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So, let's debate incest. No, really. I'm curious.
iglidante
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
If this is too much, feel free to close the thread - I'm not trying to start anything, but I really do think there's a good discussion to be had here.
Most people consider incest to be bad. Usually, it breaks down into one or more of the following:
- Abuse of power/age differences (parent/child incest, older sibling/younger sibling, etc.)
- Deformities in the resulting children, should pregnancy occur (inbreeding)
- Children shouldn't experiment with sex (sex play between siblings)
- Denouncement in religious texts / by religious leaders.
But if we take away those three things, what are we left with?
Personally, I find the thought of incest between two consenting adults to be...well, wrong. But without falling back on one of the above reasons, I can't really say why. If there are no children involved, and no abuse, it doesn't seem like anyone is being harmed.
Is there a discussion to be had here? Maybe. What do you all think?
Most people consider incest to be bad. Usually, it breaks down into one or more of the following:
- Abuse of power/age differences (parent/child incest, older sibling/younger sibling, etc.)
- Deformities in the resulting children, should pregnancy occur (inbreeding)
- Children shouldn't experiment with sex (sex play between siblings)
- Denouncement in religious texts / by religious leaders.
But if we take away those three things, what are we left with?
Personally, I find the thought of incest between two consenting adults to be...well, wrong. But without falling back on one of the above reasons, I can't really say why. If there are no children involved, and no abuse, it doesn't seem like anyone is being harmed.
Is there a discussion to be had here? Maybe. What do you all think?
iglidante on
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This discussion has been closed.
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So, ignoring all the negative aspects of something, what's so bad about it?
...all those negative aspects you want to ignore in order to have the conversation. I mean, ignoring the health problems and early onset of death, what's so bad about starving children in Africa?
And that too.
Exactly. That's where I think the debate lies.
First doesn't always apply, second is (I believe) only an issue after more than one generation of inbreeding and is of course only an issue when you have a child at all, third is an issue with unrelated children as well and is only an issue if participants are underage, and the last is bullshit because religion shouldn't dictate morality.
So the way I see it, there is a bit of a grey area in some cases. That said, the majority of incest cases will involve statutory rape or some kind of power imbalance due to age, so I'm comfortable having the restrictions and stigma that we have in place.
I do, however, feel bad for those rare cases where people fall in love, then discover that they're actually related. So long as they don't breed, I have no problem with them.
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All of those reasons apply to non-incestual sex as well. So, do we need to reconsider all sex within the context of these reasons?
The deformities question is especially interesting. Ought individuals with genetic diseases be prevented from breeding for the sake of preventing a deformity in the offspring? If we can be against incest for this reason, why not be against individuals with genetic diseases as well?
And this is it.
That said I can't think of a reason why it's wrong but I definitely draw the line there myself.
We don't ban people with the same genetic disorder from having kids with each other despite that being way riskier for the children, although it's probably a good idea to not do it either way.
I would consider debating that third one by itself, but the fact is people who grow up together are almost never going to be attracted to one another thanks to Westermark effect, so it's somewhat irrelevant.
And lolreligion.
I love debating this, but you're generally going to find you just can't get people past "ick" factor and into actual debate.
there is some leeway as far as definitions go(like lots of places are ok with cousins marrying) but there isn't a single culture on Earth that does not have taboos against incest.
Didn't Egyptian pharaohs routinely marry their siblings?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-507588/Shock-married-couple-discovered-twins-separated-birth.html
Besides the constructed social taboo, why ruin a couple's life because they are brother and sister? Before they knew, they loved as deeply as anyone else, kissed passionately at the movies, played with sex toys, shared their most intimate thoughts, and done other things that married people do.
Why was this a tragedy? It seems consensual. None of the 4 rules above apply. Why can't these people live out their lives loving their love of their life?
But of course we all know the true reason incest is taboo: to promote the traffic of women within society. ;-)
hahaha you're right.
My kids will think this is OK and I will have to disown them for it.
There. That's your "pro-incest" argument.
I dunno, I'm reaching.
I was under the impression this was common in most royal families back in the day.
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I think when an OP has to ask "Is there discussion here?" it's a pretty shitty OP. Either you have a conviction to argue or you don't.
Divine Right of Kings &c. is responsible for a lot of fucked up genetics in whatever surviving aristocracy there is.
(eeehhhh. I don't have a sister.)
It was my understanding that a lot of royalty was inbred in times past. Now, I really do think every society is against "true" incest. Debate over how far distant you need to be in order to "not count" does still rage, though.
Sex between a parent and minor child is out of bounds as it is an abuse of power.
The religious angle is irrelevant to me personally.
However, if two consenting adult relatives want to fuck eachother.... I really don't care, as long as they use birth control due to the fact that an incestuous relationship is more likely to produced horrible genetically defective children. It may creep me out, but so does the idea of having sex with another guy. Not my place to judge.
yes I forgot about that
Right.
The main reason incest should remain illegal is because of the vast potential of exploitation of children at the hands of adults or older siblings.
The issue with birth defects isn't because a single incestuous pairing is likely to result in birth defects. It's not - the risk of a birth defect occurring in the children of sibling parents is a little less than 1 birth defect in every 4% of births. However, if you have an entire community engaging in incest, with the potential for layering multiple birth defects across several generations, that becomes a major societal issue. And unfortunately the sorts of communities in which incest is likely to occur on such a wide scale are going to be places like fundamentalist religious communes where we can't trust that birth control is available.
I see nothing morally wrong with consensual nonprocreative sex between adults, but that's not good enough for me to support legalizing it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Hey now. I think there's a discussion here. What I should have said is "do you guys want to have it?"
The only potential problem I can see is multi-generational inbreeding. I suspect, though have no figures to back up, that siblings wanting to form relationships would be rare enough that it isn't likely to become an issue. This may change if it is more widely accepted, though.
EDIT: that's directed at siblings, parent/child I think there are issues with
Filial imprinting.
Edit: Oooh, Westermarck effect. Thanks, Kamar.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Isn't it also a running gag about British royalty (and/or other European royalties)? I thought the whole concept of only marrying in between a small number of families with power essentially led to a situation where everyone started becomming related to everyone (lolhyperbole) to a rather surprising degree.
Which may be something to do with evolutionary psychology where it encouraged genetic diversity and became a beneficial trait.
And deep within our primitive brains most of us still have this genetically encoded instinctual taboo.
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It mostly has to do with the previously mentioned Westermark effect, and those 4 things above. If two orphans from birth grew up in different foster homes and never interacted with each other until one fateful night when they fell in love then I don't really care. That is pretty much not the case, though, and the law should favour the bell rather than the tail. And the bell involves abusive relationships due to power differentials/structures in a family environment. Shit like this. It would rarely be that extreme, but still.