Supernatural by just not flipping
the channel after Smallville aired, and if TPTB (WB) thought they
could curb slash by having the main characters as family/brothers and
not having recurring male characters, they were mistaken because
Winchester incest (AKA Wincest) seriously permeates the fandom as the
primary slash pairing (just as Clark/Lex dominates Smallville slash).

Supernatural has the Winchester brothers, Dean and Sam, (and again,
helps that the actors are cuties and have chemistry) in a scenario
where the closest thing they have as a 'constant' "partner" is each
other as they grew up and shared motel rooms... Kinda reminds me, in a
way, of Weasleycest where brothers are crammed together and they have
to share each other's resources.  The premise of 'make and break their
own rules' can also be applied to the Winchesters since they ended up
with the unusual 'job' of hunting (and killing) the supernatural.

With as much incest fics as I've been exposed to, would you believe my
sense of morality is still kicking. {g}  Recently, as I was watching
Supernatural, I thought 'god, I'm glad the actors aren't really
brothers'.  In HBO's Oz, Ryan and Cyril O'Reily (acted by the Winters
brothers, Dean and Scott) are stuck in prison, however, Cyril had
received serious head trauma before entering that caused his
perception to be that of a child, so Ryan, who is very independent, is
stuck as the protective older brother to a sibling with the body of a
grown man and the mentality of a child.  Unfortunately, Cyril gets
ganged up on and raped by another prisoner.

One topic of discussion was how would Cyril deal with the fact he has
the body of a grown man and its natural sexual reactions and how would
Ryan deal with Cyril's childlike perceptions.  This turned out to be a
particularly squicky aspect few in fandom touched, which I can't blame
them.  Granted, the HP fandom also removed my squick against
chan/underage slash but this was before I got into HP, and reflecting
back on the idea, it'd still be too many squicks at once. :-\

Dina