That’s one of those questions you ask last in an interview, in case the guy gets offended and hangs up the phone. But when I asked Tyler, the Aerosmith singer replied, “Oh, absolutely,” adding his trademark cackle. “How can a father not be attracted to his daughter, especially when she’s a cross between the girl he married and himself? Unless he’s an ugly man, a father is always gonna be sexually attracted to his daughter on a certain level.” So you’re saying incest is based in vanity? “Positively, there’s a certain level of narcissism in incest. All a man has to do is be totally honest with himself and he can see it. However, the real man knows that’s just a place to never go. Instead he celebrates it by telling his daughter how beautiful she is and what a precious child of God she is. There’s ways to love it without making love to it–I wrote ‘Janie’s Got a Gun’ about fathers who don’t know the difference.”

(Excerpted from the 2006 book Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed, published by Three Rivers Press, written by Gavin Edwards.)