*Juli*

I read Good Charlotte twincest between Benji and Joel. I've read some really horrible and graphic "sex for sex's sake" fanfics and I didn't enjoy them at all.

Benji and Joel have joked around when accused of having relations that they like to "keep it in the family." Of COURSE they were joking around and everyone who follows this twincest pairing knows they share a bond deeper than most sibilings but that is all - a deep emotional bond and dependency that is hard for most everyone else to understand. They also have said that their relationship with each other is different from that of those with their other brother and sister. It's just...different and always will be. And no one but Benji and Joel will ever understand that bond.

I understand why people find it wrong and disgusting but to me, a good story involving twincest doesn't actually revolve around the sexual act. I'm reading one currently where 21 chapters in and the relationship has not progressed past kissing. It's not just about "hey, they're twins, they do 'stuff' together!"

It's the emotional relationship and the bond that only twins share that I find so fascinating. Like any genre, there's really well-written stories that you can find yourself wrapped up in. Some people enjoy it when they go at it for the sake of sex in a fanfic. I personally don't like them and it's not appealing to me to read because it doesn't explain the reason why they would be involved in this type of relationship.

Benji and Joel are very close and always say that no one could understand it or replace one another in their lives. I guess I am so fascinated with that bond that when people write really well-written stories and elaborate on the emotional aspect of their, for lack of a better word, life dependency on one another for support, I am captivated by it. It's not about it being "taboo" but it's just forging a fanfiction sexual relationship to take it a bit further and explain it to make a story interesting.

There are many fanfics out there that just revolve around sex. Twincest, to me, isn't about the sex. It's about something a lot deeper and more emotional than that.

lightcousin

Is twincest only supposed to cover identical twins, or does it also include fraternal twins (when twins don't look almost exactly alike, and can be of a different sex)?

Catou

My opinion is generally not a popular one because I personalize something so widespread but I will stand by how I feel - incest fics literally make me sick. And it upsets me a great deal. It is so difficult to see so many people treat incest with such carelessness while it is a very disturbing subject for me and millions of other people who have lived through it one way or another. I won't get into details about what happened to me personally (I never do) but I have never seen incest being positive for either party. It's destructive and disturbing and it is something people carry with them for the rest of their lives. It's almost like trivializing rape. Making it romantic and positive.

I already know what most incest authors will reply to this, I've heard it many times. I will stand by what I said. Unless you have gone through it yourself, you have no idea how it feels.

That being said, I have no resentment toward incest authors because like I just stated above, they don't understand. It's their work that I resent. And yes, I try the best I can to avoid those fics, but just seeing the summaries of some of them makes me very sick.

Silversun

I don't have any personal experience with incest, and I want to make it clear that I don't mean to demean anybody's individual experience in any way. But I would like to point out a very crucial point when trying to draw an analogy between rape and incest: incest could, in certain cases, be consensual. Rape by definition can never be consensual. I think that is a very material difference.

Catou

I agree that there is a difference between rape and incest but not the one you just mentioned., Maybe coerced sex would be a better example. It is hard to try to come up with situations that are similar to this. No matter how consensual an incestuous relationship can be, it can never be as clean cut as "the tragedy of falling in love with your sibling". There is so much behind it that I can't even use the word consensual because I don't really think it exists when it comes to incest. It is 10,000 times more complicated than that.

Anyway, I don't want to argue about this. Using rape was a bad example but there isn't an example for incest so it's hard. I just wanted to show the (apparently) less popular opinion. And maybe some people will realize that incest is a really, really, really big deal and it is very real to some people. Am I happy that incest is the new slash? No. I think this is the net going way too far. But I feel like 99.9% of the general net population disagrees with me.

Chiqa

Personally, I wouldn't read any incest fic just because the idea disgusts me, but obviously, there's a market for it... after all, Howard Stern has had incestous sisters on his show a few times.

Hmmm, I don't know that it's the new slash, though. I haven't really seen any incest fic around, but then again, I have been out of the fanfic world for a min.

It might be the new slash in the sense that's it's going into unconventional and "dangerous" territory the way slash once did.

Cress

On an episode of CSI this season, they had a mental patient whose mother was perversely attached to him and used her son as a replacement for the dead father. They called it a Jocasta complex (Jocasta was Oedipus's mother in the Greek myth), and her actions were very clearly reprehensible, even being possessive about her son and defying the mental hospital's efforts to separate them. That kind of creepy, warped relationship I would most certainly say was rape, and I wouldn't like any kind of incest fic that was similar to that.

However, I think it is possible for an incest writer to write a fic that has a more equal relationship and where neither party is a confused impressionable kid/teen that could be manipulated into sex. I believe, if it's a fic where one person isn't just controlling/abusing the other, that the incest could be written as a mutual, consensual thing. Perhaps even romantic. I don't have any specific examples, though.

I totally do agree that incest is a big deal and is very real to people. I've read a couple of fics that had incest in them (it was a writer who does a lot of femslash and erotica in Friends), and I didn't really get the point of them. I reacted to them like I do to femslash in general--just a kink that some people like but I don't find hot at all. However, I did tell the writer that he was trying to justify the incest unrealistically, with Ross/Monica admitting to the incest all too easily to strangers and saying things like, "We're both over 18. We can do what we want." Also, any characters who disapproved of the incest were roundly lectured and called intolerant bigots. I told him that the majority of people would sympathize with the disapprovers, and that incest IS a big deal, morally speaking. It's not something that can be casually defended like that. Many people would say, "Ick! Gross! How could you?!"

LMS

I can only ever bear pseudo-incests (so like between adoptive siblings or step-siblings) and even then I have a problem with it if the siblings grew up together from a very young age. I don't really see how incest can really be compared to slash. There isn't anything morally wrong about slash, whereas I think incest is wrong in so many ways.

Cold-Blooded Piece of Toast

What about the incest authors who have gone through it? I personally was abused by my uncle at age four. Beyond just mere touching. He made me perform certain acts on him and it has very negatively affected my life. Part of my own self-injurious behavior has centered around punishing myself for the past. I write incest probably *because* it happened. I don't know how to write loving relationships. To me, love (especially sexual love) means pain and power play and taking advantage.

I just don't find it reasonable to assume that incest writers have no idea how it feels. Just because you write about something that is negative and wrong without condemning it doesn't mean you haven't gone through it.

Yes, I'm sick. I realize I have no concept of what a normal relationship is and love is a dirty word. It just means pain.

Gabrielle

Silversun

I don't know what to say Gabrielle. I'm really sorry that this is how you feel and I wish there is some way to make it better.

Cress

Yeah, I feel bad for you too, Gabrielle.

I've also heard of a rape victim who writes (and also houses other people's) rape fiction on her website. I believe she says that it's a form of dealing with her demons head on or something like that. I hope you are dealing with your past and learning to heal too.

Cold-Blooded Piece of Toast

I've been working on dealing with the past for quite some time. Just no therapist at the present. Thanks for the good wishes.

Crossbow

Ah, but I think Gabrielle is talking about writing about incest in a negative light, which is an entirely different issue.

While it may be that some incest writers have experienced incest, I don't think you'll find any incest writers who have experienced incest and still think it's a good thing. I think you'd find them portraying it as destructive.

As I said, I've only read one story where the incest was believable and positive, and it was only positive in relation to the characters' lives, which were unbelievably horrible, so that their relationship with each other was the only positive thing in their lives.

"Law & Order SVU" did an episode with twin incest, and showed it as extremely destructive. I think all "twincest" writers should be forced to watch that episode before they write another word.

Cold-Blooded Piece of Toast

Of course, not in a positive light. Still, not in an entirely negative one. It's better to leave it as ambiguous. Emphasize the bond between the characters, show how much they love one another. Maybe even the one being abused craves it (which is entirely illogical but it makes sense) and yearns for the love and attention.

I find that the ones that don't come out and say it's bad are the most disquieting ones. I've always wanted to write one half as good as some of the one's I've read.

Gabrielle

*Arista*

Wow. I'm so glad I stumbled across this thread. Very interesting discussion.

I realized a few months ago that my two favorite couples on television are BOTH cousin couples. That was a bit of a strange epiphany.

I had loved George-Michael and Maeby of "Arrested Development" ever since I started watching the show. However, early last season it seemed like the show started channeling them away from each other and in different directions, so my love for them laid dormant for a while.

In the meantime, I fell for Jonathan and Tammy of "Guiding Light". I started watching the show because I'd heard how great Tom Pelphrey (who plays Jon) was, and because I was so fascinated (in a semi-horrified way) by the Jon/Tammy storyline. Jonathan was born into a royal family, but was given up and hidden as a baby because he was not safe (his uncle wanted to kill him). Jon showed up in town as a teenager, hungry for revenge on the mother that he thought abandoned him to a life of abuse (his adoptive father beat and verbally abused him). His weapon of choice was the seduction of Tammy, Reva's virginal niece and his own half-cousin. Only AFTER they had consummated the relationship did Tammy find out who Jon (who she knew as "J.B.") really was. I started watching almost the day after they had sex, because a friend of mine said she couldn't believe the show had actually gone through with it, while in the same breath confessing that they were "kinda hot". (Lemme tell you, I have since gotten my hands on an edit of their early scenes and they were more than "kinda" hot.)

After the truth came out, Jon taunted her, but there was also another layer to some scenes, like he was hurt she was giving up on him so easily and daring her to see past the pain. Then Christmas Eve happened. He made a huge sacrifice so that she could have a good Christmas. They both knew it, and they both shared this look. Most gorgeous moment. I just completely fell for them, because it was obvious they weren't over each other. Then on New Year's Eve, he kissed her. *swoon* Not an "It's midnight and you're here" kiss. An "I'll die if I go another second before devouring you" kiss. And she kissed back, and then looked horrified. Since then, they've had this push/pull relationship where they get to each other, but haven't gone back to the sexual aspect really (although there is major subtext, and there was a big eye sex moment today)...

I'm getting off track. My point is that I love these two, even though it's probably insane to hope the writers will ever go back to the romantic/sexual side of their relationship. There are people who want them to be "decousined" because the chemistry between the actors is so mindblowingly hot, but I don't feel it's necessary. The cousin angle just adds to the forbidden element for me, and makes them even more compelling. They didn't meet until they were adults, so they certainly didn't grow up thinking of each other as family. Cousin relationships are acceptable in many parts of the world (and even legal in Europe, Canada, and 20 states in the U.S.) and the reproductive risks are not nearly as great as the public perceives (not to mention these two are only half-cousins, so the risk would be less). Plus, Jon and Tammy are both practically royalty...They're almost expected to marry their cousins.

At this point, I think I'd be disappointed to see the show scrap the cousin angle, even though they'll never "go there" with the stigma attached. It would rob them of part of their twisted charm, and contribute to the bias against these couples. I never thought I'd find myself getting caught up in the politics of whether or not first cousins should be allowed to marry, but I find myself more and more fascinated by the subject. I also never thought I'd start a message board for any couple, let alone one so controversial, but I was compelled to take ownership of my love for these two. We have some beautiful fics posted there, and I'm very proud of that. I've even toyed with the idea of writing one myself, but I don't think I have the time, talent, or patience to see it through. I'm just glad that others have the courage to tackle the subject, because God only knows if I'll ever get to see the show explore their relationship the way I'd like them to!