Who am I to sneer at a gift from the google gods? If writing about sister sex will boost my blog ranking, then what the heck, I’ll write about sister sex. Or rather, write about writing sister sex.
We have such a strong taboo against incest that if you want to write about sibling sex in a mainstream novel, the incest must be motivated. In other words, there has to be a strong reason for it. Perhaps the children were shut away in an attic most of their lives and had only themselves to rely on. (If I remember correctly, this was the premise of V.C. Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic.) Perhaps two sisters were molested by their father, and the only tender love they knew was the love they offered each other. Perhaps the parents saw nothing wrong with sibling sex, perhaps even encouraged it by having a brother and sister share a bed. (Of course, this complicates matters in that you have to show the parents’ actions as being motivated. Why would they think this was an acceptable arrangement?)
The point is, if you want people to accept the incest, you have to give them more of a reason for siblings to have sex than simply because they wanted it. People want lots of things that are not acceptable, but that does not make the thing acceptable to lots of people. As always, with writing, you need to figure out what your motive is for writing the scene before you can figure out your characters’ motivations. Are you trying to prove that sibling love is acceptable? That it’s inevitable under certain circumstances? That love is love wherever you find it? That you have the hots for your sister or brother and want society’s okay? Whatever you want to prove, you then have to write the scene with this objective in mind.
Once you get past the motivation and emotion leading up to the sibling sex scene, writing a sex scene with a sister is the same as any other sex scene. You show the two together, you show them connecting both emotionally and physically, and at the end you show how their interaction affected them.
The emotion does not have to be love on both sides. Nor does it have to be a single emotion. There could be love coupled with revulsion, love with fear, hate with sorrow. The emotion and how it affects the couple, how it changed them or defined them is what makes the scene compelling, and the more contradictory the emotions, the better.
For more about writing sex scenes, see:
Writing Sex Scenes
Writing Erotica
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July 9, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Way to hit a difficult topic head on Pat.
July 9, 2009 at 10:32 pm
If you set your book in the Netherlands or Belgium you wouldn’t have to worry about the legal side of it. Incest is not against the law in either place. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)
July 9, 2009 at 10:59 pm
You took a difficult subject and handled it with grace. Great job, Pat.
July 10, 2009 at 11:00 am
Excellent perspective, and obviously applicable to writing any scene Pat. Raison d’etre, why it is what it is. Simply there is always motivation for an action, even if it is inaction.
July 11, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I remember them teaching me that in physics. But maybe every action has an equal and apposite provocation too.
July 11, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I honestly don’t see why there’s a taboo on the subject to begin with really, putting the genetic issue aside of course.
Because think about it. With the divorce rate so high in most countries around the world that prohibit incestual relationships, kind of makes you wonder why they’re frowned upon. Because look, in “regular” relationships, you meet a total stranger, feel some sort of attraction to them, usually a physical attraction, start dating, and then decide to propose marriage to them. And then after living together for a while, the couple discovers that they really didn’t know everything about their spouse that they thought they did and some “quirk” is so extreme that neither side can live with the other. Same thing goes with friends of the same sex.
For example, I had a good friend who had many similar interests as I did. War gaming, playing paint ball, etc. So a little over 10 years ago, we were just getting out of collage and decided to rent a house together…basically split the bills sort of thing. Well, turns out that even though were very good friends, we couldn’t stand to live with one another. Each had our own way of taking care of a house and that sort of thing.
So same thing goes for regular stranger couples. You get married and move in together and a little while later you find out that you can’t stand the person. Or they may have a substance abuse or mental problem that you weren’t aware of. One of my friends is the poster boy for these kind of relationships. He’s been married and divorced 3 times since I’ve known him over the past 10 years. (Different friend from rental house story). He’s actually been married and divorced 4 times. His 2nd wife turned out to be a habitual adulterer, 3rd wife turned out to be an alcoholic, and 4th wife turned out to be a psychotic bi-polar patient, ironically whose profession is a freakin’ RN!
Well then take it back to the incest situation…let’s take the brother/sister example for discussion sake. Here’s someone who’ve you probably known all their lives. You know their all their little quirks and gifts to which you probably have unconditional love for, and then society tells you that you can’t be with this person. All because you have the same parent(s). Does this seem fair?
In a case of true unconditional love and society shuns it with the typical “Ewww, that’s your sister!” comment.
I think the divorce rate would go way down if incestual relationships between siblings were not illegal. Now the whole parent/offspring thing is totally different. That, to me, would not be acceptable in any manner.
But anyway, sometimes I wish that my sister and I were allowed/forced to share a bed. I think we’d be a bit closer today than we are. I mean we aren’t alienated to one another by any means, but I think we’d have a much closer bond had we shared a bed when we were younger.
January 7, 2010 at 3:47 am
I want to express my appreciation of your writing skill and aptitude to make reader to read the while thing to the end. I want to read more of your ideas and to distribute my thoughts with you. I will be your regular visitor, that is for sure.