by Mortze » Mon, 15Aug10 12:39
Excelent initiative Lou.
This is indeed a complicate subject.
As I am super lazy I'll copy/paste what I said on the matter on another thread (hope it is not a problem).
There is a HUGE difference between a father who molestes his 8-year daughter and a 18-year brother and 16-year sister who are going the Lannister way.
The main focus here is informed consent. A child isn't aware of what an adult might do to him, or at least not fully conscient of the implications and wrongs. That's why child molestation make us all sick (I trully hope).
But two young people, fully aware of their desires, and ok with it both of them, isn't so repugnant. Some might find it quite arousing.
While I do frown uppon vertical incest (father/daughter,grandpa/grand-daughter,uncle/niece), horizontal incest isn't as shocking, or not at all, IF both parties are consensual, and informed of what they are doing (8 year old aren't either totally consensual or informed because they don't have the mental capacity to fully understand the act, while 14 and above is another matter).
I do think that, setting this clear, incest might be less shocking than rape (even if you have to make the girl drunk to have "consensual" sex), orcs nailing elves, or girls with dongs, and I've seen a fair share of those one in lots of games.
Considering all this, I do prefer to follow an incest story involving brother/sister, cousins, that has love, emotions, understanding, mutual experimentation, trust, general positive feelings in the story than one where 2 adults just chat about non-sense in a bar and go have sex.
There are 2 main essences that make people be unease with incest and that's the biological and the domination/exploitation issues.
The first only applies when the sex becomes reproduction. Reproduction through incest isn't biologicaly viable as we all know. That's nature saying us that it doesn't agree with it.
The second one is about domination/exploitation. When we hear about incest, in most cases, on the news, books, etc, it is mostly about situations involving a much older dominant figure and a victim that isn't either unaware or willing. If he complies to the act it's because the dominant figure acts on some form of authority and the victim thinks that is must be the right thing to do.
This last way is despictable. There is no place for a nice, innocent, sexual story, when we use this. Child abuse is one of the most horrifying things there is. Even if a story tells about a child that is happy having sex with an older person it is not alright since it promotes normality to the reader. The argument that the viewer can make the difference between reality and fiction is not relevant here. Childhood is innocence, purity, play and joy. There is no place for sex in this phase of life.
But adolescence, and I refer to a more late adolescence, is a different matter. No precise numbers here but let's say 14 and up, is a phase of sexual discovery. Just look around. Children mainly play with toys, they discover the world for its colours and purpose. Adolescents focus mainly on social interaction, acceptation and of course sex is a great part of that. So here, sex becomes a normal thing. At this ages teens discover masturbation, sexual desire, even phantasies, and a good share even practices normal sex.
When the sexual discoveries are shared by the two people involved and there is no dominant part I do think there is no harm in incest.
Like I said, vertical incest involves, in general, somewhat a dominant figure in the older person. But horizontal incest, generally, involves people with the same needs, questions, to experiment and discover, to feel desire and desired, even loved. That's why incest between brothers/sisters/cousins does not disgusts me.
Of course, incest does not need to involve minors. A 60 year old having a thing with his 40 year daughter is still incest. I stand consistent in my evaluation in older people cases. Vertical incest, NO. Horizontal incest, OK (brother 40/sister 30).