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Although I am not as familiar with the genetics as Crossbow's sister the problems of inbreeding is certainly something that I have heard about and from what I have heard it is a serious problem.
It is interesting to see how the subject varies over the world. Here in England relationships between cousins and step-siblings are not considered to be incest, at least not in law. Siblings certainly are as are parent/child, uncle/child, aunt/child, and also the grandparent aspect already mentioned above.
Parents and children who are not of blood (adopted/fostered/stepchildren etc) are certainly not allowed to form relationship as it is considered in cases where the child is a juvenile that the elder parent/guardian has abused their position of trust.
The cases of siblings growing up apart and without the bond are certainly ones that crop up and it is in these cases when they might have a, for want of a better word, defence morally but the genetic issue is the key factor in why the law has not been changed for their relationship to continue. One thing that I remember reading a few years ago about a couple who had no idea they were siblings (one of those complete coincidences) was that once they had found out, they had taken the issue of genetics very seriously and taken all possible steps to ensure that they had no children because of the potential problems any children could have because of their close relationship. From their point of view they had formed a relationship without knowing it was incestuous and since it was already a relationship that had lasted a lot longer than many others in this day and age they were determined to carry on with it despite other potential consequences.
I don't recall what happened to them exactly, it was just a magazine article I remember reading and was one of the few fair, non-judgemental and reasonable articles I can remember seeing about this subject.
In fan fiction I have actually seen very little of slash, incest or otherwise. I read a lot of romance novels generally and when it comes to fan fiction I look for a lot more than simply graphic sex between any characters. I think the only incest slash I have read was a Tru Calling one which was very graphic although the author did/does at least make an effort to show that the characters are not simply going into that relationship without a care about what they are doing and they do struggle with the relationship and accept that they know it is wrong.
I think that incest is a subject that can be tackled in any media, just as most, if not all subjects, can. But it has to be handled correctly and not just used for the purposes of shocking people into reading a story.
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