Discussion Friday

[geraineon]

Time for Discussion Friday again!

This time, inspired by my very rapid descent into a Chinese otome game that tried to be culturally sensitive by translating "哥哥" (older brother*) into "childhood friend" in English, what are your thoughts and feelings about incest/pseudo-incest in fiction?

If you enjoy it, why do you enjoy it?

If you find it uncomfortable, is it for all incest/pseudo-incest related tropes, or are there situations where you are more likely to be okay with them and situations where it's a squick?

(Feel free to share any other related thoughts. I trust you all to be respectful to each other's preferences in fiction!)

*brother, very loosely, because it is not always someone related.

Comments

[snowynight]

I like incest/pseudo-incest when the taboo aspect is explored. The characters know it's a bad idea but they still go for it. It has to be a secret or they face consequence from family/friends/society. I don't like it when their friends/family/supposedly normal people wholly support their relationship in a society like ours.

Incest used to be allowed in jj in olden days, but it's banned now, so writers have to write around censorship. A writer used to write intergenerational incest in 2008-15 on jj. The works are all locked.

[geraineon]

It would be weird if family/friends/society are immediate okay with it, yeah. Unless it's a world that's quite removed from ours, with very different social norms (and depending on how closely related)

Which writer is it that wrote intergenerational incest? I wonder if it's possible to still find their works somewhere...

[snowynight]

南枝 Nanzhi. Most of their work are n't translated, but you can find them by searching their name on Chinese internet.