Seeing lots of interesting discussion over the recent hoorah on LJ. One interesting comment from
: “I do wonder why people thought listing incest or pedophilia as an interest on a fannish journal was a good idea. ” And
points out that it’s possible to have an academic interest in those topics – people in fields like sociology, psychology, public health, etc, want to study why incest (or pedophilia) happens, what its impact is, how the behavior relates to the surrounding community and culture, and what can be done about it.
Which made me think that, many amateur authors may be using fiction or fanfiction as a medium to search for understanding about these tough issues. Using a fictional setting and the relative anonymity of a pen name, writers can set up a scenario, play it out to its conclusion, and get feedback about it. They can probe the implications of incest (or twincest or pedophilia, or heck, the underage twins having sex with the much older giant squid for that matter) in a way that doesn’t put anyone real into harmful situations…
Not sure what my point is.