A Question Anwered

I got a message from a fan recently asking me a question. It was a good one and I thought you all should hear it so I could answer it publicly. There are some good reasons for wanting to answer this in public.


"I was wondering though if you could tell me as a content creator and one whose work I respect and am a fan of, do you think you could tell me how you would describe the appeal of incest in a fantasy, novel, or game?"

Before I get started on answering that, I want to bring up something. Namely a TED talk that discusses why IQ's have been rising over time. This may seem odd to you, but bear with me for a second.





For those of you who don't want to watch the whole thing, the long story short of it is that we aren't getting massively better at math or writing and things like that. Rather, we're getting much better at a very specific form of thought - abstract thought.

People today grew up in an environment with movies, books, video games, and various hypothetical scenarios. We are used to thinking about a world where reality is different than it actually is. We can accept a world where something obviously fake is true for the sake of a story. Go ask your great-grandfather about some Science Fiction story and most will reject it out of hand. They see imagination as "kids stuff". This isn't universally true, of course - but it is a trend that increases as you go back in time. The source of those cool old people is also clear. They're the ones that got to read Weird Tales as a kid or watch sci-fi movies during their formative years or see or do something that got them to see different possibilities during their formative years. Something almost inescapable now, and something I believe contributes to the rise of "nerd culture". Something that's so ubiquitous now that it's almost a meaningless phrase.

I'm 30, and I'll be 31 next month. I grew up in a rare and unique era in a rural slum and became a nerd in an era where nerds most definitely were NOT cool. I never got to touch a computer until I was in High School. I never got to own a lot of the game systems most people did. What I did have was distantly secondhand.

And so, growing up in a rural backwater with little money I got to see a pre-electronics society in a lot of ways. Few TV's, music played on record players, small towns dominated by blue-collar cowboys and football players. There I became a bookworm. This is not some joking tale about how I was so unpopular in High School. Because of racism, poor family reputation and being a nerd I was almost beaten to death by a mob when I was in middle school. Those were the people that reacted violently to things they couldn't understand. They had, in other words, low abstract intelligence. They saw their world the way it "should" be and reacted violently to any alternate possibility. This also made me obsessed with understanding abstracts and how people process them.

Of course change comes even to rural backwaters given enough time. The place is a lot less racist, a lot less violent, and a lot less primitive now. I latched onto the most advanced technology I could with an undeniable fervor.

So what does any of this have to do with a silly sexual fetish?

First and foremost the incest fantasy is a fantasy. I and a lot of other people who make stuff with some content like that have -ZERO- interest in the real deal. To me the thought of doing anything with my actual family is disgusting. This brings me to a very important point.

The incest fetish isn't about wanting to have sex with your own family,  but imagining fake sexy people having sex with THEIR family.

"What's the difference?" you may ask.

If you have a sister or brother and imagine yourself making out with them your response is probably going to be, "Eew." Possibly followed by "eeeeeeeewwwww". On the other hand a common fantasy of a lot of guys is to have sex with twins or sisters.

Imagine two hot girls making out with one another. (Or if you're into guys, two hot brothers.) Here, have a visual aid with Melita and Kael.

These two are unrelated. Many of you, I imagine, will go, "that's pretty hot!". Now imagine the same image with Tasa and Melita - sisters. A lot of you will still think it's hot, even though you find the idea of real incest repulsive. Why? Because they're people you find sexually attractive doing something that is sexual with each other. Some of you will find the idea even hotter than the non-incestuous pairing though. Why? Because it's wrong and taboo.

But here's the key difference: It isn't real. It's a fake wrong and a fake taboo. It's a good reason for people not to want to do something but do it anyway. It's the same as any bad-boy centric romance novel a lot of women and housewives go gaga for. It's wrong but it's also hot because the people are hot and doing something they aren't supposed to.

Some of you can't see it even then. You may still find it repulsive. No worries - you haven't made it past that bit of abstract thought required to see it. This isn't a personal failing. Despite a lot of my friends liking it I've never been able to feel anything but repulsed by futa, for instance. There's still some element in there that trips you up but works for others.

For me? I feel like it's an excellent enhancer to mind control stories. Why? Because it's a good reason for sexy people to not have sex even if they want to. It's a taboo, forbidden element that allows someone to take control and overcome justified resistance to lead to a satisfying and sexy conclusion.

So for instance, let's continue with the lesbian theme above (or whatever variant floats your boat).

Two sisters are super sexy and attracted to each other, but both know it's wrong and fight their feelings. As you probably know trying to repress sexual desires really tends to just make them stronger. Now some evil mind controller comes in and makes them make out with each other. The sisters themselves are now blameless - the sexy action that ensues, in spite of it's taboo and wrong nature, is not their fault. The responsibility is out of their hands, so they have no need to feel guilt, nor do the readers. After all, it's the bad, bad mind controller that made them give into those forbidden desires. Their repressed lusts makes it super satisfying and sexy for them.

The same logic and reason applies to any stormy romance. A good Christian girl is sitting at home reading her bible eating Graham Crackers to repress her sexual desires  when some sexy, sexy man comes by and like an evil fiend sweeps her off her feet. She knows it's wrong to give into his lusts but, damn, his pecs are like fucking iron. Even though she says no a lot he takes her anyway and she cannot resist. A stormy, doomed, "forbidden" romance ensues.

The same appeal often rests with stories about steamy affairs. Being married is a good reason not to have sex with anyone else, but it's a popular genre of forbidden love.

Stories are driven by conflict. "Two people wanted to have sex and then did, the end," is a boring story. "Two people wanted to have sex but couldn't and so had to fight their desires only to give in and have sex later" is a Harlequin romance novel. It also makes things hotter. Tension needs to build in order for the payoff when they do have sex to be as big as possible.

All of these are abstracts. Hypotheticals. Not-real scenarios. That's what makes most fantasy fetishes work. Some concepts are repulsive in real life but hot in a fictional story.

For my part I'm fine with incest because in a fictional world all the real world negatives associated with it don't have to exist. It's just a good reason for sexy people to resist having sex with each other.

On the other hand my mind does NOT see past the abstract leap to let me enjoy stories about affairs. I see real life adulterers as horrible people and some part of me will not let me forgive a fictional example. This has to do with my own life. I've never been married but almost was once. While I was in Iraq my fiance got pregnant and married to someone else, breaking up with me on the phone right before I came home. Obviously that has a big part in why I'm not able to accept that abstract.

For the same reason real victims of incest probably won't see the abstract in that scenario. Actual good Christian women sexually assaulted by a handsome sociopath probably wont like that fantasy. Sometimes the opposite is true, of course - some victims of sexual assault enjoy rape fantasies because it's so unlike the reality of what they experienced.

And there you have the basics of what makes it work. It isn't real and almost all sexual fantasies rely on some degree of abstract reason, even if you never realized what made things work for you. It's my job to understand why things work, and that's what makes it all so interesting.

Home Invasion is my next game and it's focused on mind control and incest. It's entirely fake and nobody is based on a real person. I actually had some characters redesigned at points because they vaguely reminded me of real people. That game is being made for people who want more in-depth mind control and liked the Tasa/Melita stuff in Overwhored. I'm going to make it silly, and humorous, and totally not serious and unlike the real world in the ways that matter. And when it's done I'll go right back to making other stuff.

In real life I'm super vanilla. I legitimately like hypnoplay, I like anal sex with hot girls (though the real thing is highly overrated and takes a lot of prep) and... well, that's about it. If I were in a relationship with neither of those things (and I have been in the past) then it'd be perfectly fine.

More important than my real life is the fact that I'm a writer. And in fictionland abstract ideas and conflict rules supreme. Fiction is more interesting than real life because we design it to be. So long as we understand what drives people we can create stuff that fascinates them even if they don't understand why.

I hope the question can be considered answered. Thanks for your time.