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Fauxcest *WARNING*



Ezekiel 22:11

Some commit adultery, and others seduce their daughters-in-law or their half-sisters.

 

Thought for the day – Fauxcest

This is going to be one of the few posts that I’m going to say are for adults alone. So if the kids are nearby, maybe read this somewhere else.

A few weeks ago I read an article on the rise of something called ‘fauxcest’. Apparently, it’s a thing. Fauxcest, or fictional incest porn, has been one of the fastest growing X-rated genres in recent years. It seems that one of the most universally accepted taboos incest is being normalised through online porn that is freely available to anyone with an internet connection. But this isn’t actually all that new.

In 1524, an Italian writer named Pietro Aretino used the new technology of the printing press to mass-produce explicit sonnets — among the first pornography Europe had seen at scale. The lust wasn't new. The reach was. That's the pattern: give an old appetite a faster delivery system, and it stops feeling taboo. It just becomes available.

 The algorithm is the printing press now, and one of its fastest-growing categories dresses up family relationship as fantasy — packaged, monetised, recommended to the next viewer before they've even searched for it. But Ezekiel would recognise the shape of it instantly. He doesn't call it a genre. He calls it violating a sister, defiling a daughter-in-law. Our verse today calls out this behaviour. Things that in God’s eyes are detestable for a whole lot of reasons, not least the power dynamics involved.

So the question is what do we do about it? In verse 30 God asks if there is anyone who will stand in the gap of the broken walls. God is looking for intercessors not just people who are critical. So, we do what the people of God have done for millennia. We pray for the ones watching. We pray for the ones producing it. We pray for the those being watched.  Shame is never part of God’s plan for people. Think about the woman bought to Jesus caught in adultery. Love, mercy and grace are. We pray that those involved experience all of the good God can bring. We don’t judge. That’s God’s job.

 

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