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You guys are the best! When I did the Wincest "When" poll (and the others) I not only got lots of voting going on, but also some really interesting feedback. So thank you! Lots of people gave me lovely links, too, for which I also am grateful.
Here are my thinky thoughts on the earlier poll… (link to the new poll at the bottom of post and here)
I realized early on that this poll doesn’t prove anyone right or wrong. It doesn’t prove that I’m wrong for thinking the Wincest happened after ELAC, nor does it prove that the people who voted for the “Before the Pilot” option are wrong either. All the poll shows is that the majority of people who voted think Wincest happened early on, way before the series even began and everyone is entitled to their opinion. There certainly is enough fanfic to support ALL theories, so this post isn’t about wrong or right, it’s just me thinking it through, and feeling that this poll had a kind of reaction that kept me thinking about it some more.
It never occurred to me that the majority of voters had any other idea than I did about the first time Wincest occurred, because logically to me, the Wincest happened after John died. There’s no other way for it to happen, because John’s death, in my mind, became the catalyst for them to come together. Even considering that young male teens in Sam and Dean’s situation would “fool around” I still felt that the real Wincest happened later, rather than earlier. So I’m not convinced by the poll, nor am I going to change my personal mind; I still enjoy good Wincest fanfic, no matter when it’s set, either pre-series, during the series, or after the series, although I don’t read deathfic because it tears me up.
In addition to being way off base as to what other people thought, looking at the poll itself, I was surprised by the numbers. I was sure I would see numbers scattered all over the place, that there would be a roughly equal number of votes for all options and that the votes would be spread across all four seasons, and that there would be tons of people making up their own categories, as provided for in the “These options are terrible!” option. But no. Most numbers are tucked into Season 1 options, because most people, as they posted, are of the opinion that Sam and Dean were always set up to love only each other, that they started having sex early and often, etc.
There were a total of 91 votes. Of those, these are the top three categories:
Before the Pilot (underage): 22 total votes; 24% of the votes.
During Season One (Before DMB): 16 total votes; 17% of the votes.
During Season Two, after John died (After ELAC): 10 total votes; 11% of the votes.
For a while, the “Before the Pilot” option and the “During Season One” option were neck and neck, and while watching the poll progress I thought for sure the “During Season One” option would win out. After all, there are tons of eps between the Pilot and DMB; lots of room for maneuverability, tons of time for Dean and Sam to start having sex. When I combine the top two scores, a whopping 41% (almost half) think that Wincest happened before Season 1 was even over, but the “Before the Pilot” option won hands down. According to the poll, Sam and Dean are more than just best friends with benefits!
Still puzzled, I considered that my poll itself might be faulty in that I didn’t make the definition of Wincest clear enough. Well, I checked SuperWiki and it says that Wincest is a sexual or romantic relationship between Sam and Dean, which seems to mean any sex, any time, for any reason, so the idea of what Wincest is wide, wide open. I think part of my confusion comes from the fact that I think “fooling around” is sexual, but not romantic, and fooling around is all the underage lads could be doing, and therefore, because of the lack of romance, what they would be doing isn’t anything I would qualify as romantic, and thus not Wincest. The other part of my confusion stems from the fact that I come from a slash background and am used to only using eps to prove a theory, or discuss an idea. In most slash pairings (Starsky and Hutch, Kirk and Spock) you only have bits and pieces (through dialog references) of the past to go from, so most slash takes place within the series time frame, or after.
Pre-series SPN is so nebulous and unknown (except for the marvelous flashbacks in SW and ASC), and we have only dialog to go by, stuff Sam or Dean or John or whoever has to say about the past – none of which demonstrates any indication that Wincest was going on. So why, I’m wondering, do so many have this opinion, and are they, essentially, pulling it out of thin air? Well, they are and they aren’t.
There isn’t any real evidentiary evidence for Pre-Series Wincest. I mean, really, there isn’t. There’s nothing in canon that points to this even the slightest; when we see Wee Dean and Wee Sam together they are not all sweetness and light. Sam’s bitching about wanting Lucky Charms, Dean’s stalking off to play video games; Sam’s asking too many questions, Dean’s stalking off because he doesn’t want to talk about Mom. Sam’s crying into his pillow, and Dean is out shoplifting and breaking into people’s houses, but no one is having sex that we can see. So where are people getting it from?
I think people are extrapolating, taking what they see in canon and working backwards. Fans see the brothers as they are in the series: Sam and Dean have no one else in the world but each other, they are very touchy feely, high emo, they know what buttons to push, they’re all over each other all the time, even if they aren’t touching each other. We get the idea from this that they have always lived in each other’s back pockets, that each knows the other like the back of their own hand – but does this lead to them having sex in their teens or even earlier? Maybe yes, maybe no. While I like underage Wincest, I think it’s part logical conjecture (constantly being on the move and their strange vocation keeps them isolation from the world which brings them together early on), part wishful thinking (oh, they’re so hot, I MUST slash them!! Besides, there’s no one else I can slash them with but each other, what’s a slash fan to do?) I’m not complaining, mind you, just confused. Besides, the fic is hot, so I’ll keep reading it.
However, there does seem to be evidentiary evidence for Wincest within Season 1, even if it doesn’t match my pet theory of it happening first after ELAC in Season 2. For example, I think it’s in Provenance where Sam and Dean are in a motel room. Dean is encouraging Sam to hook up with Sarah. Sam is protesting, and Dean says, “Is it Jessica?” and Sam says, “No, it’s not just Jessica,” or something like that that seems to indicate there’s a deeper problem here, one that many fans (myself included) postulate as being the pre-existing relationship between Sam and Dean. THAT’s why he’s not going off with Sarah. Then there’s other Wincesty moments like the one![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
charmedstrange1 pointed out, the famous bureau scene where Dean tries to explain why he wanted Sam with him when Dad disappeared. I had lots of people presenting lots of good ideas, and then I had a handful of people complaining that they couldn’t pick, they didn’t want to pick, and then they stomped off and voted anyway! I love you guys.
Take the new poll!
Here are my thinky thoughts on the earlier poll… (link to the new poll at the bottom of post and here)
I realized early on that this poll doesn’t prove anyone right or wrong. It doesn’t prove that I’m wrong for thinking the Wincest happened after ELAC, nor does it prove that the people who voted for the “Before the Pilot” option are wrong either. All the poll shows is that the majority of people who voted think Wincest happened early on, way before the series even began and everyone is entitled to their opinion. There certainly is enough fanfic to support ALL theories, so this post isn’t about wrong or right, it’s just me thinking it through, and feeling that this poll had a kind of reaction that kept me thinking about it some more.
It never occurred to me that the majority of voters had any other idea than I did about the first time Wincest occurred, because logically to me, the Wincest happened after John died. There’s no other way for it to happen, because John’s death, in my mind, became the catalyst for them to come together. Even considering that young male teens in Sam and Dean’s situation would “fool around” I still felt that the real Wincest happened later, rather than earlier. So I’m not convinced by the poll, nor am I going to change my personal mind; I still enjoy good Wincest fanfic, no matter when it’s set, either pre-series, during the series, or after the series, although I don’t read deathfic because it tears me up.
In addition to being way off base as to what other people thought, looking at the poll itself, I was surprised by the numbers. I was sure I would see numbers scattered all over the place, that there would be a roughly equal number of votes for all options and that the votes would be spread across all four seasons, and that there would be tons of people making up their own categories, as provided for in the “These options are terrible!” option. But no. Most numbers are tucked into Season 1 options, because most people, as they posted, are of the opinion that Sam and Dean were always set up to love only each other, that they started having sex early and often, etc.
There were a total of 91 votes. Of those, these are the top three categories:
Before the Pilot (underage): 22 total votes; 24% of the votes.
During Season One (Before DMB): 16 total votes; 17% of the votes.
During Season Two, after John died (After ELAC): 10 total votes; 11% of the votes.
For a while, the “Before the Pilot” option and the “During Season One” option were neck and neck, and while watching the poll progress I thought for sure the “During Season One” option would win out. After all, there are tons of eps between the Pilot and DMB; lots of room for maneuverability, tons of time for Dean and Sam to start having sex. When I combine the top two scores, a whopping 41% (almost half) think that Wincest happened before Season 1 was even over, but the “Before the Pilot” option won hands down. According to the poll, Sam and Dean are more than just best friends with benefits!
Still puzzled, I considered that my poll itself might be faulty in that I didn’t make the definition of Wincest clear enough. Well, I checked SuperWiki and it says that Wincest is a sexual or romantic relationship between Sam and Dean, which seems to mean any sex, any time, for any reason, so the idea of what Wincest is wide, wide open. I think part of my confusion comes from the fact that I think “fooling around” is sexual, but not romantic, and fooling around is all the underage lads could be doing, and therefore, because of the lack of romance, what they would be doing isn’t anything I would qualify as romantic, and thus not Wincest. The other part of my confusion stems from the fact that I come from a slash background and am used to only using eps to prove a theory, or discuss an idea. In most slash pairings (Starsky and Hutch, Kirk and Spock) you only have bits and pieces (through dialog references) of the past to go from, so most slash takes place within the series time frame, or after.
Pre-series SPN is so nebulous and unknown (except for the marvelous flashbacks in SW and ASC), and we have only dialog to go by, stuff Sam or Dean or John or whoever has to say about the past – none of which demonstrates any indication that Wincest was going on. So why, I’m wondering, do so many have this opinion, and are they, essentially, pulling it out of thin air? Well, they are and they aren’t.
There isn’t any real evidentiary evidence for Pre-Series Wincest. I mean, really, there isn’t. There’s nothing in canon that points to this even the slightest; when we see Wee Dean and Wee Sam together they are not all sweetness and light. Sam’s bitching about wanting Lucky Charms, Dean’s stalking off to play video games; Sam’s asking too many questions, Dean’s stalking off because he doesn’t want to talk about Mom. Sam’s crying into his pillow, and Dean is out shoplifting and breaking into people’s houses, but no one is having sex that we can see. So where are people getting it from?
I think people are extrapolating, taking what they see in canon and working backwards. Fans see the brothers as they are in the series: Sam and Dean have no one else in the world but each other, they are very touchy feely, high emo, they know what buttons to push, they’re all over each other all the time, even if they aren’t touching each other. We get the idea from this that they have always lived in each other’s back pockets, that each knows the other like the back of their own hand – but does this lead to them having sex in their teens or even earlier? Maybe yes, maybe no. While I like underage Wincest, I think it’s part logical conjecture (constantly being on the move and their strange vocation keeps them isolation from the world which brings them together early on), part wishful thinking (oh, they’re so hot, I MUST slash them!! Besides, there’s no one else I can slash them with but each other, what’s a slash fan to do?) I’m not complaining, mind you, just confused. Besides, the fic is hot, so I’ll keep reading it.
However, there does seem to be evidentiary evidence for Wincest within Season 1, even if it doesn’t match my pet theory of it happening first after ELAC in Season 2. For example, I think it’s in Provenance where Sam and Dean are in a motel room. Dean is encouraging Sam to hook up with Sarah. Sam is protesting, and Dean says, “Is it Jessica?” and Sam says, “No, it’s not just Jessica,” or something like that that seems to indicate there’s a deeper problem here, one that many fans (myself included) postulate as being the pre-existing relationship between Sam and Dean. THAT’s why he’s not going off with Sarah. Then there’s other Wincesty moments like the one
charmedstrange1 pointed out, the famous bureau scene where Dean tries to explain why he wanted Sam with him when Dad disappeared. I had lots of people presenting lots of good ideas, and then I had a handful of people complaining that they couldn’t pick, they didn’t want to pick, and then they stomped off and voted anyway! I love you guys. Take the new poll!
no subject
But I’m ANAL like that! I’m hardwired, besides, to over analyze things. The good thing about that is that later I’m rock solid in my opinion and cannot be swayed, and thusly I annoy people at parties.
...Dean and Sam were certainly kids who had to be wise beyond their years way too early. And I can remember being "in love" when I was a pre-adolescent- we're talking 7, 8, 9- I mean crushes that *lasted* a while- and I would get all heartbroken over- so much so that I can still remember them today. But then, maybe I was just a warped, strange child. :P
We’re all warped otherwise we wouldn’t be here! But I think there’s a difference between having a crush, being in love, and associating that with adult sex. Am I drawing too fine a line here? Dean and Sam certainly would have slept together a LOT, esp when young, Dad had one bed, they had the other. Some stories have the dad taking another room and leaving the boys to themselves, but I think, personally, that that never happened. They shared beds forever. How does that support my theory? Because you can’t jack off in private, and therefore it doesn’t become a private issue; you start to share, but it doesn’t have the connotation/weight it will have till later. Anyway, that’s my theory, I love it, but will read any fanfic that does it right.
I think I kind of see it from the opposite direction- to me, the leap is to the wincest (is it freudian that I keep mis-typing that as "sincest"?), and though, yes, they kind of offer it up to us, for me it's still a bigger step to go from canon to wincest than it is from wincest to, okay, it started when they were lads.
Interesting. I see what you’re saying here. If you’re already on the train of sin, it’s a small leap from Wincest to preseries. I guess I’ve been reading slash for so long that my brain is well trained to look for evidence in what we see, not what we imagine might have happened. All that English Lit training too – is it deconstructionism that has the analysis based on the novel alone and not what we know about the author? I forget.
I mean now, as adults, we see the looks and the touching and the angst, and of course we're not gonna see any of that in their childhood, ... how they grew up, how close they are, etc- but again the logical divide of, 1) "doing it" versus "not doing it", and 2) "doing it *now*" versus "doing it now *and back then*", well the first one just seems qualitatively a larger divide to me, evidence or hints notwithstanding. But then again, maybe I've just taken too many statistics courses. :P
Then again, statistics can be presented to support any number of theories. But I can see what you are saying about the leap of logic. I still think, even given that as close as they were as boys that any fooling around they did…was transitory, different times that Dean was going in and out of being a teenager, I’ll bet you that he sometimes ignored Sam or doted on him – so any wincest was ragged at best. So I think we’re at opposing ends of this particular question, because of the logic jump thing, but I totally love how you lay it out here.
When I take off my tinhat and slash goggles, I always thought that that thought was meant to end in something like, "gotten to know each other again, worked together, loved each other like we do"- but you're right. That whole "do" instead of "are"- a peculiar word choice, and soooo begging to be read into. And a poll is never not a good idea. :)
I will take a look at it, wouldn’t want to bore people with uninteresting polls. They seem to enjoy the ones that talk about sex, and this one…well, I guess this one does, if you diagram the sentence right, I’m going to steal your phrase “begging to be read into,” okay?
"And get others to talk…..my evil plan is working!"
You, my friend, are an evil genius. I knew this from the time I read "This is Sparta."
Poor Sammy! If he didn’t suffer so well, none of this would be happening to him.