Thursday, August 18, 2011

A Top Ten List of Consanguinamory in Fiction

The Mary Sue had “10 of Our Favorite Incestuous Relationships.”

So we decided to do a grid about incest, because who doesn’t love incest?

…Okay, everybody. Everybody doesn’t love incest.

No small percentage of the population today and throughout history has enjoyed consensual consanguineous sex, as everything from youthful experimentation to lifelong spousal-style consanguinamory.

In folklore, where the Greek and Egyptian pantheons are founded on incestuous couples, and incestuously romantic or born heroes abound, not to mention all the examples (or near examples) from the Bible. And we like to put it in our popular culture as well!

There’s a reason for that.

We’d like to thank our runners up, Revolutionary Girl Utena (disqualified not because it doesn’t totally have incest in it like ALL the time, but because we put RGU on almost every power grid), Veronica Mars (because wow, that was complicated), Back to the Future, and Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

First up? Luke and Leia from “Star Wars.”

But we all know the canonical story of Luke and Leia, the one that gets as far a a bout of tonsil-hockey motivated more by trying to make the other guy jealous rather than deep romantic affection. Let’s talk about the story that was almost canon.

Published in 1978, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye is a Star Wars Expanded Universe novel set between the release of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, intended to pave the way for a low budget made-for-TV sequel, should A New Hope prove less than successful. Which is to say, it was written in that nebulous period where George Lucas wasn’t sure if he was ever going to get to make another Star Wars movie, let alone two. And so he hadn’t really figured out if he wanted Luke and Leia to be a romantic pair or a genetic pair.

Those two categories need not be mutually exclusive in real life, and don't need to be exclusive in fiction.

The list includes, among others, the Lannisters from Game of Thrones, characters from True Blood, and King Arthur and Mongrause.

What I want to see from mainstream media is a prominent, positive consanguinamorous relationship featuring admirable and sympathetic characters, whether it is based on Genetic Sexual Attraction or not. Such a relationship can draw and keep a large audience, and drama can be provided though struggles against unjust laws and disapproval from others.
at

4 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 18, 2011 at 4:32 PM

    I would love to see a positive example of an incest relationship in mainstream media. It seems like every time someone is shown to have been in such a relationship it ends up badly for those involved. Frankly I'm tired of it always being shown as "wrong" or "freaky". And if they have kids, you just know the kids will come out "wrong". Enough! It's time to show that incest can be a good thing, that there are many people out there enjoying such a relationship. It's just they have to hide it because we've all seen what happens when they do go public or get discovered. Mainstream media needs to show some positive incest relationships, to open people's eyes to the truth and perhaps change their minds about it.

    -Liz

    ReplyDelete
  2. Full Marriage EqualityAugust 18, 2011 at 5:18 PM

    Thanks, Liz. I have seen with my own eyes that there are happy, loving, beautiful relationships with intelligent, attractive people who are not somehow disordered, and that there can be healthy, beautiful children as a result. There are fascinating, funny, and touching stories to be mined for mainstream depiction. Someone with guts stands to make some money and a bigger name from doing so.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousMay 17, 2012 at 6:13 PM

      It's so rare to find a brother-sister couple in a non-tragic and non-exploitative plotline, but folks are relatively more open-minded in Europe. If you want a good fictional work with positive depictions of consanguinamorous main characters you should check out the 2000 German film, "Der Kuß meiner Schwester" (Der Kuss meiner Schwester). The film is about an attractive and sympathetically-depicted brother and sister who fall in love and start a relationship. It also deals realistically with the the consequences of their father discovering their secret and his mixed emotions eventually leading to a heartwarming conclusion. The ending is clearly dumbed down and tacked on to appease modern sentiments, but event that doesn't reduce the film noticeably.

      Delete
    2. Full Marriage EqualityMay 18, 2012 at 9:01 AM

      Thank you, Anonymous, for that information.

      Delete

To prevent spam, comments will have to be approved, so your comment may not appear for several hours. Feedback is welcome, including disagreement. I only delete/reject/mark as spam: spam, vulgar or hateful attacks, repeated spouting of bigotry from the same person that does not add to the discussion, and the like. I will not reject comments based on disagreement, but if you don't think consenting adults should be free to love each other, then I do not consent to have you repeatedly spout hate on my blog without adding anything to the discourse.

If you want to write to me privately, then either contact me on Facebook, email me at fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com, or tell me in your comment that you do NOT want it published. Otherwise, anything you write here is fair game to be used in a subsequent entry. If you want to be anonymous, that is fine.

IT IS OK TO TALK ABOUT SEX IN YOUR COMMENTS, BUT PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY AS I WANT THIS BLOG TO BE AS "SAFE FOR WORK" AS POSSIBLE. If your comment includes graphic descriptions of activity involving minors, it's not going to get published.