Genetic Sexual Attraction - in Fiction

In Fiction

• The theme is present in Oedipus Rex, the Athenian tragedy by Sophocles, that was first performed c. 429 BC.
• It is also present in Le Morte d'Arthur, where King Arthur has an affair with Morgause, who he didn't know at the time was his sister. His (second) illegitimate son Mordred is born of that affair. In the last part of the Morte, Arthur and Mordred kill each other in battle.
• It is also present in Die Walküre the second of four operas in the Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle by Richard Wagner, in which separated twins Siegmunde and Sieglinde meet in adulthood and fall passionately in love. The fate of their offspring Siegfried forms the subject matter of the third opera in the cycle.
• In the German medieval tale of Gregorius, the eponymous hero is born out of incest between his parents who were twins. When he returns to his mother's country 17 years later he falls in love and marries her having no idea of the fact that he is her son.
• Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada tells the story of an affair between siblings who believe they are merely cousins (relations between first cousins being acceptable and even common in many eras), including a love triangle with the eponymous character's believed full, actually half sister.
• The eponymous heroine of Moll Flanders, as an adult, unknowingly marries her half-brother.
• The novels Flowers in the Attic and Garden of Shadows also deal with an incestuous relationship between brother and sister, Cathy and Christopher, and their subsequent marriage.
• The Sam Shepard play Fool for Love involves a half brother and half sister who met as teenagers and are still in love ten years on.
• In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa are separated twins who meet as adults. In The Empire Strikes Back, Leia kisses Luke in front of Han Solo to make him jealous. After Leia starts an actual relationship with Han, Luke informs Leia they are siblings, having learned this himself from his Jedi Mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• In J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion, Turin, the hero of the Tale of the Children of Hurin, meets his sister Nienor after having been separated from her in childhood. The two, failing to recognize each other as siblings, are attracted and marry.
• Jax Teller, the main character of Sons of Anarchy, almost ends up having sex with his half-sister Trinity when they first meet as adults, not knowing they are related.
• In the Korean film Old Boy an incestuous relationship occurs between a father and his daughter after a long period of separation.
• In George RR Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series, Cersei Lannister and her twin brother Jaime, although raised together, carry on an incestuous relationship beginning in childhood.
• In episode "Father Dearest" of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a man posing as a sperm donor seduces young teenage girls, pretending to be their biological father. Psychiatrist Dr George Huang identifies the girls' sexual attraction to their father as Genetic Sexual Attraction.
• In William F. Buckley, Jr.'s novel The Redhunter, the main characters, deeply involved in the anti-Communism campaign of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who thought that they were merely the offspring of two men who were best friends, later learn that they are in fact half-siblings and immediately break off their relationship, leaving unresolved feelings of guilt and longing.
• In Banana Yoshimoto's Novel NP, character Sui (at different times) maintains a relationship with her father and her half brother without knowing in the beginning they were related. After finding it out, she still goes on with both relationships.
• In Nip/Tuck Matt met his half sister and they both had an instant attraction without knowing their relationship.
• In the film Joe Dirt, the title character has sexual intercourse with a woman he believes to be his long-lost sister.
• In the anime/manga series Koi Kaze, the two main characters, Koshiro and Nanoka, develop an attraction for one another before realizing that they are siblings raised separately from one another. The series centers on their struggle with their developing feelings after learning of their relation.