My theory on incest stories

[12356416514a]

Incest is not that uncommon at all, getdare and asstr are only two sites that allow them. It is usually also on top of other porn sites. I would say that it is popular because on places like 4chan those topics are popular and retrieve little to no criticism.

 

[Sammael Bard]

Personally , I don't think ANYONE can accurately point out if Incest is popular or not. My friend out there has rightly pointed out that the total number of views or even the number of votes cannot be used to decode if Incest is a popular theme amongst people or not.

There aren't exactly any surveys out there and if there were even one, I just can't imagine what sort of questions they must've asked without offending people either way.

"Do you like Incest?"

"What?!?"

Our society has come a long way from criminalizing homosexuality and anal sex but I don't think it can accept Incest even now. Even today, there are people who find it gross and abhor this act.

I don't think anyone who is in an Incest relationship would like to come out in the open because there are laws that criminalize it.

 

[TamLin01]

Stories need conflict. If a sexual encounter has conflict built into it via the breaking of a taboo, then it's appealing on two levels: One, it's sex, and two, it creates tension and drama. Some of the most popular and enduring conventions in pornography are about having sex with someone who, for one reason or another, you should not be: sex with your boss, sex with your best friend's significant other, sex with a complete stranger you just met, etc.

An incest story breaks a major taboo and so generates a significant amount of dramatic conflict. It's a conflict anyone can relate to, because we all operate under the jurisdiction of that particular taboo. Some taboos are necessarily narrow in their appeal: To dig a BDSM story, you have to find BDSM appealing, for example. But most incest stories feature fairly routine pornographic exploits that are made taboo simply by the context. It's not that incest is more appealing than everything else, it's that a lot of everything else has more narrow appeal.

And I suppose if you're of a Freudian bent you might entertain the idea that such stories provide catharsis for subconscious desires. But I don't think that's a necessary conclusion: Most people enjoy war movies, but very few people would enjoy actually going to war. What's gratifying about entertainment is usually not the subject matter itself but rather what that subject allows us to feel.

 

[Sammael Bard]

What's gratifying about entertainment is usually not the subject matter itself but rather what that subject allows us to feel.

Good point. I think the same can be said about those non-consent/reluctance stories. Although I do enjoy some of them, I really don't think I can really do it with someone else in real life, without getting the guilt and sympathy for the other person.

 

[Hypoxia]

Stories need conflict. If a sexual encounter has conflict built into it via the breaking of a taboo, then it's appealing on two levels: One, it's sex, and two, it creates tension and drama. Some of the most popular and enduring conventions in pornography are about having sex with someone who, for one reason or another, you should not be: sex with your boss, sex with your best friend's significant other, sex with a complete stranger you just met, etc.

An incest story breaks a major taboo and so generates a significant amount of dramatic conflict. It's a conflict anyone can relate to, because we all operate under the jurisdiction of that particular taboo. Some taboos are necessarily narrow in their appeal: To dig a BDSM story, you have to find BDSM appealing, for example. But most incest stories feature fairly routine pornographic exploits that are made taboo simply by the context. It's not that incest is more appealing than everything else, it's that a lot of everything else has more narrow appeal.

And I suppose if you're of a Freudian bent you might entertain the idea that such stories provide catharsis for subconscious desires. But I don't think that's a necessary conclusion: Most people enjoy war movies, but very few people would enjoy actually going to war. What's gratifying about entertainment is usually not the subject matter itself but rather what that subject allows us to feel.

All very well said.

We turn to vicarious experience for entertainment. (Entertainment: How we organize and occupy our time when we're not being useful.) We stimulate our nervous systems with thrilling sensations. We're thrilled by mental images of sex, danger and terror, taboo violation, corruption -- forbidden activities we would never engage in (hopefully).

So, we (hopefully) abhor murder. But when murder is depicted, we can empathize and identify with the murderer, and the murdered, and those around them. I am most drawn to older better Loving Wife tales here. I hope never to be in a cheating situation, but reading the tales, I can feel for all parties, same as with the murder story.

It's all vicarious experience, nerve-tingling drama and excitement. It's all entertainment, organized and occupied time. Is it time well spent? Hmmm...

 

[LWulf]

It could be argued that people like to experience things. Good or bad is immaterial in that context. When we are young, we push our finger into a flame. We have been told it's bad to touch it, but at one point, we push past what we are told to experience it, first hand.

The same could be said with war and murder. It is common for people, the first time they murder someone, no matter how much they wanted to do it before hand, to feel sick to their stomach after they have actually accomplished it, suggesting that they didn't expect that outcome and maybe part of them WANTED to experience murdering someone.

Pathological people are an exception, but not everyone who murders someone is pathological.

 

[Sammael Bard]

Westermarck theory. We are conditioned as early as in the womb(supposedly, I am not sure I can ask a fetus what it is thinking) not to be attracted to family members.

I was talking about 'Inbreeding Depression', where the chamces of harmful recessive genes expressing themselves increases in a child born of a sexual relationship between siblings/relatives etc. It is a concept of genetics and the primary reason why Science does not allow Incest.

I don't abhor the act of incestuous sex but as a student of science, I frown upon the parents that want children to be born of their incestuous relationship. Though the chances are pretty low, it isn't prudent of people to take these chances.

 

[LWulf]

I don't abhor the act of incestuous sex but as a student of science, I frown upon the children that are born of an incestuous relationship. Though the chances are pretty low, it isn't prudent of people to take these chances.

I'm going to nitpick at what you said, though I believe you meant and would agree with what I'm about to say.

I've known a woman (and her sibs) that were born of an incestuous parenting. I don't abhor or frown on the children born of such a coupling, I frown and abhor the parents or the incestuous people who allowed a child be born between them.

A child born of incestuous parents can't help what they are.

 

[Sammael Bard]

I'm going to nitpick at what you said, though I believe you meant and would agree with what I'm about to say.

I've known a woman (and her sibs) that were born of an incestuous parenting. I don't abhor or frown on the children born of such a coupling, I frown and abhor the parents or the incestuous people who allowed a child be born between them.

A child born of incestuous parents can't help what they are.

My bad! Just a slip. You're right. It's not the fault of the child. Sorry that I came off like that.

 

[robertreams]

If you avoided seeing them unless they were fully clothed then you DID have sexual feelings about them. Obviously. I saw my sister, my father,my mother, my brothers, naked often. Casually. None of it had the slightest sexual affect on me. Nudity is not sexual unless you think it is. (IN the mind) Ergo, ther were hidden sexual feelings or you would not have been compelled to hide thwm.

 

[LWulf]

If you avoided seeing them unless they were fully clothed then you DID have sexual feelings about them. Obviously. I saw my sister, my father,my mother, my brothers, naked often. Casually. None of it had the slightest sexual affect on me. Nudity is not sexual unless you think it is. (IN the mind) Ergo, ther were hidden sexual feelings or you would not have been compelled to hide thwm.

This form of logic is fallacious and cyclic.

Because you felt comfortable with seeing your family naked, you enjoyed seeing them thus and therefore DID have sexual feelings about them.

Either both your and my statement are true or both are nonsense. Rape victims hide the fact that they were raped, does that mean they had sexual hidden feelings that they really enjoyed it? No, of course not.

Sometimes people hide things because they are ashamed, or because they think people will feel negatively towards them by finding out.

 

[Sammael Bard]

Because you felt comfortable with seeing your family naked, you enjoyed seeing them thus and therefore DID have sexual feelings about them.

Sorry but I will use your own words against you. This logic is fallacious.

Being comfortable with seeing your family members naked doesn't amount to enjoyment and having sexual feelings.

I think it is indifference.

 

[LWulf]

Sorry but I will use your own words against you. This logic is fallacious.

Being comfortable with seeing your family members naked doesn't amount to enjoyment and having sexual feelings.

I think it is indifference.

*sigh*
You misunderstood my aim. I was giving a fallacious statement that was equal and opposite to the other poster's fallacious statement or in other words, I was putting their own words against them.

I then followed up with "Either both your and my statement are true or both are nonsense."

Another way to express cyclical logic is that there is no reason to accept the premise unless one already believes the conclusion.

 

[Sammael Bard]

Whoops! If that's the case then apologies from my side.

 

[squirrelzo]

I see your point but I don't agree with it. I have no doubt that even if there were 10 sites like lit incest would always be the top category. Of course there's no way to prove either of us right.
Why? Two reasons.
Incest is a category like sci-fi or "Non Human" in that it's pure literary fantasy. The fetish is for the story, not for actual incest. Disregarding the nutters, no one pictures their own parent. Its "a Daddy" or "a mother and son." Its pure fantasy that can only be fulfilled in/as a story. Being more purely literary, its going to have a high readership to begin with.
But second, if you take the Freudian view, which I do, everyone has had incest fantasies. (And trust me I was a Freudian long before I discovered I had this fetish so Im not looking for validation, like I need any). All children fall in love with a parent. Oedipus complex? Hamlet? Greek myth? Its not a shocker. Incest fantasy is universal if you take this view. Gay, straight, everyone. So why should it be surprising that its a very very common fetish?

I find it interesting that everyone's so eager to insist But no one would really want to do that!! Um, yes, and no. No, of course not, but yes you did, at some point. The incest fantasy story has a different threat than some alien with a 12 inch dick.

The fantasy is more or less repressed, more or less unconscious, more or less displaced. And get real. Consider all the EC stories, sci fi, bdsm where a father/mother figure is involved, a parent complex is being played out.

As to why some people develop the specific fetish and others don't, no idea.

??? Why would the explanation that people have to go to where their fetish is served and this is one of the few places it's served be any different for voting and favoriting? ]

I think many psychologists would beg to differ.

[There's no evidence that even the thought of incest is widespread in the general population--it's just that this is one of the few places you can go to get the fetish fed.

 

[sr71plt]

There aren't ten sites and if there were, incest would be the top there precisely because of the rarity of finding someplace for those liking this fetish to congregate. You lost your point on the basis of my argument (if it were that popular it would naturally permeate the Internet, which it doesn't) as soon as you acknowledged there weren't many sites permitting it.

 

[Dalbhach]

Incest seems to be a fairly popular literary theme throughout history. Hell, Shakespeare seems obsessed with it.

Heinlein, one of the most recognized and celebrated names in science fiction, also featured incestuous relationships in his novels. Read To Sail Beyond the Sunset. 16 years after his death, his books are still popular.

Which, again, proves nothing other than the fact that the theme is more prevalent that some of us may feel comfortable with and cannot be so easily dismissed as some might prefer.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

####=

 

[sr71plt]

Im quite aware there aren't ten sites. I said IF there were. And I was responding to your initial point that it's so high on lit because it's the ONLY site that offers it.

Point of order. This is what I posted in thread post 50: "Incest is the most-read section on Literotica primarily because there aren't too many story sites that permit incest." And I repeated the same thing on thread posts 60 and 62.

 

[FFFan]

Sorry but I will use your own words against you. This logic is fallacious.

Being comfortable with seeing your family members naked doesn't amount to enjoyment and having sexual feelings.

I think it is indifference.

I think you will find there is a lot of incest going on in nudinst families. The familiarality of each others bodies makes them less inhibited. When you add in the usual kissing and cuddling that families do its not uncommon for one thing to lead to another

 

[Hypoxia]

I think you will find there is a lot of incest going on in nudinst families. The familiarality of each others bodies makes them less inhibited. When you add in the usual kissing and cuddling that families do its not uncommon for one thing to lead to another

And you know this, how? Personal observation? Personal experience? A friend of a friend told you? Details, please.

 

[FFFan]

And you know this, how? Personal observation? Personal experience? A friend of a friend told you? Details, please.

Ha, I have not done a survey, but we had a pretty relaxed attitude to nudity at home

 

[robertreams]

Read Kinsey! It will never be outdated.

 

[robertreams]

Ffan, you are wrong, zip up your fly, your ignorance is hanging out. Nudism does not mean open sex. Nudism and sexuality are not connected in any way. Just because some of us get a hard-on every time we see a nipple,does not mean nudist have more incest. Perhaps if nudity didn't excite you to extremes, you could better understand the freedom from compulsion that natural, healthy nudity can bring to one's life. Some of us grow up to the point where we can see a tit or a penis without losing our minds, to us, it is the person,and their interaction with us as persons which we find sexually exciting, not the sight of a nude body.

 

[robertreams]

This form of logic is fallacious and cyclic.

Because you felt comfortable with seeing your family naked, you enjoyed seeing them thus and therefore DID have sexual feelings about them.

Either both your and my statement are true or both are nonsense. Rape victims hide the fact that they were raped, does that mean they had sexual hidden feelings that they really enjoyed it? No, of course not.

Sometimes people hide things because they are ashamed, or because they think people will feel negatively towards them by finding out.

So if you are hiding things because you are ashamed, what are you ashamed of? Your argument is ridiculous I didn't hide my shame because I had nothing to be ashamed of. I was, at the time, horribly ashamed of my masturbation, but the object of my masturbatory fantasies was Connie, the freckled little girl who sat in front of me in the fifth grade, and Paddy, my best bud with whom i was almost never naked but did have sex of a sort.not my mom or dad or brothers or sister whom i sometimes saw in very natural, unerotic situations. I was also naked on many occasions with two of my son sand none of us has ever had the slightest sexual inclination toward each other. I have said it often and will repeat it. The Main Sexual organ is the brain! if you think there is something to hide, there is! If you think you brother, mother, son, daughter, etc. will turn you on, they will!'