Poll: I know I'm probably going to hell for this, but...

[hecticpicnic]

I think in theory yes ,but i mean a lot incest is in closed families and it also not a good thing for parents to think bout the children they have living together can you know.I happens a lot with people that can never make a relation ship with other people or who live isolated also I'm completely against underage incest(for oblivious reasons).Also funnily enough in the old teachings of Judaism its ok a for a man to have sex with his daughter(or for the daughter to do it to her father) but not for a woman to do it with her son,now that's some proper sexiness right there(all weird about the man dominating a little girl.

 

[Grubnar]

Do you think incest should be illegal, no matter the circumstances? ... , so why do we hate it so much? Is it simply prejudice? What does The Escapist think?

I voted "no".

There are simply too many cases of children being seperated at a young age, or unknowingly having the same father (being half-siblings) who then, at a later age, get to know one another and fall in love. I do not think it is morally justifiable to ruin their life just because the law says so. Others have explained why before me.

Now, on the other hand, we do not simply "hate" incest. We are hard-wired by our genes to do so (for the most part). The reason for this is that if incest would be common, it could doom the human spesies to extintion! This is no joke. In order to evolve, adapt and survive we MUST have genetic diversity.

So in short, I am personally agains incest (duh!) but since it is thankfuly so very rare I would rather allow it then ban it (by law) since it would not have any major effect on the human race.

 

[Serenityrade]

I'm a humble newbie. Please read my long post. I am saying it's not bad really any more, I do not think. It is very bold of me to say, so here is my thing 'why' :x

Please, think logically instead of with your preconceived notions. I've read through three pages and it looks like old reports on people who hated homosexuality. Unnatural and wrong - what is this...? We have transcended the boundaries of naturality for the main. Our behaviours are learned and we live in situations built on artifice and machinery. How 'natural' are humans in reality? I wonder.

Think of it this way: if you have incest with a sister you get one bad effect which is that a lot of your genes are paired up with similar ones. If your sister had the same sickness as you had, your child would have it too. The same thing is true of any sickness you can inherit really, and it doesn't matter whether it is your sister or not. It's just more likely that your sister will have what you have - she is similar to you.

There is a lot of talk of people being emotionally stunted. What is this? I know many people who have had friends that are siblings until at least my age and I know others by hearsay that have had sibling friends for half a century. Because you did not get along with your sibling so well it is 'stunted' to associate with them solely...? Surely then if you have a close friend you are 'stunted' to marry them too - after all you have spent so much time, why waste more by spending your life with the person you have loved.

It is absurd. To date one's sister causes genetic problems if you have them already hidden inside of you. It would be true if you also dated someone that had that problem as well, that your child would be sick. You are broken inside. It is a problem with you, not your sister or your ability to love freely. No matter who you dated that had the problem, they would be bringing the same contagion to the child you had. Do not blame love for your sicknesses...

On the subject of 'screening' - I irrationally find it abhorrent. Yet in logic, think of it in this manner: each new life is a 'random seed' processed through the genetic code that creates through manipulations of structure random in addition to progressive changing. Each 'random seed' is not valuable more than another.

It is only a seed. Some seeds are poisoned. If I am in a world I have generated iteratively from the discarded remnants of previous worlds, and I choose not to enter it fully, I will discard it and search for a new one until I grow tired or am satisfied. Is this negative? Perhaps. I ever feel the irrational sorrow of one who has cast out its creation. But each world is no more or less valuable in the 'intrinsic' than a world you are satisfied with - it is the personal value that is undergoing kinesthesis.

The ability to see which seeds are poisoned, to recognize that data, is powerful. And though we may feel a passing regret for the epoch of our innocence, we cannot sacrifice power that would aid humanity for our scruples. Information is key.

Remember.

I ponder this. If I fell in love with my imaginary brother, should I falter? Should I languish? If I should be annihilated in my soul should I not be beside him, should I then stand forth from the gaze of desire for the sake of a construct of culture and empire? What value do I attribute to desire? And what value to the ethos of nations that I did not bring forth...?

We come to a new era of emotion. And if you say to yourself, "This is wrong" and condemn and outcast lovers, you will be damned and thrice damned if also were it in your power to condone and align yourself, should their cause be just.

In fifty or a hundred years, history will find itself a moment. And when we look back at this age, we will see the prejudices and etiosyntheses of our people in this universal nation. But while we wander and do not step forward, the chronicles of our age continue to advance.

While we deliberate, we lose ourselves like turtles wading out of time. And though we can speak bold words under the crouching phalanx of our collective incountenancy, we stand still while destiny moves on.

Ladies and gentlemen...

...history will -not- limp in catching up.

 

[Gigano]

Incest should be illegal all around. I'm not liberal on this at all.

Few reasons:

1.Abusive parents/older siblings could manipulate their family members into sex. If you raise your daughter up drumming the concept into her, by the time she turns 16(or whatever the age of consent is in your country) it wouldn't be too hard to forge an abusive relationship. It would technically be "consensual" and it would be hard to prove otherwise. I think it would lead to some pretty bad stuff. You could argue that it happens anyway, but at least with incest being illegal there is no place for them to hide and justify what they are doing. How would you prove it is consensual sex? Merely making some guy's 18 year old daughter say "yeah, it's consensual" isn't enough. I'd be wanting thorough psychological profiling on all of the family. Why? See point number 3.

...actually a very good point.

It might conversely be argued that the threat of legal sanction, their abuser/love one going to jail, and the whole thing seeing the light of day at all, is often a major part of what abusers use to keep their victims silent. So having it outlawed can also be used to put pressure on the victim. But as we're only talking adults here, they should be less suspicable to such pressure, and I can certainly see the "grooming" angle you put forth as being a potentially far greater and enduring behavioural reinforcer.

Since it needn't inherently be so, and we generally respect that sane adults make decisions out of their own free will, it won't fully sway me from my conviction that it should be legal, but it's the best argument against it I've seen so far.

2.I personally think it is wrong to be sexually attracted to a close family member. Incredibly sick.

The personal disgust of individuals should hold no sway in regard to what harmless things other individuals are allowed to privately do.

3.It isn't a healthy mindset. I'd encourage anyone to find someone who wants to fuck their sister or their mum that isn't a total crackpot. I think those that do seem to invariably suffer from a mental illness or a personality disorder to begin with.

It's usually really only a symptom of underlying social problems and lack of structure and stability in a family. Focusing on solving those - rather than maintaining some unenforceable ban - would eliminate it far more efficiently; without hurting those extremely few for whom it might actually be a fully conscious mutual choice (they're bound to exist, everything else does when it comes to human sexuality).

4.The obvious health risks of reproduction. How would you police this? Make only same-sex incest legal? What about heterosexual couples who are infertile - are they allowed to have intercourse then? Whatever the decision it - it's going to be lots of fun trying to police it.

How would you police what people are up to in the privacy of their own bedroom in the first place?

If there isn't a fetus/kid to take a DNA sample from, then you'll never be able to prove what two adult siblings were up to; even when you can prove that they were sleeping in the same bed (which plenty of adult siblings probably do without anything strange happening).

I have no problem with taking the conservative side here, even if it is technically the minority. I think many members of this forum are way too socially left-wing anyway - the forum is filled with idealists. I think we can all agree on that.

Feel free to go mental and passive aggressively try to imply I'm an idiot. I don't really care. I don't expect more than 50% agreement on anything, nor do I seek it.

More socially liberal than necessarily "left-wing".

...

There's no reason it can't change. I just said genetics is a craps shoot, and shouldn't factor into whether or not incest is allowed.

But it shouldn't be an all-or-nothing decision. It should be handled on a case-by-case basis, and attitudes towards incest should change naturally like they did with homosexuality and the like.

In reality, morals and taboos are inherently relative. Name anything Western culture currently finds abhorrent (rape, incest, pedophilia, mass murder, public torture, bloodsport, animal abuse, slavery, etc.) and I could name several points in history when it was the norm (i.e. not considered immoral). Conversely, there are tons of stuff we consider perfectly fine (premarital sex, eating sacred animals, ignoring beggars, burying the dead, sitting for long periods of time, drinking cold water, being around menstruating women, etc.) which would be considered absolutely despicable at other times and places.

The point is, we're no more enlightened than any other culture. There is no rational way to prove whether incest (or anything at all) should, or should not, be morally reprehensible.

Ethical relativism from a timeless superhuman perspective is all good and well, but that hardly exempts one from taking a stance of ones own in the reality of this day and age.

I'd certainly consider it far more enlightened to not enslave black people than to do so; and that others thought otherwise in some other age doesn't pose any argument against that position. Only what they think now, and the arguments they have now, matter in determining what is right now.

 

[ssgt splatter]

I'm adopted so technically it wouldn't be incest if i were to do it but still, it would feel wrong.

 

[interspark]

[HEADING=1]WON'T SOMBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!?!?[/HEADING]

 

[Zantos]

When it comes to incest, as long as you don't reproduce and create some retarded offspring, only do it recreationally, go right ahead. Absolutely no problems with that.

Polygamy I also have no problems with, but only if it works both ways.

Recreational incest. That's now my phrase of the week.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Ethical relativism from a timeless superhuman perspective is all good and well, but that hardly exempts one from taking a stance of ones own in the reality of this day and age.

I'd certainly consider it far more enlightened to not enslave black people than to do so; and that others thought otherwise in some other age doesn't pose any argument against that position. Only what they think now, and the arguments they have now, matter in determining what is right now.

But the problem is that the arguments for legalising incest are largely moralistic. Primarily, "it's encroaching on people's personal freedom." However, that's relative. If you can campaign for incest using that rhetoric, I should be able to campaign for my "freedom to eat another consenting human alive" by the same logic. Then, if that becomes perfectly fine, there'll be people campaigning for the right to eat another consenting human in a restaurant without being asked to leave (like gays kissing in public). Hence the whole social unravelling thing that Malinowski mentioned. (The tapestry metaphor isn't exactly accurate, since society wouldn't exactly 'unravel', just change as we know it).

If you think that could never happen, then you should look up Papa New Guinea. There are tribes that eat the corpses of their deceased relatives for good luck.

Now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm just saying, bringing 'morality' and 'freedom' arguments into a logical debate, or vice versa, is sort of a fallacy.

 

[emeraldrafael]

The deformed babies birth numbers are actually highly over blown, and if two people in the family love each, I dont see why not.

Would make life in West Virgina much easier. ZING!

 

[TilMorrow]

If everyone agrees, I don't see why not. Plus, you know, three-ways with twins.

...that are related to you. Thats what you mean right?

OT: Incest? Well it's really the choice of the people involved be it a person and their mother/father/sister/brother/cousin/uncle/aunt/grandfather/grandmother/...*continues for the whole family tree* who want to fu- I mean have intercourse with each other. But all the same to me the concept sounds weird and slightly disgusting and if I ever heard someone talking about how they slept with a close relative with consent, my mind will start being fucked with. Maybe thats why it should be, not necessarily illegal, but have rules in place over it so that people don't go crazy due to mindfuck. Though the fact it is also called incest when having intercourse with cousins due to them being related through blood through you mother or father's brother or sister, but in a sense they are not directly related to you through blood since someone else helped conceive them so is it actually fully incest or something inbetween?

Edit: I just remembered, this isn't a real life example btw, I was watching Law and Order: SVU or whatever it is on TV one day and the episode was about a husband who had been murdered and his son and wife were suspects alongside a list of other people. Later on its revealed his wife had been sleeping with the son and the son legitmately loved her and was over eighteen (or however they tried to portray it). Long story short: Mother used son to try and escape suspicision and the son reveals that his mother had been sleeping with him since before the age of consent. Not really relevant but it reminded me of a news story where a mother went and looked for her son she put up for adoption and after finding him started sleeping with him. I guess its an example of possibly problems with no rules on incest.

 

[SlasherX]

It shoukd be legal if they are of age and consent, because you can get screenings to see if your child would have downs. Also their is no hell so thats not a big problem.

 

[Belated]

No. If there are no victims, it shouldn't be a crime. Consensual sex has no victims. What, are you going to rest both of them for possibly hurting each other? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Well no, not really. But it's up there.

And I know what everybody says, "But the baby will be a mutant!" Well what if they don't have a damn baby? Besides, incest is hardly a guarantee of mutations. Incest for several generations is more like it. But incest one time around? Nah, the baby will be fine. Probably.

 

[theultimateend]

Hmmm... this is a difficult topic. On the one hand, to me and to the vast majority of people, incest does seem innately disgusting. However, if both partners are over the age of consent and they both understand the consequences, I see no reason for sex between relatives to be illegal. Whether they should be allowed to have children is an even harder decision though, one which I'm genuinally unsure about, because as you mentioned there is a much higher risk of the child being disabled.

It's not innate if you were taught it by your culture.

Innate is a natural thing. Like your desire to drink water.

It's innate, critical to your survival.

Incest as a negative is taught, if it was innate it wouldn't have been so common for thousands of years of written human history.

 

[Mister Benoit]

It's not incest but on "So you think you can dance" season 5 there was a Brother and Sister couple in the try outs. It was extremely painful to watch them, not just because they were awful dancers but because it was very strange how they acted towards each other. It was painful to watch them at all and I ended up going in the kitchen to grab something.

 

[The Funslinger]

Look, I'm all for a sexually open society, but I hate it when people compare any kind of sexual discrimination to the persecution of the gays. Just because you are capable of doing something doesn't always mean you should do it. I'm happy for people to have sex with either gender, or transgender if they like, I'm happy with people having (almost) any fetish, but off the top of my head, the two things you shouldn't be able to fuck are animals and blood relatives.

In any case, I have what I would call a healthy relationship with my two sisters, and, from what I can tell, they're both quite beautiful. However, if I saw one of them naked, my only instinct would be to claw my eyes out.

 

[karloss01]

I think there should be an undecided option to this poll as many people seem to feel that way. I can't actually form an opinion on this and i can't explain why, must be too conflicting for my mind.

but as the internet saying goes;

"Incest is Wincest."

 

[FolkLikePanda]

Incest should be illegal, you gotta think, if they have a kid will it be fair on the kid if its deformed in some way?
Polygamy should only be legal if both partners in the current marriage agree on it.

 

[numbersix1979]

What kind of incest are we talking here? Because I think we can all agree there's different kinds.

 

[l3o2828]

Very difficult Topic indeed....
Erm...I guess it shouldn't be ilegal with consent...but the issue is that the biology of humans prevents from having children with with close relatives becasue problems WILL arise.