azdaema

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
source debated

In theory, ethical prostitution might be possible. People can imagine a scenario where that's the case. They can write a story about that. That story can be pretty good—I love Inara Serra and Phèdre nó Delaunay.

But ultimately that is all theory; it's hypothetical, it's imagined. The storytelling is part of theory, not practice. And when in practice, when the majority of real-world prostitution is highly abusive, it is grossly immoral to continue to insist, "Well, abuse can creep in anywhere. This is just an isolated bad case—the theory is still solid." Horrific abuse is not a statistical inconvenience to be swept under the rug: it is a real issue that needs to really be addressed. And situations that disproportionately yield abuse are not detached from the abuse that follows.

This is a callout post for the incest shipping community. Sort of.

I was never able to understand the faction of shippers who have sibling OTPs, but then swear up and down that they don't condone incest in real life. There certainly exists shipping that is primarily concerned with exploring messy thing like codependency and obsession—rich topics for literature, but destructive in real life. Yet the sentiment of "it's only ok in fiction" is not exclusive to those cases, and can be found in fluffy ships as well. Shipping is an intense emotional experience, and most shippers I know are ride-or-die for their OTPs. So this mindset always baffled me. If your OTP were real, you would turn your back on them? Really? You wrote this very wholesome fic, depicting a loving relationship, explicit consent, and deep understanding. Just which part of this would be reprehensible in real life?

Within incest shipping, the other major viewpoint is that—both in fiction and real life—consensual incest should be destigmatized and legalized. This is sometimes accompanied by a vague air of activism and occasional links to real stories or support groups, though the main focus still centers on fiction, shipping, and tropes. That's the group I always aligned myself with.

I conceptualized the incest taboo as comparable to the homosexuality taboo. Because it is viscerally repugnant to the majority of the population, thereby the minority to whom it is not unthinkable are abominations. There is no possibility of acknowledging that some people might feel this way, while retaining that it's ok that it's anathema to most. Other similarities include the argument around children: they either cannot or should not have biological children together, and this is framed as nature ruling against them. Both are or once were traditionally considered predatory or pedophilic. This is often the central argument, because everyone can agree that predatory sexuality is very wrong. But neither has to be that way: it can also be practiced between loving, consenting adults.

A more emotion-based argument that really swayed me was the idea that I had some moral obligation to care about the real-world equivalent because I do ship lots of siblings. It would be very bad to be like a straight man that thinks lesbians are hot but doesn't think they should be able to marry. Other people's relationships don't exist to please you.

In the small sphere of incest shippers, we virtually never talk about abusive incest. It's unrelated to our topic, and—frankly—it's a downer.

And from a fictional standpoint, yes, it is pretty unrelated. That's a different trope. But once people claim the mantle of activism, or frame this as a social justice issue, then that's no longer true.

This is known as the "no true Scotsman" fallacy—in order to differentiate oneself from an undesirable behavior of group members, one claims that they are not "really" members of the group (in the same way that men proclaim that "real" men don't rape in an attempt to preclude recognition that sexual violence is a gendered crime).
C.K. Egbert

Fiction is all about star-crossed lovers with mythological allusions. It's not about powerless people getting abused because they are conveniently on hand around the house. We may speak of the latter on occasion, in the context of debates, but we don't tell stories about it. We do not truly dwell on it.

The fact is that there are no good statics on real-world incest, due to its secretive nature. We simply do not know what proportion of incest occurring in the world is consensual. But what we do know is this: a lot of sexual abuse occurs within family. A lot of people have been hurt by this. They are real, their pain is real, and they are in need of protection. They are not a statistical inconvenience to be ignored and overlooked.

There are other laws specially about abuse, rape, and pedophilia, yes. But we all know rape allegations rarely end in convictions, and the accused will always argue it was consensual.

And consent is not always as simple as yes or no. Grooming is a thing that happens. So is coercion. I've heard social workers talk about people they worked with who convinced themselves that their ongoing rape at the hands of a family member was consensual, or at least semi-consensual, as a coping mechanism.

Very common is the argument focusing on how the ability to consent is impaired by various power dynamics. That is true, but to my mind it's over simplistic. Power is just the starting place: it is not the only force at work in the cesspool that is family. A friend who you loved but also hated could be described as "a complicated relationship." But with family, simultaneous love and hate are to be expected—it's the default. Family is just so complicated and so messy, with so many different emotions pulling you different ways even at the best of times. Love wars with obligation, protectiveness with resentment.

"Oh my jewel, my treasure, my little hurricane. My poor, brave girl. It will all be right, Mercedes. I know. Family is the heaviest burden we can ever bear. I know. Oh, how I know."
voices_of_salt

The one good fictional example of this that I can think of is the infamous rape scene in Flowers in the Attic. In the moment it occurs, it's rape. After the fact, Cathy forgives her brother and rationalizes it, because she loves him and needs him. Within the context of the abuse being enacted by their mother, he is her one and only ally. She cannot afford to hold this against him… and so she doesn't.

Family is messy, consent is messy, and the intersection is messy. If incest were legalized, that would be a defense exploited by abusers, and they would sometimes get away with it. Abuse allegations are a very loose sieve as it stands, and I don't think it can be made any looser without causing real harm to real people.

"But this is different!"

But it will be used that way. Abusers can and will use any argument they can get their hands on. Always. Always. Always. You have to acknowledge this, and plan for it. To do otherwise—to willfully ignore the danger this precedent poses to vulnerable people—is morally reprehensible.

Any serious consideration of social problems is likely to involve trade-offs rather than neat "solutions," and trade-offs depend on values which can vary from one individual to the next.
Thomas Sowell

I believe genuinely consensual incest exists. I feel for those people trapped by laws and taboos. But I cannot in good conscience prioritization star-crossed lovers at the expense of rape victims. Hierarchy of needs: physical safety comes first. If someone came up with a tangible plan for how to make things better for individuals in wholesome incest while also protecting victims and vulnerable people, I would love to hear it. But until then, it's not ethical to proceed.

Next time someone says, "What about abuse?" don't reply, "Well, there are high rates of domestic abuse between unrelated spouses as well, and we don't ban marriage because if it." What the fuck kind of argument is that? Lots of other people are getting abused, so it's ok if these people get abused too. Instead, try actually addressing their concerns. Are there any measure that could be put in place to allow consensual incest while also addressing sexual abuse within families? What if it was legal, but with a much higher age of consent?

As shippers, we are neither directly affected by this issue nor are we impartial observers. We are extremely biased, for reasons that are emotional, not philosophical. To point to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's, "The Danger of a Single Story"—we, as shippers, have a single story, and it is decidedly non-abusive. We endlessly read and write countless iterations of this story. We laugh and cry and joke, and we are deeply emotionally invested—but only in one side. We know the abusive form exists, but we know it in a hypothetical sort of way that is not as grounded or as visceral as our understanding of the flipside. Until we discuss incest rape with the same frequency, empathy, and compassion as we do our favorite ships, we are not truly seeing both sides of the issue. The fact is, we are not well-versed on this topic.

So where does this leave me?

Myself, I am not an activist—not in general, and certainly not for this issue. I am a writer and a reader who likes a trope. I don't think it's morally wrong to write fanfic with memory loss tropes, while not advocating for—or even knowing much about—real-world amnesia patients. Writing fanfic fetishizing gay men is made worse by asserting that it's woke and you get brownie points for it.

I feel for those on both sides of this issue. But policy? Social norms? I can't take a stance on either side for that.

I love these stories. I have breathed these stories in so deeply I do not know how to remove the imprint from my lungs. But what I love about them—the mythological allusions, the way they seem to come pre-marinated with lush poetic language—are part of the trope, not part of the real-world equivalent.

So in conclusion: I care. I would support most of my ships, were they real. But this is not an wholesale endorsement of policy changes in their favor, because they are not the only people who would be impacted by it. But I do fully endorse those in healthy relationships sneaking around the rules, like loving little ninjas.

How about cousins, ok? Cousin marriage has been accepted in most of the world for most of history—it's tried and tested, with little potential for abuse. Let's just start there.