fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4442 ]

[ SECRET POST #4442 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4442 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #636.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Are those people educated enough to know that the Westermack effect is just a hypothesis? That even with some evidential support, it's not a proven phenomenon guaranteed to kick in when all conditions are met? That the instances in which the effect has been observed have generally been extreme cases, like isolated communes and such?

Of course not. Because pseudoscience, like moral panic, is a wonderful weapon in the Great Anti War.

1. You literally asked.
2. You're mad for no reason, dude. I do not care if you ship blood-siblings incest or adopted-siblings incest. Your kinks do not matter to me one little bit. And I can almost guarantee you that my friend whose...third? fourth? year university class taught her about this stuff doesn't care at all about what turns you on either.

This seems like a weird reaction to what was a pretty accurate comment.

AYRT - Well, I mean, the anon I replied to suggested that I (and my psychology major friend by proxy) were antis, were touting pseudoscience, and were in some kind of "moral panic."

Neither of us are any of the above. The Westermarck Effect isn't at all a pseudoscience, I've never been anti an incestuous ship in my life, my friend isn't even in fandom at all, and "morally" I do not care about incest shipping. I'd ship it myself if the desire struck. Someone write me a bomb-ass Margo/Richie Tenenbaum fic and I will read the hell out of it.

What's more, I didn't learn about the Westermarck Effect through fandom. I learned about it through my friend's desire to talk over the research she'd done in preparation to write a fairly important paper for one of her classes.

Finally, I just poked around a bit, and I don't really find anon's dismissal of Westermarck's hypothesis particularly fair. I think another anon ITT has already covered this better, but basically it seems to still be taken fairly seriously. I mean, I see it cropping up in quite a few research papers on why people don't tend to sleep with their siblings. *shrugs*

Ayrt Fair enough.

1. Not the same person.
2. You know what, I am kinda mad, actually. Not because of ships in this fandom (haven't seen the show): the deliberate misinformation antis trot out to gain grounds in their neverending crusade against the bad shippers is actually infuriating. That shit stinks and you should do your own research instead trusting that "educated" people would never misrepresent information just to suit their argument.

DA - ayrt wasn't shaming or criticizing anyone though. Are we even reading the same comment chain? One anon asked why people were referring to the UA pairings as incest. ayrt gave an answer. Not even a controversial answer at that, given how well established incest aversion is. And yeah, I'm gonna recommend you take your own advice and do some research, because Westermarck's Effect is a pretty significant building block for a ton of the research out there on incest aversion. Whether it turns out to be incredibly on the mark or not, psuedoscience it isn't.

Wow, god, this thread blew up a bit. o_O

Like the anon above me said: anon asked and I answered. It wasn't some kind of tumblr crusade.

The Westermarck Effect (good to know the name) is something I had a conversation with my friend about like four years ago, because she was getting her masters in psychology and was doing a paper on it. It's not something we talked about in conjunction with fandom, or like, "How to shame incest shippers" or whatever conclusions you seem to want to jump to. It was something we talked about because she found it interesting and told me about it and I also found it interesting.

And now that I have done a bit of looking into it (helps to know what it's called) I have to say it doesn't seem nearly as illegitimate as the anon upthread claims.

Either way though, the fact remains that a hell of a lot of people with step-siblings and adopted siblings seem to feel squicked by the idea of getting sexy with their sisters or brothers. An anon asked why people would consider something between the Umbrella characters incest, and that's my answer. Or, if citing Westermarck offends you, I'll put it another way: Because a lot of people with siblings seem to feel that fucking their step sib or adopted sib would still be incest.

Okay, there's a lot of confusion flying around in-thread, and admittedly my harsh tone didn't help. I'll try my best to unpack.

My reference to "pseudoscience" is not specifically aimed at the Westermarck effect. I already gave deference to the legitimacy of the theory in the first part of my comment, while also highlighting its limitations. Pseudoscience is when the Westermarck effect is co-opted as an argument, usually in bad faith, by fandom people trying to discredit certain ships, as they have similarly done with numerous other ideas from academia (like Stockholm's Syndrome and "coding"). Since I was being flippant in the last line, that did not come across.

And now, to the AIRT, I know you're probably not an anti. You're also probably feeling attacked because I singled out your argument, so I will apologize for causing that ire. But honestly, I'm not entirely sorry, because innocent or not, you're still spreading misinformation in a fandom context about a concept you admitted to not fully understanding. In your original comment, you represent the WE as a "biological imperative" that just "kicks in" for "most people" when the conditions arise -- that is still inaccurate under a more supportive viewing of the theory. Don't know why your "friend" explained her study material under such term, although maybe it's something to do with how she evolved from a third/fourth year uni student to a MA in psychology within the span of two comments.

But that still doesn't fully explain why I took issue with your comment: see, misrepresentation aside, it does nothing to actually answer the question originally asked, despite your repeated claims. The Westermarck effect attempts to explain the aversion between people raised in close proximity. It doesn't explain why we, outside observers, should view a relationship where no blood relation exists as incest. The original question: "I'm still confused by calling it incest?" The observer is not under the Westermarck effect, it only applies to the people in the relationship. Your follow-up answer is much closer: yes, "a lot of people with siblings seem to feel that fucking their step sib or adopted sib would still be incest", but no, that's not the Westermarck effect. That's social conditioning. Most of our social norms oppose incest, so we reject what we perceive to be incest under the definitions we have been taught.

The actual, ACTUAL helpful answer to that question is already found elsewhere in this thread: apparently, aside from being raised together, the characters in question also call each other by "brother" and "sister". Bingo. Incest identified.

You know that people can just like... have awuicks for things, right?

Just spent a couple hours reading academic articles about the Westermarck Effect. Pretty interesting - thanks to you and ayrt for reminding me about this. :)

I have no issue with people shipping siblingcest, nor do I care whether someone defines sex between adopted siblings as incestuous.

Bur for the record, you do seem to be strongly understating the amount of credence given to Westermarck's hypothesis. Almost every academic paper I could find on incest aversion cited heavily from Westwrmarck and subsequent researchers of his hypothesis. His theory clearly hasn't joined the realm of hard fact. However I'm seeing a lot more current day academics attempting to fine tune his theory than ones attempting to disprove it.

So yes, not cold hard fact, but far from "psuedoscience" as well, unless you want to indict every theory and hypothesis not yet indelibly proven as psuedoscience.

Thanks for this, anon. :)

not cold hard fact, but far from "psuedoscience" as well, unless you want to indict every theory and hypothesis not yet indelibly proven as psuedoscience.

The pseudoscience bit was what gave me pause too. I mean it wouldn't be the first thing being taught in Uni that's been disproved, you know? But that's not what I'm seeing in my search results. Admittedly, I didn't know it was even as contested as it is. I don't see anything about it being disproved though. *shrugs*

For the record, I don't have any problem with people shipping siblingcest, full, half, step, or adopted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #4442 ]

Re: Current drama in your fandoms

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For convenient's sake, I'll just reply to my own comment

Re: For convenient's sake, I'll just reply to my own comment

Re: Current drama in your fandoms

Re: Current drama in your fandoms