Incesty Pairings

[deird_lj]

So, I come bearing pollage.

I've seen a lot of conversations about fanfic recently, in which people have discussed different pairings and said "That pairing squicks me out. It's... almost incestuous."

And I was wondering which pairings are most likely to strike people that way.


So, under the cut is a poll, full of pairings!
Rate each pairing from 1 (not incestuous in the slightest) to 10 (really really incestuous and squicky).




[Poll #1524132]


Questions? Comments?

Comments

[mabus101.livejournal.com]

You have two identical Buffy/Wesley questions.

I have to admit that I have never seen anything particularly incestuous about pairing Connor with Fred or Cordelia. I understand intellectually why it strikes people that way, but I don't have the same feelings.

I note that, to me, vamp!Willow/Willow is very nearly masturbatory; Fred/Illyria, while it probably shouldn't be, is similar. Therefore I am utterly unsquicked.

Finally, I'm a little surprised that you don't seem to have noticed my latest fic about Illyria, especially since it's at Still Grr. Apologies if you have just been too busy to read or comment; I mention it because I thought you would find it interesting.

[deird1]

You have two identical Buffy/Wesley questions.

Yeah, I realised too late. It was supposed to be Buffy/Faith... *facepalm*


Finally, I'm a little surprised that you don't seem to have noticed my latest fic about Illyria, especially since it's at Still Grr. Apologies if you have just been too busy to read or comment; I mention it because I thought you would find it interesting.

I tend to read Still Grrr in one big rush while tagging. Right now, I'm still back at the start of the prompt. :)

[shapinglight]

Mr Gordo/Mr Pointy is disgusting! They share a drawer and everything.

[deird1]

I know! So horrifying!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Hmm - interesting. Some of them squick me but for reasons that have nothing to do with the incestuous. I tried to consider only the 'incestuous' as a reason for the squick when answering.

I realise that I am a bit hazy, sometimes, about incest when applied to single sex relationships - after all the taboo is to prevent in-breeding, and this is not going to happen in single sex relationships - and so my response to the Buffy/Dawn thing and the Joyce/Buffy or Joyce/Dawn thing interested me.

I realise that I am not squicked at all by Buffy/Dawn - and only chose a mid-point answer because it is by definition incest (and it wouldn't have mattered to me whether they were real or mystical siblings) - but on a pure 'squick level' poll I would have rated it a 1. However the parent child thing is all wrong to me even if single sex - presumably to do with the level of 'control' the parent would surely exert in such a relationship.

I have concluded that, from a reading fic point, I would be much more likely to read Buffy/Dawn than Giles/Buffy or Giles/Dawn - the relationship is much too parental in G/B, and G/D would also feel as if he was, in some way, taking advantage of her, even if she was,say, 18 to his 50.

Fascinating.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

What about the most overtly canon incest pairing of them all, Angel(us)/Drusilla?

I remember I once had a very long discussion with an idiot who was adamant that Buffy/Joyce, Buffy/Dawn and Dawn/Joyce wasn't incest because it was all women and therefore beautiful whereas incest was just for sickos who want to read about men raping their daughters.

So far I'm the only one who sees anything even remotely incestual about Faith/Robin. Huh. Quoting my own fic:

"Man, for a high school teacher, you sure seem to think you know a lot about Sla..." Her face fell as an idea seemed to hit her. "Oh no. No. Please don't tell me I just fucked a Watcher."

And so he told her how he had come to know about Slayers, how it had shaped his entire life, and why he was here in Sunnydale right now.

At first, she just stared at him. Then she flopped back on the bed with a hollow laugh. "Your mother? Oh yeah, that's what every girl wants to hear right afterwards. Jesus CHRIST, dude, you got issues."

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the duplicate Buffy/Wesley was meant to be Angel/Drusilla? It's the pairing that is conspicuous by its absence.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hm, found it hard to sort out where incestiness squicks me and where it's other stuff. I don't find Xander/Buffy particuarly incesty but I still find it squicky for a lot of other reasons.

[debris4spike]

Snap!

I thought that about a few of the pairings - so it was good to re-think in this poll.

[debris4spike]

Truly brilliant - Especially the last one!!!

btw did you realsie you have Buffy/Wesley in twice?

[deird1]

Yes! I am silly! It was supposed to be Buffy/Faith. :(

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

I think cross-generational age squick is a different thing to incest squick. It's more to do with power relationships and manipulation than fear of inbreeding... though I'd argue that the reason most people regard parent/child incest with such particular horror is because it combines the two in a way that sibling incest doesn't.

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly! To me there's an element of cross-gen squick in Dawn/Giles (whoooo is there), Dawn/Spike, Connor/Justine.... which is there because we last saw Dawn and Connor as teenagers. So it's wrong and disturbing aplenty. But it's not incest.

[elisi]

Hmmm. Interesting.

Thing is that something like Angel/Connor is very obviously straight up incest - and yet it's a pairing I have read, despite the obvious squick, because their relationship is messed up enough to go there. Joyce/Buffy on the other hand is just *wrong*.

Spike/Dawn is fairly incestuous, yet it's a pairing I like very much, but *only* when it is wrong, if that makes sense. Straight Spike/Dawn does nothing for me. Broken, disturbing Spike/Dawn I'm all over.

So I can't really do the poll, because incest does not necessarily equal squick. (As flake_sake also pointed out...)

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

Thing is that something like Angel/Connor is very obviously straight up incest - and yet it's a pairing I have read, despite the obvious squick, because their relationship is messed up enough to go there. Joyce/Buffy on the other hand is just *wrong*.

Yes, this. Exactly.

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

Hm. Apparently it has to be actual technical incest for me to get the incest-squick reaction; everything else is either just fine with me, or squicks for another reason.

Three exceptions:

Connor/Cordelia seems incestuous enough, even though it's not, that it squicks me a lot.

Connor/Jasmine squicks me but Angel/Jasmine doesn't. *shrugs* I know Jasmine is, technically, Connor's daughter -- except insomuch as she's God, so it doesn't work that way -- but their relationship is almost more like mother and son. So Connor/Jasmine is cross-gen incest squick going both directions, like. Angel and Jasmine don't have any kind of relationship, really, and with Jasmine not being human, it doesn't bother me.

Joyce/Spike seems incestuous in retrospect, now that I've seen the entire series and am a Spuffy fan. It's like Spike's her son-in-law. Had I happened across fic for this pairing before I'd seen S6-S7, it probably wouldn't have bothered me.

[me-llamo-nic.livejournal.com]

Buffy/Dawn - Nine. It's incestuous and squicksome, but I'm able to remove that lens and read it anyway.

Connor/Jasmine - Seven. It should be incestuous, but I have trouble categorizing it as such. Jasmine's just 'the big bad' in my head, not really anyone's daughter even though she is...

vamp!Willow/Willow - One. It probably should be, but it's not at all squicksome to me.

Mr. Gordo/Mr. Pointy - Poor Mr. Gordo. =/

ETA: I love the icon you used for this. But...uh...where's the Buffy/Faith question. (Was that maybe what the second Buffy/Wesley was supposed to be?)

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

Buffy/Giles is weird to me, because I don't think they quite fit the father/daughter kind of mold, yet at the same time I see something familial. I'd probably read it, though, once Buffy was a truly independent adult.

When it comes to Connor/Cordy I was always more "...er" on her part than his, because she's the one who remembers changing his diapers, not Connor. (I thought his crush was kind of sweet, actually.) If he'd never been taken I think she'd have become a mother figure for him.

Personally, I'm far less squicked out by sibling incest than pairing incest - except for Buffy/Dawn, maybe because Buffy was forced to become a parental figure. Tara/Dawn I'm conflicted on - maybe a few years down the road, if Tara hadn't died.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm so easily squicked.

For Spike/Dawn, that pairing squicks me, but it's not because I see it as incestuous. It's Dawn's young age and then the huge age gap that bother me. I have read one fic with an older Dawn and Spike that I thought worked very well.

[deird1]

I accidentally left out Buffy/Faith, when that's half the reason I came up with the poll!
*facepalms*
I was going to find out how many people (apart from you) find that one incesty...

[snickfic]

Like others have said - only a few of these hit my actual hardcore incest squick, and they were pretty much limited to people who were actually related (Buffy/Dawn, Buffy/Joyce, Dawn/Joyce, Angel/Connor).

Whereas Cordelia/Connor squicks me just as bad, but mostly because of the age difference (and partly because I just can't ship Connor with any of the adults, period). Same with Dawn and any of the adults, especially Dawn/Giles. And Spike/Dawn doesn't squick me, I just can't buy it. At all.

[next_to_normal]

Whereas Cordelia/Connor squicks me just as bad, but mostly because of the age difference

Huh. They're only like, 3 years apart - Connor's 18 and Cordy's probably 21. The thing that squicks me about them is that even though they're not actually related, there's a big level of emotional incest, because Cordelia played a motherly role to him and was in love with his dad.

[next_to_normal]

I keep changing my answers, lol. Actual incest is obvious, but when you get into familial-type relationships, where they're not actually related, I get indecisive, lol.

Sometimes that's really easy to determine - Buffy/Giles is obviously father/daughterish in nature. But others are more complicated, particularly pseudo-sibling relationships, since there's a fine line between "he's like a brother to me" and "he's a really good friend" (which could someday be more than that). Like, I can see Xander as a big brother to Dawn, but canonically she's had a crush on him, so clearly she hasn't always seen him as a big brother. On the other hand, Willow/Dawn and Tara/Dawn were both motherly relationships, actually living in the house and taking care of Dawn, so they squick me more.

[deird1]

Agreed, on all points.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

I had a hard time separating true, physical incest from emotional incest and just plain squicky (or impossible - see Ben/Glory, Fred/Illyria, etc). I think I only gave 10's to the truly incestuous, but I probably included at least one emotionally incestuous one there. I tried to confine my squicks to the 7 or 8 range. Spike and Dawn squicks me as a concept, although I have read a few very good, very believable dark fics in which it works. Still squicks me, but I could read it because it was so real. Older Dawn and Spike somewhere down the line - yeah, I could see that. Rather not, but I can. I think I even wrote a drabble once that implies it. Spike/Joyce falls into the same category as Giles/Willow/Xander stuff. Not remotely interested in it, and it isn't the relationship they had in canon, but it doesn't particularly make me shudder.
Oddly enough (in light of comments I didn't see till after I voted), the whole vampire family thing being incestuous didn't occur to me at all. In canon, the sires do have sexual relationships with their offspring. It's part of the package. So I didn't see those as incestuous at all. Hmmmmm

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

Adding another squicky, incesty pairing: Lindsey/Connor. Lindsey was in love with Connor's mother, man-I just cannot read that. *shudders*

[deird1]

Eek. *shudders* I don't think I've ever seen that one.

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

Somehow Holtz/Connor is the only one that made me 'ew' aloud. That may be a reflection of how I see Holtz generally.

Another vote for the cross-generational squick, at least where someone's been in a paternal/responsible role: Giles/Buffy squicks the hell out of me. Giles/Faith I lap up, drooling in a ladylike way. It's not about age per se.

[deird1]

I think I agree with you. :)

[obiwahn.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that people are more grossed out by Buffy/Giles than Dawn/Xander. I can't help but think it's just because Dawn/Xander have been made canon. Personally Xander/Dawn creeps me out ALOT - especially since I'm currently watching season 5 again, and Xander babysits her, has childish nicknames for her, and so on. While I don't find Buffy/Giles appealing either, it isn't as gross to me, because he is never shown infantilizing her the way Xander did toward Dawn.

At the end of the day though, incest is something that happens between blood relations. I kind of get annoyed by the whole "that's incest!" thing. It can be creepy for a number of reasons, sure. But it's not incest.

ETA: I also think it's interesting that people say they need equal power dynamics. A lot of eroticism comes from an inequality in power dynamics.

Even in the more "vanilla" of pairings - Angel/Buffy (just my opinion) where is the equality between 200 year old Angel and a 17 year old Buffy?

[deird1]

I find Buffy/Giles squicky because of the parent-child dynamic. No infantilising, no, but she asked him to walk her down the aisle, and Travers said he "has a father's love" for Buffy, and he slept with her mother, and... *shudders*

[ahigheroctave.livejournal.com]

Fred/Connor is my biggest outlier it really squicks me out.

What I found really odd is you're Standard Deviation is slightly different on your identical Buffy/Wesley polls. *ponders*

[rowanda380.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with the trend that a slayer and a watcher is less inky/incestious than say...siblings...but...I mean...I think it is weird how ok with it some people seem...I mean it is fine but to me...it is kind of taking advantage of someone whom you are a superior too, like a teacher and a student, it just seems wrong to me.

[lavastar.livejournal.com]

Lol, I love that people answered differently on the two back-to-back Buffy/Wesley questions. If they changed their minds, they could have just gone back and changed the other one, too...

I don't have much else to say except squicks are funny. :D

[lynnenne]

I cannot properly answer this poll, because there are some incestuous pairings which don't squick me at all - in fact, I love them. My OTPs are Spike/Angel and Spike/Connor, both of which I see as "pseudo-incest." I've also written Angel/Connor, which is clearly incest. There's a large sub-section of fandom that enjoys incest fics (SPN, anyone?) even though they would never encourage or condone incest in real life.

[jnb71976.livejournal.com]

This is hard for me, because many pairings are, by their nature, incestuous - but not squicky in my opinion. Like any derivative of the fanged four, for instance. And many are squicky but not necessarily incestuous. Like Connor/Cordy and Spike/Xander for me. I know others adore pairings that make my face scrunch up. I love good incest in fic, but don't ever make me read Giles making out with Dawn. It's icky for so many other reasons. But hey, to each their own boat.

[jnb71976.livejournal.com]

And now I REALLY wish I had an icon featuring Mr. Pointy and Mr. Gordo "OTP"

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Mr Gordo and Mr Pointy needed a "Huh?" response. :)

[me-llamo-nic.livejournal.com]

ICON! Couldn't resist.