Trigger warning: The following post contains descriptions of disturbing porn themes.
Incest-themed porn, known as fauxcest, is one of the fastest-growing categories of porn, featuring role-play of sex between family members. In 2019, incest porn ranked in the top 10 searched categories on Pornhub, a mainstream porn site that received 42 billion site visits last year. Incest porn also ranked in the top search terms on xHamster, another popular mainstream porn site.
The Daily Beast interviewed several pornographers who are involved with making this category of porn, and from their report (FTND note: trigger warning on this article), they cited research that shows a staggering 178% increase in what they refer to as “family roleplay porn.” And what may be even more surprising is that 1 in 10 purchases by young adults are for fauxcest titles.
Jacky St. James, a pornographer who has directed dozens of videos in this taboo porn category, said it was “inherently seductive because [a family member] is the ultimate forbidden person,” calling all the various relationship angles to insert into the plots and scenarios of these films, “taboos on top of other taboos.”
There is no safe “exploration”
It’s important to note that just because something is considered taboo, that doesn’t mean it’s automatically “seductive.” And, when it comes to encouraging inter-family sex, it’s downright unhealthy.
St. James only kind of recognizes that danger by saying that fauxcest is “the one taboo that can’t really be explored in real life safely,” and “because of that there is this allure of the untouchable, and what’s untouchable to us is often the most appealing.”
But considering sexual abuse and trafficking trends and the sexual exploitation of children, we see that what is “forbidden” actually protects vulnerable people and keeps dangerous situations from happening. We also see that what often starts as “exploration” through watching fictional, scripted performances with performing adults can quickly devolve into a demand for “closer” family relations, younger family relations, and more disturbing, hardcore scenarios.
One porn performer interviewed in The Daily Beast’s report said, “Personally, it’s not one of my own kinks, but we are here to give the fans what they want to see,” adding that her work was “a way for people to indulge in kinks without having to participate themselves.”
She mentioned that she felt she was doing a “public service” in performing incest-themed porn but considered that porn is not technically a completely safe exploration of taboo fantasies. In fact, it can be just the opposite. It inspires unhealthy ideas and pushes the demand into more real, dangerous situations for consumers and performers alike.
Here’s what we mean.
As always, it’s all about the money
As consumers of fauxcest watch and increase the demand for what they want to see, there will be those who will be willing to give the consumers exactly what they want as long as they can turn a profit. Even if that profit comes from creating content that fuels abuse ideals in our society, like dads sleeping with their daughters.
This is evidenced by the increase of fauxcest production, in and of itself. One studio released their first incest-related porn series in 2015, and it did so well they’ve recently released their 200th DVD. That’s 200 movies in two years on incest-themed porn alone. Another site, as reported by The Daily Beast, noted that fauxcest was now 35% of their content.
The article interviewed another fauxcest performer and noted that “there’s very little difference to her, whether she’s role-playing as ‘stepmom’ or ‘mom,’ yet to fans that distinction seems to matter—with a preference toward the latter.”
“Sometimes people really want to push that fantasy, and I’m not okay with that,” she said, adding that if a request came to change up the age of the incest relationship to being underage, she would refuse to do that.
The path to abuse
Other porn performers have sworn off incest-themed content altogether, regardless of how it affects their income.
One porn performer interviewed by The Daily Beast said that when she entered the industry just three years ago, requests for incest porn were few and far between, but said that it has now turned into almost every scene she got booked for. And while it’s no surprise, it shows that the fans and their requests gradually got stranger, darker, and more disturbing.
And this is one of the worst things we’ve heard: “Some of my fans weren’t nice anymore; they were creepy,” she told The Daily Beast. “One fan told me that he and his wife conditioned their son his whole life until he was old enough to join them in bed. That really got to me. I almost felt like I was helping this kid get sexually abused.”
Luckily, she just refuses to shoot those kinds of scenes anymore, even if it cuts her work in half, as she said, adding, “Technology is at everyone’s fingertips. I don’t want some kid seeing me on film coaxing my ‘stepbrother’ into f—ing me and that kid thinking it’s okay to do that to his little sister or cousin. I shudder to think about it. But I…hope this trend dies. I just want to shoot good, clean porn again.” (As a side note, note that there is no such thing as “good, clean porn.”)
The escalating nature of porn
A common argument that pornographers and performers will tell you, as evidenced by the quotes above, is that their work allows consumers to explore taboo fantasies, essentially keeping them “fake” to keep consumers from acting on those fantasies in real life. But what if they aren’t keeping people from experimenting so much as unintentionally encouraging it?
Once consumers start watching extreme and dangerous sex acts, research shows that things that are disgusting or societally unacceptable can start to seem normal, acceptable, and more common than they really are. [1] One study found that people exposed to significant amounts of porn thought things like sex with animals and violent sex were twice as common as those not exposed to porn believed. [2] And when people believe a behavior is normal, they’re more likely to try it. [3]
And that’s not healthy, especially for incest-related behavior.
Of course, incest porn is not to blame for the issue of familial abuse in our world—that’s not what we’re saying. But consider how this fantasized abuse porn can fuel or normalize existing abusive tendencies in some consumers.
In the end, it’s up to each individual how they’ll respond to information that shows the harmful effects of porn. Join us in considering the facts before consuming. And if you’re struggling, there’s hope for healing.
Need help?
For those reading this who feel they are struggling with pornography, you are not alone. Check out Fortify, a science-based recovery platform dedicated to helping you find lasting freedom from pornography. Fortify now offers a free experience for both teens and adults. Connect with others, learn about your unwanted porn habit, and track your recovery journey. There is hope—sign up today.
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