Incest has become mainstream.

[HandsInTheDark]

I have no idea whether incest is becoming mainstream. I don't know of any evidence that it is. But one thing I think I do know is that the popularity of incest stories among the highly self-selected group of Lit readers, and the absolute number of readers who come to this site to read or write incest stories, tells us next to nothing about the incidence of incest or the acceptance of incest in the population as a whole.

The fallacy I think is illustrated in the OP's initial comment that the seeming growing popularity of TV shows dealing with incest means it's becoming more accepted. Not so. Murder and mayhem are more common on TV than ever before; it doesn't mean people accept it more. In fact, murder rates are half what they were 25 years ago. There's no connection between the two at all. I see no reason why it would be any different for incest.

I tend to think the opposite is true: the popularity of incest as an erotic subject is precisely due to the fact that it remains so taboo. It's titillating. But one can find it so without having personally experienced incestuous desires.

This, absolutely. Incest as it occurs IRL will never be mainstream. Not only is it generally abusive; but no 25 year old mother giving birth to a daughter is going to joyfully embrace the idea "...and just think, in 18 years my husband will be banging her hot body instead of my careworn 43 year old one!"

Incest is invariably a bad deal for everyone involved, possibly excepting the creep abusing the sister or daughter in question, and with luck he'll go to jail and find out it was a bad deal for him too. RL Incest is NEVER going to be the fantasyland it's depicted as here, and as such, because of the pain and jealousy and long term damage it causes, will never be mainstream. I'm horrified that anyone has drunk enough Lit fantasyland kool-aid to think otherwise. This is a FICTION site, people.

I've run into incest twice in my life. I'll tell those stories if this thread veers incest-positive again.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

No problems with any negative impact on the gene pool then, from inter-breeding?

Probably what happened to Neanderthal man when they came up against Homo Sapiens. Despite being around 200,000 years plus and being a successful species in that time, Neanderthal extinction by all accounts was fairly rapid (despite genetic compatibility), and I'm guessing a significant factor was declining gene pool in individual populations as their numbers declined. Last found on the south-western extremes of the Iberian peninsula, according to the anthropologists. Clearly couldn't figure out how to build boats.

Neaderthals bred with Homo Sapiens. What happened was Neaderthal couldn't compete with the new Homo Sapiens. Speciation doesn't happen in an instant, Natural Selection favors populations with better traits and the unfit die off. Nature doesn't do consolation prizes or affirmative action. It breeds you out of existence.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

This, absolutely. Incest as it occurs IRL will never be mainstream. Not only is it generally abusive; but no 25 year old mother giving birth to a daughter is going to joyfully embrace the idea "...and just think, in 18 years my husband will be banging her hot body instead of my careworn 43 year old one!"

Incest is invariably a bad deal for everyone involved, possibly excepting the creep abusing the sister or daughter in question, and with luck he'll go to jail and find out it was a bad deal for him too. RL Incest is NEVER going to be the fantasyland it's depicted as here, and as such, because of the pain and jealousy and long term damage it causes, will never be mainstream. I'm horrified that anyone has drunk enough Lit fantasyland kool-aid to think otherwise. This is a FICTION site, people.

I've run into incest twice in my life. I'll tell those stories if this thread veers incest-positive again.

You cant be more wrong. Birds of a feather flock together. Those most like us are siblings and cousins. And the goal of life is to get your genes into the next generation. Non relative mating came along for two reasons: Your sister was pregnant and marriage kinship has more utility.

 

[ColetteJulie]

Neaderthals bred with Homo Sapiens. What happened was Neaderthal couldn't compete with the new Homo Sapiens. Speciation doesn't happen in an instant, Natural Selection favors populations with better traits and the unfit die off. Nature doesn't do consolation prizes or affirmative action. It breeds you out of existence.

Actually, you are incorrect, there is no evidence that Neanderthals interbred with homo sapiens, although we do have 6% Neanderthal DNA it is nucleic DNA, we have no mitochondrial DNA from Neanderthals, mitochondrial DNA being transmitted via matrional lineage only.

There is however evidence to support the theory of Cro-Magnon and homo sapiens interbreeding, Cro-Magnon assimilated into homo sapien geneology about 20 000 years ago which agrees with their 'extinction'.

We are termed homo sapiens sapiens, we are a sub species of homo sapiens, just like the Cro-Magnon, expert anthropologists agree that all Cro-Magnon are modern human beings, but not all modern human beings are Cro-Magnon.

 

[CyranoJ]

RL Incest is NEVER going to be the fantasyland it's depicted as here, and as such, because of the pain and jealousy and long term damage it causes, will never be mainstream. I'm horrified that anyone has drunk enough Lit fantasyland kool-aid to think otherwise. This is a FICTION site, people.

This. Know the difference between fantasy and reality. The number of people here who seem to need this pointed out to them is rather alarming.

 

[TxRad]

This. Know the difference between fantasy and reality. The number of people here who seem to need this pointed out to them is rather alarming.

Ain't that the truth and some of them are writers.

 

[sr71plt]

And the goal of life is to get your genes into the next generation.

Nonsense. Those looking for the next banging aren't thinking about getting their genes into the next generation. Who do you think you're fooling? If they turn to a close relative, it's because they are in immediate need and have no moral boundaries concerning who they bang. They aren't thinking of the future at all, or they wouldn't do it. Sort of like they live in a trailer park in Tampa.

 

[bazreids]

Real Life is Strange

Several years ago.. a CBC radio show, was informative

As I am new to this forum and have only smartphone net access

I will give the essence of some Real World ongoing situations

WWII in Europe
thousands of children... became orphaned from their families
some met up unknowingly with their former siblings and cousins etc
they get married and start families... then..

in some cases, having discovered they married 'family', and...

Well long story and short time to write

One story here at Lit.. guy and girl, both raised with single mothers
turns out.. the spring break where the mothers' went.. met and hooked up
with the same guy (mothers to be did not know each other)

That Lit story.. had me thinking of how often that happens

Do I want to tell two people, deeply in love, No More, because they unknowingly fell in love?

Not me thanks

BTW... this being my first post here and as i read through this thread it reminded me of that CBC radio show

Thousands of people had their world view shaken to pieces... Twice

With 7 billion people alive now... There never will be universal agreement on Anything

Dang it.. i did not intend this reply to be so long

Oh well... ce la vie... que sera sera

 

[sr71plt]

Yep, the basic plotline of that is a common one at Lit. Even I have one in the Incest category here ("In Every Port").

 

[8letters]

For incest (or polygamy or polyamory) to become mainstream, there has to be a sort-of famous person out there championing incest in the right situation as a good thing. Otherwise, incest will continue to be as accepted as much as it is today. The only sort-of famous person I can think about that has talked about their incest relationship is Mackenzie Phillips and she's not going to convince anyone that incest can be positive experience.

Edit: If someone sort-of famous were to advocate for incest, I'd expect that they'd get ten times the negative reaction that Milo Yiannopoulos has gotten.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

For incest (or polygamy or polyamory) to become mainstream, there has to be a sort-of famous person out there championing incest.

In my perhaps cynical experience, if someone both modern and famous advocates something, it's probably an idiotic idea.

This thread really is pointless. As actually practiced, incest is invariably destructive. Have all the fantasies you want, but out here in the real world it's not going to catch on as positive practice for the simple reason that it isn't positive.

 

[legerdemer]

Let's see now: Peer = equal. Peer-reviewed = reviewed by equals. Who is peer enough to review the works of an Einstein? A Hawking? A Zijlstraa?

Peer-review(-ed) is the greatest humbug ever invented - "you scratch my back and I scratched yours". It has nothing to do whatsoever with "scientific" except as a vehicle to guarantee lesser lights the number of citations needed in order to qualify for senior academic positions. It is the greatest obstacle there is to scientific progress as it cements the status quo, within the accepted paradigm, no disagreeing with the majority and authorities. If you do, your "peers" pretty quickly tear you to shreds as you threaten the status quo and their serene progress up the academic ladder.

While I am not a Psychology major, I have read enough psychology, behaviourism and sociology to know what I am talking about. From your statement "going on a site devoted to the NBA, and then making the argument that, judging by the votes of the site, Space Jam is more well-loved than Gone With The Wind" it's easy to see that you're talking through your chauvinistic, condescending sexist male arse. Or are you really so stupid that you look up the NBA site to find out the relative merits of movies?

And you have not given any proof that out of all English-speaking people, with internet access and the time to pursue their interests, those who come to Literotica is such a vanishingly small sample that it's impossible to draw any conlusions based on such a sample.

Before you make yourself look even more stupid, please note that Polling Institutes make predictions on election results based on far smaller samples.

Yes, I am shouting but seemingly it's the only way to get through your thick skull.

You have a jaundiced and biased view of peer review. Yes, it can work the way you describe. Much of the time it does not.

And regarding peers of Einstein and Hawking... they are other scientists working in their field who have the knowledge base to judge. Peer review doesn't require a genial mind. It does require a fair, intelligent and open one.


There are a few open minds around here. Rather fewer than one might guess, based on many of the comments in threads like this one.

 

[MindsMirror]

Pre-judging the relationship of siblings, half-siblings or other consensual relationships based upon the outcome of a pregnancy is not consistent with laws regarding other much more risky couplings. People with known congenital defects are allowed to marry and even have children. People that can never or do not plan to have children are allowed. The argument of an outcome that can be prevented with modern technology (specifically amniocentesis and genetic testing) seems singularly focused on the incestuous relationships.

-MM

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Yet amazon still won't allow it to be sold in e-books.

Don't you mean "…amazon still won't admit that it allows it to be sold in e-books?

 

[sr71plt]

I presume that everyone here realizes that there is no one at Amazon actually reading the book it distributes(?) They are unlikely to find objectionable (to their policies) content unless someone reports it. They don't monitor the covers and blurbs all that much either.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

I presume that everyone here realizes that there is no one at Amazon actually reading the book it distributes(?) They are unlikely to find objectionable (to their policies) content unless someone reports it. They don't monitor the covers and blurbs all that much either.

Dear me. One might almost think that they don't really want any of that dirty old money they make by selling things that they say they don't sell.

 

[sr71plt]

Dear me. One might almost think that they don't really want any of that dirty old money they make by selling things that they say they don't sell.

I can remember before there was any such opportunity for a writer to get his/her work before the public unless a print publisher took it on and that wouldn't happen for 98 percent of what is now on offer. So I'm not going to be one to be bailing water into that boat.

 

[Hypoxia]

I have witnessed public male butt-fucking daisychain-dozens at a Castro Street (San Francisco) pride festival.

Public sibling or parent-child incest would be more decorous.

Let's go mainstream.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Let's see now: Peer = equal. Peer-reviewed = reviewed by equals. Who is peer enough to review the works of an Einstein? A Hawking? A Zijlstraa?

This is nonsense. In this context, "peer" doesn't mean "exact equal in every way"; it just means people with a good deal of expertise in relevant fields. (Roughly speaking, PhD level, although there's some wiggle room in that.)

Ask any physics professor and they'll tell you that for every genuine Einstein, there are thousands of crackpots who think they're the new Einstein.

The reason names like "Einstein" and "Hawking" have become by-words for "genius", and names like "Gene Ray" have not, is precisely because of peer recognition. Einstein and Hawking set out their ideas, and other professional physicists were able to read them and confirm that they made sense and were really important.

Yes, the peer review process is imperfect. Yes, it can be politicised, as happened in 1930s Germany, to the detriment of Einstein and many others. (Fortunately for AE, he was already a world-famous Nobel prize-winner by then, so he had other options.) But what do you propose as an alternative?

Einstein also made mistakes, BTW - some of his ideas about quantum mechanics haven't held up well at all, as his peers were able to demonstrate. Anybody who treats him as an unquestionable Oracle of Wisdom is rather missing the point of science.

(I don't recognise Ziljstraa; feel free to elucidate or not, as you prefer.)

Peer-review(-ed) is the greatest humbug ever invented - "you scratch my back and I scratched yours". It has nothing to do whatsoever with "scientific" except as a vehicle to guarantee lesser lights the number of citations needed in order to qualify for senior academic positions.

How's that supposed to work?

Being peer-reviewed doesn't guarantee citations; many papers never get cited at all. (Rates vary by discipline; it's somewhere around 10% in medicine, 20% in natural sciences/engineering, up to a whopping 80% never-cited papers in humanities.)

It is the greatest obstacle there is to scientific progress as it cements the status quo, within the accepted paradigm, no disagreeing with the majority and authorities. If you do, your "peers" pretty quickly tear you to shreds as you threaten the status quo and their serene progress up the academic ladder.

Nah. That's the comic-book version popular with cranks who need an excuse for why The Evil Establishment (TM) has rejected their splendid ideas for a new perpetual motion machine or curing cancer by drinking bleach.

Peer review is carried out by humans, who have the usual quota of human failings. So, yes, there are some stick-in-the-muds who will fight ideas that challenge their orthodoxies. I've met some of that type.

But by and large, people go into research because they like finding out new stuff. It certainly isn't for the money, or the joy of having to rip up roots and move countries every few years to chase another post-doc opportunity, while tenured positions become rarer and rarer. In my experience, most researchers' reaction to a new finding is not "quick, suppress it!" but "hey, that's interesting!" and quite possibly "I can build on that!"

While I am not a Psychology major, I have read enough psychology, behaviourism and sociology to know what I am talking about. From your statement "going on a site devoted to the NBA, and then making the argument that, judging by the votes of the site, Space Jam is more well-loved than Gone With The Wind" it's easy to see that you're talking through your chauvinistic, condescending sexist male arse. Or are you really so stupid that you look up the NBA site to find out the relative merits of movies?

And you have not given any proof that out of all English-speaking people, with internet access and the time to pursue their interests, those who come to Literotica is such a vanishingly small sample that it's impossible to draw any conlusions based on such a sample.

Before you make yourself look even more stupid, please note that Polling Institutes make predictions on election results based on far smaller samples.

Any reputable pollster would laugh in your face at the idea of using website views to generalise beyond the readership of that website. The problem there isn't sample size, it's how that sample is selected.

Pollsters go to a LOT of trouble to ensure that their samples are likely to be representative of the population they're trying to characterise, or alternately to correct for non-representative samples. (No, they don't always get it right - it can be tricky work - but in general they do a lot better than folk give them credit for.)

Literotica readers are what pollsters would call a "self-selected sample", and those are notoriously untrustworthy as a basis for generalisation, no matter how big the sample is.

 

[MindsMirror]

Is the number of incest stories on Lit due to their popularity or the fact that Lit allows them and other sites don't?
Or is that a which came first (chicken and egg question)? Are there other sites with which statistics might be compared?
-MM

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Pre-judging the relationship of siblings, half-siblings or other consensual relationships based upon the outcome of a pregnancy is not consistent with laws regarding other much more risky couplings. People with known congenital defects are allowed to marry and even have children. People that can never or do not plan to have children are allowed. The argument of an outcome that can be prevented with modern technology (specifically amniocentesis and genetic testing) seems singularly focused on the incestuous relationships.

-MM

Most people in the world don't have access to "modern technology". So I'm assuming you're only applying your proposed acceptance of new social mores to the places that can <i>afford</i> it. You'd think that would include the US, but we're currently locked in a vast and ugly debate about which health care is affordable, so maybe not a viable idea here. What you propose is completely off the table in the third world. And I won't go deeply into the fact that you seem to be advocating abortion as a solution, which is hardly a universally accepted solution to anything. In short, your view here applies to a rather small percentage of the world and relies on ethically questionable premises, which are generally bad signs if one is trying to make an general ethical argument.

I'm putting you on ignore for several reasons. First, your original post is a stunning example of an irrational leap - some tawdry TV show features a sketchy relationship, so clearly we're on the verge of casting off the most widespread taboo in human history. Secondly, you seem to want to agitate for real world change in a forum dedicated to fiction writing. Go try the General Board, or reddit. Thirdly, your original post mentioned consenting but not adult, which creeps me the hell out. Finally, this last post is trying to apply Medical Science as a cure-all to the considerable genetic problems incest raises. You clearly haven't had any experience with people facing the choice of whether to abort based on medical tests; or with the fact that the tests themselves are not fully reliable; this tells me something about how you try to advance arguments.

I've known two people affected by incest. One was a woman, probably in her 50s now, and in her 40s when I had conversations with her. She'd been a regular feature in her parents' sex life from before she was 18 (I think 15). She was unable to have a normal sex life after that; when I met her (online) she admitted she didn't trust adults, hated women, had suicidal thoughts, and only had online sex, all of it involving rape. over twenty years had gone by and she still hadn't come to terms with what happened. She was "consenting" at the time, inasmuch as she didn't say no and was ultimately trained to initiate sex with her parents.

Another was someone I met through an online game that used to be popular. Her in-game nickname was one that implied that she was 15 or 16 and it wasn't one any normal girl would have chosen. The game only allowed a single line of text to be sent with each (very slow) round of the game, so when I asked her about the nickname it wasn't easy to get detailed replies, but eventually she said enough that I decided I had an obligation to get her to email me. That wasn't easy, but in the end she agreed.

The story that emerged was horrific. She'd been abused by her father, it had been caught, so she and her older brother had been placed into foster care. Unfortunately her older brother had developed the same tastes and was progressively sexualizing her in secret in their new setting, and also made her choose the odd and disturbing nicknames in her online games. It was a very long and stressful time before I was able to convince her to go to her new parents and tell them what was going on. When she did, her brother threatened her and then ran away from home, and she lost internet access, so I don't know how the story ended. I hope she got therapy.

I was very struck by how hard it was to convince her that was was happening was wrong; "consent" is an easy thing to get, especially in children.

I'm not impressed with your stance, MM, and since you can't seem to leave it alone I'm done with you.

 

[MindsMirror]

Our moral compasses are pretty clear; don't cause harm to others and be responsible world citizens. Golden Rule

We've only written about siblings, half-siblings, cousins and one story with a with a possible mother son. All of these were consenting adults, most well above 18.

It is fairly odd to read that we're presumed to be advocating non-consensual or underage relationships. To be clear, we don't condone either.

 

[SimonDoom]

As actually practiced, incest is invariably destructive.

Is that true? I admit I have no idea. I have no personal experience with the subject, nor do I have any professional knowledge. But I tend to be skeptical of categorical statements like this one. If we're dealing with a relationship involving an underage child, that's one thing. But if we're dealing with consenting adults -- what's the evidence on this? I really don't know. In my experience, it's usually wrong, in the case of empirical statements, to say that "X is invariably Y."

One of the useful things about a site like this one is the opportunity creatively to explore and push beyond taboos and boundaries of human behavior. I personally believe that it's perfectly fine to enjoy stories involving taboo -- even repugnant -- behavior, without it being a reflection on one's own ethics. We seem to have no problem with this in the area of violence. As a society, we're only too happy to indulge in the most extreme, sadistic violence in movies, books, and TV, and no one looks sideways at anyone for watching it, reading it, or writing it. But sex still is different -- and it's interesting that it's different even here, a site for erotic stories.

I'm inclined to agree with MindsMirror, above, to the extent that as long as we take care to do no harm to others we are on solid ground, morally. It's not obvious to me that a sexual relationship between two consenting adults must be harmful. Maybe it often is, but that doesn't mean it must be. As I said above, I'm no expert, and I could be persuaded by evidence one way or the other. As I also said above, I don't see anything being written on this site as evidence of anything other than the views of the authors who've decided to post here.

 

[Handley_Page]

Is that true?

I'm inclined to agree with MindsMirror, above, to the extent that as long as we take care to do no harm to others we are on solid ground, morally.
It's not obvious to me that a sexual relationship between two consenting adults must be harmful. Maybe it often is, but that doesn't mean it must be.
.

The problem is, as I see it, that one cannot trust ALL participants to be so high-minded about doing no harm. It's far more likely that they'll say "sod the rest, I'm having my fun."

And "incest is invariably destructive." It can blow a family out of sanity (or fitness) all together.
Yes, we are pandering to the imagination, but we should always bear in mind the dangers of encouraging such deviations. Someone might think it's a 'permission'.

 

[8letters]

The problem is, as I see it, that one cannot trust ALL participants to be so high-minded about doing no harm. It's far more likely that they'll say "sod the rest, I'm having my fun."

What's your point? You can never trust ALL participants in any relationship.

And "incest is invariably destructive." It can blow a family out of sanity (or fitness) all together.

No, it's not. Two cousins having sex can destroy a family but cousins happily marry all the time. Occasionally, I'll see a story about a man running off with his stepdaughter like this one. In that story, the husband and the stepdaughter seem quite happy 4 1/2 years later. The mom is bitter as hell. In this story, a woman's second husband runs off with her son's wife. 15 months later, the couple is still together while the mom and son are still devastated.

It's all but impossible to find true stories of closer incest relationships because they are illegal. A number of people have claimed anonymously that they've had incest relationships that were quite positive. Is what they are claiming true? No way to know. But there's no way to prove all incest relationships closer than cousins are abusive and destructive.