THREE FORMS OF ANTI-TRANSGRESSION, PT. 1

"Anti-transgression" as I conceive it largely exists for the sake of contrast to the more primary literary source of conflict, transgression. The term is an alloform for what I called "societally cooperative transgression" back in INCEST WE TRUST PART 1, in 2010, where I said, in part:

In LEAD US NOW INTO TRANSGRESSION I agreed with George Bataille's theory of transgressive sexuality, in which even "right" sexual relations are essentially transgressive. I do draw my own non-Bataillean distinction about differing types of transgression, though, and will expound on the differences between "cooperative" and "competitive" forms of transgression in a future essay.

I've continued to touch on the cooperative/ competitive distinction over the years, but here I'm advancing "anti-transgression" in order to explore how it manifests in fiction in specific forms.


THE PRIMARY FORM of anti-transgression is what modern persons would assume to be the one that seems not to suggest clansgression in any manner. For instance, in the comedy-manga URUSEI YATSURA, Ataru is a normal, if oversexed, Earth-male, and he's ceaselessly pursued by Lum, an alien who is by all accounts the same age he is. Despite the atypicality of their union, the Lum/Ataru mathcup would be primary, since there is no suggestion that their union would be clansgressive. There's neither any significant difference in the character's ages nor any suggestion that either of them symbolically represents a family member to the other.

THE SECONDARY FORM of anti-transgression is the one that Freud tries to sell as normative for the human species.

It sounds not only disagreeable but also paradoxical, yet it must nevertheless be said that anyone who is to be really free and happy in love must have surmounted his respect for women and have come to terms with the idea of incest with his mother or sister.-- Sigmund Freud, "On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love."

I don't believe most psychiatrists believe this today, but it has had a vast effect on literature. I cited one example in a recent essay on the light-novel-turned-manga/anime MAYO CHIKI. My essay on the manga adaptation notes that main character Kenjiro, though he never evinces any conscious sexual feelings toward his younger sister, becomes bonded to a same-age high-school girl who is not technically related to him, but whose father had once dated Kenjiro's mother. This association is the type of thing Freud was writing about, in assuming that every man must marry either his mother or his sister, who are the sources of his first sexual stimulation. The author of the original MAYO CHIKI light novels may not have believed this as a rule, but he certainly must have amused himself with the transgressive notion that the starring character had manifested a sister-fetish without even being aware of it.

THE TERTIARY FORM of anti-transgression is one in which the characters in the story are fully aware that they have crossed some societal boundaries regarding the proprieties, but the clansgressive types feel so strongly about their relationship that they consider it valuable in itself, even if society will never understand it. In the United States, the most famous example of this form may be the "sibling-love" novels in V.C. Andrews' best-seller series, "the Dollanganger series." The form seems quite popular in Japan as well, and I may as well choose as my example the series AKI/SORA. In this softcore sex-series, a brother and sister simply have loads of unprotected sex for months, patently with no consequences, and it's all intensely meaningful for them, though at the series' conclusion they do agree to break up so as to not suffer societal condemnation.

In Part 2 I'll address some of the other variations on these themes, in line with the "Preface."