incest shipping, the privileging of romantic-sexual love, and culture-centrism

[cimorene]

I've had a hard time putting my finger on why some particular meta that I see from various incest-shipping communities perturbs me when I am, in fact, an incest shipper myself in some fandoms, both RPS and not. I mean, obviously the problem isn't the incest, then; so what, I thought, is it?

But as of now, I can put my finger on it!

It's a particular culture-centrism in a particular argument that I sometimes see. The argument basically attempts to deduce logically the incestuous(/sexual) quality of a relationship as a direct consequence of its intensity, or scope, or, y'know, bigness. Of course, there is a subtle difference between the bigness as a foundation for speculation - which is generally the biggest motivator for incest fic I think - and the argument that the bigness itself is inherently and also canonically implicative of incest/sexualisation. So that argument - the difference between "profound love... let's speculate on making it sexual" and "profound love is always inherently sexual" - is always in the background, in any incest shipping situation.

The problem is that that basic premise, "The sibling love relationship is the most profound love and most profound relationship in these siblings' lives" does not inherently imply incest. Or at least, that's certainly taking for granted a proposition that is at best highly debatable. Romanticising brotherly love, or to put it another way, making sibling love really BIG, as big as sexualised romantic love conventionally is, is just the starting point. It doesn't have to be, "Any time you love someone THIS much or more it automatically is sexual/is not brotherly anymore". It can also be, "Brotherly love CAN BE just as big as sexual love."

The reason I call this automatic sexualisation of love based on its, er, bigness culture-centric is that I view that presumption as arising from a deeply embedded, sometimes unexamined moral norm of modern Western culture: the privileging of sexual and romantic life partnership, or the nuclear family unit, over other forms of love and family.

Life-partnership is privileged in modern Western society and culture: the "highest", most celebrated, most romanticised, most rewarded, most socially protected form of love, and defined exclusively as 1) sexual, 2) romantic, and 3) monogamous. Sexual-romantic-monogamous life partnership (hereafter SRM LP - if there's an existing term I don't know it) is so fundamental to our society and culture that it can be difficult to see it as a construction. In this culture the so-called "nuclear family" (SRM LP + children) has been called a "building block of society", and the prevalence of the SRM LP model is easy to see in the extremely low acceptance of asexuality, bisexuality, and polysexuality/polygamy compared with homosexuality, or the transfer of the nuclear family model, sometimes called "heteronormative" in this context, to contemporary constructions of gay romance.

This is culture-centric because in many other cultures, the nuclear family is not the most important form of family, and/or SRM LP is not the privileged or most important form of love.

Comments

[brownbetty]

Yes, I see what you mean, as if L > n = Sex!

Perhaps some sort of scale, where L₁ leads to cuddling, but L₁+1 would lead to heavy petting, and then from there, where I suppose the highest expression of love could be. er. fisting?

[cimness.livejournal.com]

My brain immediately goes to that woman who said that the Obamas engage in PDAs like public hugging, kissing, and "even fisting". It transpired that she meant fist-BUMPING, but LOL.

Anyway... I approve of this formula! Is that L₁+6, or more like L₆+1?

[brownbetty]

I think, my maths being rather in the distant past, that we use L_n to indicate we're speaking of a particular L (between, for example, n couple) or a particular (n) quantity of L.

But this is based on my hazy memory of tenth grade math, which, I ought to mention, I took in a second language.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. I know that but... now I can't even articulate what I was trying to say. Okay. I mean is that

L₁ indicates 1st love-originating impulse (for example, "comfort" or "seek comfort" or "express apreciation for a loved one"), L₂ indicates 2nd love-related impulse,; and "+1" is equivalent to "+ sexual attraction quantified on a scale of 1-10"? Like so if L₁ is the impulse to give comfort and you add no sexual attraction, you get cuddling; but at +10 (scorching, sexpollen-level attraction as found in porny romancefic) you might get... oral sex?

Or was that like, L₁ is romantic love and L₂ is brotherly love...

[hand2hand.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. One of the things that I learned from reading various meta about Supernatural (I've watched the show but I'm not really a fan) is that incest is actually present quite often in some of the Gothic-style tales that inform the show's approach to its genre. I did not know that, not knowing much about the Gothic genre or horror, or the literary history of either. It makes me want to study more about the genre and see how Supernatural fits into that.

Also I do see what you say about privileging the life-partner romantic sexual love thing, but I'm not so sure that in pop culture, anyway, traditional hetero marriage is held up as any kind of ideal. Being single, straight and always in love is kind of the ideal, maybe.... Married couples on TV, anyway, are usually presented as boring or troubled and single people seem to get getting laid a lot more, lol.

This, however, does go against the strong cultural message you discuss -- that what we're all going for should be monogamous permanent heterosexual marriage, which is clearly rewarded by the System and unreflexively considered Good, despite all the well- documented problems with marriage as an institution and so forth, to say nothing of the near invisibility of other family structures.

USA culture is so all over the map with what it purports to value. Thanks for making me think.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, Gothic lit has quite a strong tradition of that. Wuthering Heights is the classic example. Or, for a more bite-sized example, there's "The Fall of the House of Usher". That context informs the subtext for sure.

[brownbetty]

I read Frankenstein recently, and it's great. Victor's all “My beloved wife, who was adopted by my parents as a child, and was as a sister to me, and after the death of my mother, a mother also!”

And you're like, whoah, victor, decide which creepy incestuous subtext you're going for and stick with it!

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Hahhaha yeah. That book had a dizzying quantity of wrongs to choose from.

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

True. I don't have to go back that far to dig up the adventure fiction for men, where the focus is usually in the main character's deep friendship/love with his guy friend. And they (usually) weren't about thinly-veiled slash, either, but about friendship. I also read, in my university years, years-long, very loving mail exchange between family members and friends, usually female ones. Where did these loving relationships other than SRM LP go? Why do people feel the need to interpret a loving relationship solely as SRM?

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I was kind of TOTALLY ticked off when I was subbing at that daycare and one of the teachers told me that she thought it was all gross and inappropriate that one of the little kids - I guess he'd be, uh, 5 or so? Maybe 6? Totally one of those crazy ADHD kids that can't sit still - sat on his mom's lap and was giggling and licked her on the face. Like, geez, he's a little kid and simultaneously being an asshole and showing affection. If small children cannot innocently touch THEIR OWN MOTHERS, then wtf *can* be innocent? I kind of wanted to kick her in the pants. That kind of poisonous attitude is the last kind of thing small children need to be exposed to.

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's similar to the problem I had intellectually with slash when I first encountered it - that these here guys love each other soooo much, it must be sexual or romantic. As if relationships which aren't romantic aren't important or worthy of acknowledgment.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, definitely. I hate the "they MUST be gay because straight boys don't cuddle/wear pink/..." argument and it's definitely related. It's not just brotherly love that is excluded when everything's automatically sexualised.

[brownbetty]

...I read your icon (I really need glasses) as "this is the hammer of pants."

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

...which would kind of make sense. Huh.

[vass]

Very well said.

[revulo.livejournal.com]

This is going into my memories. It's like you went in my head and wrote an awesome post out of the incoherent mess that you found.

EDIT: Though I do have a question: How are you defining "romantic" here?

[hivesofactivity.livejournal.com]

This is so interesting, and is a much better articulation of fuzzy thoughts I've had swimming in my brain for years, since there's often nothing "just" about "just friends".

A few years ago there was an application here by a couple of elderly sisters (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1528745/Treat-us-like-lesbians-say-sisters-in-tax-fight.html), who wanted to effectively enter into a civil partnership with each other, as they were one another's primary social and emotional relationship, which was finally refused on appeal last year. Now, although I didn't like the way they argued (which was effectively "lesbians have more rights than us!", rather than actually focussing on your SRM-LP model as the problem), and the heart of it was their wish to avoid inheritance tax, it was interesting that the lawyers discussing the case acknowledged that it opened up the possibility of a far wider group of relationships being seen as significant, on an equal level with SRM-LP. Also interesting was the fact that the House of Lords did originally vote "in favour of granting the exemption to close relatives aged 30 or more who had lived together for at least 12 years", but this was overturned later in the Commons.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

WTF, why would that be overturned? It's not really weird (or unique to one culture/place) for unpartnered siblings to stay together! In fact, it's pretty standard. UGH.

[shotboxer.livejournal.com]

Also very much exemplified in the legal principle that you cannot be compelled to testify against your spouse, but they can sure as hell force you to testify against your children, sibling, parent, etc. which always makes me very, very angry - no one should be forced, legally or otherwise, to testify against someone they love. Now try and get the law reformed to expand the exception to non-spousal relationships . . .

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, definitely. Not to mention the various tax benefits in various countries that amount to the government paying you to get married or cohabit. (For instance, you can't become a common-law spouse in Finland without declaring the LP aspect of your cohabitation. Though obviously they don't ask if you're sexual, romantic, and monogamous like they do in the US green card examination thingies.)