Incest?

[Keith Pullman]

There is no rational reason for keeping laws or taboos against consensual incest. Personal disgust or religion is only a reason why one person would not want to personally engage in what I call consanguinamory, not why someone else shouldn't do it. An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with ANY consenting adults. Youthful experimentation between close relatives close in age is not uncommon, and there are more people than you'd think out there who are in lifelong healthy, happy relationships with a close relative. It isn't for everyone, but we're not all going to want to have each other's love lives, now are we? If someone thinks YOUR love life is disgusting, should you be thrown in prison?

Some people try to justify their prejudice against consanguineous sex and marriage by being part-time eugenicists and saying that such relationships inevitably lead to ?mutant? or ?deformed? babies. This argument can be refuted on several fronts. 1. Some consanguineous relationships involve only people of the same gender. 2. Not all mixed-gender relationships birth biological children. 3. Most births to consanguineous parents do not produce children with significant birth defects or other genetic problems; while births to other parents do sometimes have birth defects. 4. We don?t prevent other people from marrying or deny them their reproductive rights based on increased odds of passing along a genetic problem or inherited disease. It is true that in general, children born to consanguineous parents have an increased chance of these problems than those born to nonconsanguineous parents, but the odds are still minimal. Unless someone is willing
to deny reproductive rights and medical privacy to others and force everyone to take genetic tests and bar carriers and the congenitally disabled and women over 35 from having children, then equal protection principles prevent this from being a justification to bar this freedom of association and freedom to marry.

Some say "Your sibling should not be your lover." That is not a reason. It begs the question. Many people have many relationships that have more than one aspect. Some women say their sister is their best friend. Why can?t their sister be a wife, too?

Some say ?There is a power differential.? This applies least of all to siblings or cousins who are close in age, but even where the power differential exists, it is not a justification for denying this freedom to sex or to marry. There is a power differential in just about any relationship, sometimes an enormous power differential. To question if consent is truly possible in these cases is insulting and demeaning.

Some say ?There are so many people outside of your family." There are plenty of people within one?s own race, too, but that is no reason to ban interracial marriage. So, this isn't a good reason either.

Some people who say it is wrong seem to have no problem with complete strangers having sex. So get over it, all of you who want your personal disgust to dictate the lives of others.

 

[Entitled]

My opinion on incest, or for that matter, any other ?deviant? sexual behaviour is: I don?t care what the hell you do privately in your own bedroom, as long as it?s consensual and doesn?t harm anyone. That being said, I don?t think people in incestuous relationships (as in, parent-child, siblings) should have children because, aside from the risk of the child having a genetic defect, it would just fuck them up socially. I don?t see how you could feasibly manage a stable relationship with someone who was both your mother and your sister. Not to mention that they might not even have any concept of boundaries, and that kid will get the shit bullied out of him.

I agree that people should probably avoid incestous pregnancy if possible (though ultimately it should be their choice).

But everything else that you said... wouldn't these all apply to gay couples having children? "Imagine someone having two fathers and no mother! How could they be normally raised in such an abnormal environment? And they would surely be bullied for it in school as well."

 

[Relish in Chaos]

But everything else that you said... wouldn't these all apply to gay couples having children? "Imagine someone having to fathers and no mother! How could they be normally raised in such an abnormal environment? And they would surely be bullied for it in school as well."

Because nothing's been shown to support the notion that the absence of specifically a mother or a father harms the child, otherwise people would be vilifying single parents just as much as same-sex parents. And the fact that most gay people have an understanding of sexual boundaries, whereas many children of incestuous partnerships probably won't.

And I'd wager that you'd get bullied much more for your parents being siblings than you would having parents of the same sex. One benefit of having same-sex parents anyway is that you tend to be more tolerable of homosexuality, same-sex relationships, and sexual fluidity in general. But I guess you could say "it's still bullying nonetheless", so I discard that argument, because kids get bullied for all kinds of shitty reasons. It's just that some make you more of a target than others.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Genetically-Biologically there is no problem with it. There isn't a magic incest gene that gets triggered and makes a child retarded. If both parents are smart the child will likely be smart, if both parents are predisposed to cleft lips, then the child will probably have one. It's no different than having a child with someone else who is a close genetic match who isn't related at all. And the need for genetic diversity is mostly irrelevant, we have 6 billion+ people and are as genetically diverse as we are going to be without sending people to other planets far away for millions of years to split the evolutionary tract.

The real stigma with incest comes from the development of social-economic relationships from thousands of years ago. A poor peasant who fell on hard times would have almost no safety net whatsoever, he could borrow some money from his parents and that was it. But if he had a wife from another family, she could borrow from her parents. If he had kids who had married into other families, he could ask them. And all together they could help him get through his problems.

If however his children had married each other, and he had married a cousin or sister then he would had way less people who he had familial bonds to and thus a much smaller and weaker economic safety net. So out of that a stigma grew against incest and accumulated superfluous ideas to discourage it which in the 19th and 20th centuries manifested as incest children are retarded. Which again is patently untrue, unless both incestuous parents happened to be genetically pre-disposed to have a retarded child with anyone blood relation or otherwise.

We can see the reverse factors at play in the rich. If you are super rich already(an emperor, king, baron, aristocratic southern plantation owner: you have no need for a safety net because you aren't going to fall on hard times. But if you marry out of the family, or your children marry out of the family and they have hard times then you are obligated to give money to them to keep them on their feet. Thus where third and second press people want to disperse the wealth so they can all benefit, you want to concentrate it so that you don't have to give it to other people. Which is why most of the monarchs and aristocratic families in Europe intermarried for thousands of years. And very very few of the royal families were considered crazy or stupid, though later on they had a huge predisposition to be hemophiliacs.

That being said, I would probably never enter into an incestuous relationship. There's a social stigma attached to it that is not worth dealing with, and there's plenty of fish in the sea that there's no reason to.

I think most people are genetically coded to not be attracted to siblings.

It's psychological coding to some degree. Anyone you've lived in close proximity to for the first like 10 years of your life is usually someone you are not sexually attracted to. But that applies to anyone you've lived with (foster family, close friends, ect.) The psychological function has a name but I forget it now.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Apart from the "sister-in-law" part (they're not even related, and if anything, it might bring the family closer - or maybe that's not he'd want), I can't really blame him. With step-siblings, if you grew up with them, you'd still just see them as your sister and have that sibling-like relationship with them. It'd be just be too awkward, even if both of them were attracted to each other. Perhaps you could compare it to being attracted to a 12-year-old girl or something, but, aside from the fact that it's illegal, you'd never pursue an actual relationship with them because they might not be mentally mature enough.

Just to clear up the facts, she was older than him and at the time they had only known each other for two years. It wasn't exactly a taboo situation, and he explained that he definitely wanted to, but the idea of doing it with a person who could even remotely be classified as "sister" prevented him from being able to get it up. I don't really know much more than that since I didn't really want to know the gory details.

 

[Entitled]

But everything else that you said... wouldn't these all apply to gay couples having children? "Imagine someone having to fathers and no mother! How could they be normally raised in such an abnormal environment? And they would surely be bullied for it in school as well."

Because nothing's been shown to support the notion that the absence of specifically a mother or a father harms the child, otherwise people would be vilifying single parents just as much as same-sex parents. And the fact that most gay people have an understanding of sexual boundaries, whereas many children of incestuous partnerships probably won't.

Nothing's been shown, but people keep saying it. And noting's been shown to prove that that, say, children raised by a pair of siblings wouldn't "have an understanding of sexual boundaries", either. It seems like you are still using the same basic rhetoric as them, that "it's just weird and abnormal, so who knows what might happen?"

Besides, what sexual boundaries are you talking about? That they might be grow up being indoctrinated to be incestous?

 

[doomspore98]

For some reason all I can think of is game of thrones. I personally wouldn't do that because of the genetic disorders that can occur, but if your not worried about that kind of thing, have at it.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Besides, what sexual boundaries are you talking about? That they might be grow up being indoctrinated to be incestous?

If someone's parents are brother and sister, what keeps the child from thinking it's not okay to mess around with their younger siblings once the parents have more children?

I believe that's what he means by a lack of boundaries.

 

[SpaceBat]

Is my sisters name Emma Watson?

No?

No incest for me then.

I'd like to think her being Emma Watson would make a difference - because it's Emma Watson - but I'm sure I'd be as disgusted of the thought as I am right now.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think most people are genetically coded to not be attracted to siblings.

It's not genetics, which is why children who are separated as youth or relatives outside one's social network tend to be immune.

Cousins I have no problem with, as there is no chance of in-breeding etc.

Inbreeding relates to cousins as well. It's not as intense, but then the odds of an incestuous pairing leading to birth defects is lower than that of a woman in her 40s in the first place. And I have to ask, if birth defects are the problem, are you against older women breeding?

For my opinion: I have little concern for what consenting adults do in their own relationships. Long as it's not the kind of incest when uncle Bubba takes his daughter out back to explore her "special place," or something similar, it's not my concern.

 

[Stoic raptor]

I am nauseated just thinking about it.

It bothers me a lot.

 

[Overusedname]

I don't give a rat's ass about societal norms. I care about science, so I'll share this.

http://family.jrank.org/pages/847/Incest-Effects-on-Victims.html

And yes, this is a progressive, scientific website that also demands for acceptance and tolerance of homosexual and transgender parents and family, as the only downsides are related to other peoples bigotry. That article addresses the brother-sister consensual stuff to.

 

[Byere]

I wouldn't be opposed to it if my family were a lot better looking xD

In all seriousness, I have no problem with it, but I don't think I'd be able to do it even if I did find my sister attractive

 

[Pseudoboss]

I'm fine with it, as long as both parties are consenting and understand the consequences of incest. I've heard (But was unable to find substantiation for in my 5 minutes of googling) about psychological impact upon those who engage in incest without the freedom to leave, as in under 18. Also, don't have children, as they do have a higher chance of having something like polydactily or hemophilia (which is a problem with blood not clotting properly, NOT the sexual attraction to blood.
These are bad things to have happen to your kid, so use condoms, adopt, or if you really want to give birth sign up for becoming a surrogate. The probability of a single genetic disorder appearing, and there are a lot of them between a brother-sister is 6.25%, then of 5 common disorders, which results in a 35% chance of one offspring having certain recessive genetic disorders that are unbelievably improbable in non-incestuous relationships. Technology can solve these problems simply by using birth control and adopting or becoming a surrogate.
As long as you don't have kids and are both consenting, then i'm fine with it.

 

[Entitled]

Besides, what sexual boundaries are you talking about? That they might be grow up being indoctrinated to be incestous?

If someone's parents are brother and sister, what keeps the child from thinking it's not okay to mess around with their younger siblings once the parents have more children?

And it's not? If we are already talking about whether or not incest is moral, then "no because they would have children and teach them too that it's moral"

Besides, I think we are talking about adopted or otherwise non-related children, (maybe half-siblings), after we just concluded that siblings having their own children together would be a bad idea.

 

[COMaestro]

I don't give a rat's ass about societal norms. I care about science, so I'll share this.

http://family.jrank.org/pages/847/Incest-Effects-on-Victims.html

And yes, this is a progressive, scientific website that also demands for acceptance and tolerance of homosexual and transgender parents and family, as the only downsides are related to other peoples bigotry. That article addresses the brother-sister consensual stuff to.

The probelm with this article, as far as relating it to the topic at hand, is that it is referring to incest due to sexual abuse. Any sexual abuse is going to be traumatic and scarring, having it done by a family member only makes it worse. I think the OP and most of the people posting here are questioning if there is any harm done when incest occurs between two people who choose to do it, not when one coerces or forces another into it.

Myself, I am an only child and lived away from pretty much all my family my whole life, minus about two weeks a year when we'd visit family. I think there was only one time where I fantasized about a cousin of mine, but I chalk that up to being a really horny teenager that had never had any sexual experience and just wondered what sex would be like. We were a lot alike, which is why I think my mind latched onto her for the fantasy. The fantasy went away pretty much as soon as that visit was over and never came back.

I find the thought of sibling incest acceptable, and maybe even a little arousing, again as long as it is consensual. Parent-child incest though seems wrong to me. It seems to much like taking advantage of your child to do such a thing. Would I be in an incestuous relationship? The point is moot now as I am happily married, but if I had grown up with a sister...I just don't know.

Captcha: pier 39. WTF is pier 39?

 

[Lonewolfm16]

Immoral? No, as a utilitarian I would judge it a fairly morally neutral act. Creepy? Ohhhh yes. So very very creepy. That said what I find creepy is fairly irrelavent, there is no objective creepiness. So no judgement, but I certainly would never even contamplate it. Also there is some reason for us to be coded to avoid famial relationships, afterall incest harms biological diversity and can lead to birth defects. Of course humans are complex creatures and we genrally don't have absolute hard line codes.

 

[SpaceBat]

...Aw, who am I kidding. Friggin Emma Watson man. Better call the cops because I would hit that no matter how closely related we are.

Look man, I know it's Emma Watson, but she'd be your SISTER!
And as crazy as it may sound, my disgust for incest overpowers the fact that she'd be Emma Watson.

 

[game-lover]

I'm sorta mixed as far as my thoughts go here.

For the most part, I consider it gross on a personal level directly. On an indirect personal level, I sort of see it in the same way that I look at homosexuality.

And that's the whole focus seems to be on the sex angle and only the sex angle. Sure, it's a big part of it. Of course. But who is to say that family members couldn't fall in love with each other? Or people of the same sex couldn't do the same?

What if there's real love there? Isn't everyone in society and shit always going on about "you can't help who you fall in love with?"

So it's like, when people have asked me if I would find my siblings or cousins attractive or date them or whatever if we weren't related, I can only be filled with distaste and say I'm not sure because I'm still seeing them with sister eyes and eww... For me.

But when I read a book or see those anime where the romantic love is there and it's all unfortunate and even a little tragic, I don't truly think it's gross and if it's supposed to be immoral I just don't understand why.