He'd probably laugh. And then try and tackle me.

S'all good.

 

Yes, you narrow minded [censored].

Second cousins actually. Two of my four Greatgranddads had been brothers.

 

I just checked your post history. You started this thread even though you are quite clearly a fan of Percy Jackson. You do realize that all of the campers are related right? All of those relationships would then be incest...Maybe, it isn't mother and son action, but it is definitely still incest. So why are you asking other people why they read incest when clearly you do as well?

 

First, who are these peope?

Second, of course taboo pairings are popular, you naive fool, you.

We do treat them the same. In that we have all of those other kinds of stories too. Just look at all the Harry/Gabrielle and Harry/Hedwig stories. Or werewolf stuff.

The internets are fucked up. Deal with it.

 

And the Lot/daughters thing had the added benefit of being a threesome. If two is a pairing, what's three?

Hmm, maybe this explains the rise of Christianity; after all, I don't remember any of the Greek or Roman myths having someone get it on with a couple nubile young sisters, and certainly not any where it was the bitches' idea in the first place.

Y'know, if Lot had known what was to come, he'd not only have saved those tears he shed for his unnamed wife, he'd have pointed back over her shoulder at Sodom and shouted, "Whoa! Are those shoes on *sale*?"

:awesome

EDIT:

QFTMFT.

 

... Hera and Zeus. Brother and Sister that were totally dicking one another, and the children of married siblings and the grandchildren of married siblings. Apollo is supposed to have a thing for Artemis in a few legends, all of the Titans who were related were married, Adonis was born of father/daughter incest, and let's not forget Oedipus. The Vanir of Norse mythology had legal incest, Egyptian gods frequently married their siblings, etc...

Incest wasn't something that came with the Jews.

 

Game of Thrones. I wouldn't expect it to be all that uncommon of a pairing though - it is canon after all.

And Lily is a MILF.

 

Reading comprehension: How does it work?

My point was that yes, those other myths had incest, but Christianity took a level in depravity and upped the kink to a threesome.

Y'know, two daughters, one dad?

 

And three generations of incest is less kinky and deprived? :facepalm

 

Harry/Lily is hot because Lily isn't actually the reader's mother. When we read Harry/Lily we're projecting ourselves onto Harry. So it's like reading yourself with Lily, not yourself with your own mother.

And Lily is a hottie.

 

From a purely biological view, incest CAN be bad, but isn't always. Yes, you have horror stories about trailer parks and such. But that's over several generations (well, possibly. It IS hard to count how many there have been in such a web). Over one or two generations, this isn't likely to cause that bad of a problem - there hasn't been enough time for mutations to appear in high enough frequency.

I used to work at an aquarium, and one of the rangers explained over a lunchtime meeting how he'd managed to get seventeem generations of brother/sister relationships with seahorses before there were even minor phenotypic defects.


From a literary view, read the other posts here. Lily isn't our mother. And, whether consciously or not, the majority of readers will cast themselves as either the hero or an 'over the shoulder invisible cameraman' . And as Lily is never described negatively in canon (I think), we view her as perfect.

Also, it is a minor form of role-play. Socially taboo role-play, but still. Looking here (NOT SAFE FOR WORK. OR ANYONE UNDERAGE. THIS IS A EROTICA SITE), incest is the second largest category. After a generic 'erotic coupling' one.

And with literary incest, the story CAN become more important. If you want to write a Harry/older woman fic, there are several choices. I'll go through a few:
Harry/Gryffie chaser - no plot needed. Showers after practice, anyone? Doesn't need ANY plot at all, can just dive right in.
Harry/Order Member - they are in no position of trust over him. Nothing for anyone to have to overcome. PWP easy to write.
Harry/Teacher- position of trust, but most people have fantasized about at least one teacher. This isn't too weird (albeit illegal in muggle UK), so can have mostly porn. Minimal plot.
Harry/(somehow-still-alive)!Lily - the ickiness has to be overcome. The plot becomes important to ensure readers still read and still fap, yet isn't needed to the level of a seriously done piece.

What I'm trying to point out is that because incest is taboo, it needs more justification. Without it, then the story has shock value. And people LIKE shock value.

*EDIT*

Accidentally deleted conclusion - if you set out to write a smut fic, then you will, quite possibly, forget the plot. Making it incestuous forces you to remember the plot is important.

 

Oh wow, the generalisations you make.

If you’ve read PJO, you would know that the relationships there are justified as non-incest because the “gods don’t have human DNA” or some BS Riordan cooked up. Silly, I know. But since the story is based off Greek mythology, cousin!incest is inevitable…

The reason why I tolerate the pseudo-incest of PJO is that it's intrinsically linked to the entire premise of the story: a bunch of special kids find out that their missing parents are Olympian gods. I have to treat the concept of the story is being related to Greek mythology; it's incidentally why I liked PJO.

Oh, gee, just because I like Greek mythology, I must like incest, like Shakespeare does, and the entire archaeology department at my university. It’s not because I want to bolster my understanding of literature or because I like the Classics, but because of incest.

By your reasoning, should we assume that the ancients had the right idea? Should we also marry five wives, institute a slave market, and believe in (fictitious) gods? The Bible is a repository of only sound advice, obviously.

lol, I tried not to bring religion into this argument, but oh well. =P

Even in ancient times, “direct” incest between parents and their children was frowned upon for non-gods. Oedipus Rex, anyone? (Although the whole father-killing thing also played a part). And even for the gods, the incest was probably justified using that “Adam/Eve” argument, that if you go back far enough, you’re related. As in, you could only shag somebody who were directly related to you somehow. I’d like to think that we’ve moved on from those days, though; surely the gene pool has diversified enough to you can shag people who aren’t your parents or your first cousins.

And don’t mention the royal families, because I will mention haemophilia and the Habsburgs.

I don’t care if I sound conservative, but I think incest, at the very least the “direct” kind within the immediate family, is “icky”. Even if it may take a few generations for the repercussions to show, it's definitely not something that I would tacitly support or teach my kids. It's not a healthy attitude to propagate, especially within your own family. Can I hear the social services? D:

I suppose I’d have to chalk the incest in fanfiction to “different fetishes, different taboos”. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

As Sesc said, it is the internet. I should tolerate different beliefs.

EDIT:

And I think I got my answer from this thread. As Taure said, "Harry/Lily is hot because Lily isn't actually the reader's mother. When we read Harry/Lily we're projecting ourselves onto Harry". And because Lily is hot. That theory does explain why you barely see any Harry/Petunia, but see a shitstorm of Harry/Lily and Draco/Narcissa.

The only question I could ask now, I suppose, is why not James/Lily? Why not "project" yourself into a younger James? Is it because Harry is younger and more relatable? Or is it because there is something inherently "forbidden" about Lily/harry? Because Lily is a MILF?

 

I already linked the explanation:

It's undeniable fact that most of DLP is damaged goods in one way or another. A relatively common variety of damage here is mother issues. Hence the popularity of Harry/Lily. Same reason Harry/fem!Harry is popular, DLP has a fair few narcissists. If you spend a while meditating on which kinks are and aren't popular on DLP, you can get a pretty accurate psychological profile of the group.

 

There are a lot of James/Lily fics, just not on DLP because of Potter Law #1.

 

Eh, I think most of DLP are generally a fairly normal group of people. On the nerdy side, sure, but pretty well-adjusted in our normal lives.

 

We're writing Harry Potter fanfiction. That means were stuck with a certain set of relationships. With Harry being the protagonist and the one we project ourselves on, James will always be 'Harry's father', even if he isn't. So even if James is the mean protagonist of a story and he's nailing Lily, it's still Harry's father (and thus, in a way, the reader's father). And if Freud taught us one thing (lol), it's that we do not want our father taking our bitches from us.

And from that fertile soil an Oedipus Flower grew.

I think you're making more of it, than it really is. Sure, this might be true for some people, but for most, it's very simple.

Lily is hot.
We want to fuck hot women.
We are Harry.
Ergo: Harry fucks Lily.

There really doesn't have to be more to it than that.

 

There's no dearth of hot women in Harry Potter, and most of them are easier to write a porny scenario for than Lily, as Thaumatologist said earlier. 'Suddenly, Harry gets molested in [the showers/Grimmauld Place/some isolated corner of Hogwarts] by [Katie|Alicia|Angelina/Tonks|Fleur/anyone at Hogwarts]' is a hell of a lot easier than rewriting a huge chunk of HP history just to let Harry stick his dick in his mum. You don't go that distance just because she's hot, you do it because fictional incest rings your bells.

 

Most of those have less character development than Lily though, making them less 'real' and more random woman than an actual character. And those that do have more background, usually have more stories written about them as well. Some just prefer the redhead MILF over the blond Veela or Metamorphmagus though.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if the incest angle makes people write the pairing less sooner than more. If Alice Longbottom was described in a similar way (practically flawless, hot, redhead MILF) with enough screen time to make her more than a name, there would be so much Harry/Alice fics where Harry somehow cures Alice and needs to be 'repaid', that Taure would feel compelled to write a long post about the need for less Healer!Harry's.

 

I think there are "worst" things out there then Harry/Lily fics. I mean there's a ton of Wincest out there, and just the other day, I had the misfortune of stumbling across a story where James, Sirius, and Remus gang rape Harry. *shivers, then pukes*

 

Sigh, it is a shit excuse and you know it. I think you missed the entire point I was trying to make. It wasn't about whether you liked incest or not. It was about the fact that people have been writing about it for ages (and coming up with flimsy justifications for it). In the old days, it was well they are gods.

Now, you see a trend in Japan of brothers and sisters falling in love in manga and using the excuse that they aren't really related by blood. These manga are quite popular as well. Japanese gods, Roman/Greek gods, Egyptian gods, Adam and Eve's children, Noah's children, Lot and his daughters, etc. etc.

This isn't an isolated incident. It exists in almost every culture. If it is explained through stories of gods or men, it is irrelevant. It is a way to express a desire of the forbidden. I didn't bring up religious stories to look upon them as religious stories, but to look upon them as early works of fiction. What are variations of myths if not early fan fiction? Incest is not some rarity in the literary world. Why should it be such in HP fan fiction?

You can justify it any way you want, but at the end of the day, it doesn't exist because Lily is a MILF. It exists because it has always been there. People just don't like to talk about it, or they create their excuses so that they can feel a bit less dirty about it.