Glamourizing Incest: Media’s Last Taboo Broken

For decades, television and film have tested the limits of what is acceptable, constantly seeking new ways to unsettle, provoke, and engage audiences. However, as mainstream entertainment has grown increasingly transgressive, there are few taboos left to break. Some argue that incest remains the “last true taboo,” a final frontier in media’s relentless pursuit of shock. 

The third season of The White Lotus, which features an incestuous relationship, underscores a troubling shift: rather than being treated as a subject of horror or moral reckoning, incest is now being positioned as a provocative aesthetic choice, a spectacle designed to titillate rather than condemn.

But when a boundary is broken for the sake of provocation, what are the consequences? And at what point does pushing limits become indistinguishable from normalizing that which should not be normalized?

Incestuous relationships have long existed in myth, classical literature, and religious texts, often serving as cautionary tales or symbols of corruption. However, contemporary media has increasingly framed incest not as something grotesque or tragic, but as something intriguing and possibly even romantic. 

The early 2000s saw a wave of mainstream teen dramas that flirted with incest-adjacent relationships. Gossip Girl, Cruel Intentions, and Clueless all featured romantic entanglements between step-siblings, treating them as innocent and romantic rather than unsettling. While these relationships technically did not violate biological taboos, they desensitized audiences and allowed for a slow erosion of boundaries, reframing what should be discomforting as narratively acceptable.

Over time, as audiences have grown accustomed to increasingly controversial content, media has sought ever more extreme ways to provoke. Full-frontal nudity is now standard in television. Graphic violence rarely elicits shock anymore. And so, in a landscape where nearly everything has been done before, incest now emerges as a logical, deeply troubling, next step.

However, incest is not merely an abstract taboo; it is a form of abuse that is severely underreported, deeply traumatic, and often enabled by systemic failures. Dr. Sophie King-Hill, a professor at the University of Birmingham who specializes in sibling sexual abuse, argues that media portrayals of incest carry profound consequences: “The last thing an already under-researched and undertreated form of abuse needs is normalization by the media.”

Media can serve as a powerful tool for exposing societal failures—but it can also desensitize, trivialize, and even romanticize. When incest is positioned as merely a shocking plot device rather than an inherently destructive act, it risks distorting public perception and invalidating the lived experiences of survivors.

This brings us to The White Lotus and its much-discussed Season 3 storyline, which depicts an incestuous relationship between two brothers played by Sam Nivola and Patrick Schwarzenegger. The White Lotus, known for its sharp satire and exploration of privilege, is no stranger to controversy. However, this season has sparked a particularly intense debate.

In an interview with The New Yorker, creator Mike White confirmed the upcoming incest plot, stating that “It’s not all harmless, but it’s not inherently harmful. It’s inherently very natural.” This perspective is troubling—not simply because it downplays the social and psychological ramifications of incest, but because it aligns with a growing trend in media that treats taboos as playgrounds for artistic experimentation rather than as moral or ethical dilemmas.

Moreover, the show’s handling of the brothers—who are both young, conventionally attractive men—risks veering into fetishization. Social media discussions surrounding the show have revealed an unsettling enthusiasm, with many fans expressing their desire that the brothers’ relationship will be explicitly consummated. The fact that these audience reactions focus more on the actors’ attractiveness than on the implications of the storyline, underscores how easily the glamorization of these narratives can distort public perception. 

Already, victims of incestuous abuse face significant barriers to reporting their experiences, often struggling to recognize their own trauma due to the deeply ingrained dysfunction within families. As Dr. King-Hill notes, “Incest sits within family dysfunction, which often takes a lot of time to realize and is often not realized until adulthood.”

This is why the normalization of incest in mainstream media is particularly insidious: it contributes to an environment in which the lines between consent and coercion, trauma and titillation, are already blurred. If incest is increasingly framed as an edgy, provocative, or even desirable act, it becomes harder to maintain the necessary societal mechanisms that stigmatize and prevent ongoing real-world abuse.

If The White Lotus is able to reframe its incest storyline with a self-awareness that critiques rather than glamorizes, it may contribute to an important cultural conversation. But if it continues treating incest as nothing more than a bold narrative device, another tool in its arsenal of provocation, it risks something far more harmful: the normalization of the “last true taboo”—not through thoughtful critique, but through casual indulgence. 

In an era where media wields enormous cultural influence, some boundaries exist not to be broken, but to be upheld. Not for the sake of prudishness, but for the sake of those whose lives are shaped by the very horrors that television now seeks to glamorize.