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H&SBR: Incest

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20:48 / 07.03.07

German siblings trying to live as a couple

Interesting story, non? How have people responded to it? Incest is currently illegal in most places in the world. I'm led to believe that this is due to the higher rates of congenital illness in the children born of such a union. But we have quite reliable contraceptives now, we have relatively safe sterilisation procedures for men.

And what about Twincest or other not-straight incestuous coupling? When same-sex incest occurs there is obviously no risk of a child. Yet this is still considered to have a high "ick" factor. Why?

I'd like this thread to cover the ethical and legal aspects of incest, but more importantly, I'd like to see people's personal responses. This could easily have become a Headshop or Switchboard topic, but I wanted to start a Health and Sexuality (Possibly Sex, Body and Relationship) thread so as to push the conversation closer towards personal response, revelation and reflection. It might seem an odd topic to begin the "touchy feely" aspects of H&S with, but I thought a more controversial and "icky" topic would be more likely to inspire responses.

Lot's of "I feel" statements would be wonderful. If people would be willing to reveal some of their circumstances (ie. Parent, single child, married to their aunt etc.) I think we might be able to seed some interesting other discussions and also explore fully our own emotional responses to the idea of incest.

If you want to post annonymously then I you have two options. Either ask another poster who you trust to post your message for you or use the new SUPER SECRET EMAIL OPTION! I've set up a gmail address that's open to anyone. To log in just enter

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Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:35 / 07.03.07

Although I regard the incest taboo as being of considerable value (not just because of the potential for abnormality in the offspring but because--breifly--an incestuous relationship is open to horrendous abuse, and can also remove a powerful drive to leave the family unit and explore the world outside) I had a certain amount of sympathy for this couple... until I read the following:

"Why are disabled parents allowed to have children, or people with hereditary diseases or women over 40? No-one says that is a crime."

At which point Mr. Sympathy snatched up his hat and left, taking no leave and bidding no good-day.

23:51 / 07.03.07

Why are disabled parents allowed to have children, or people with hereditary diseases or women over 40? No-one says that is a crime.

I feel that's a good point. If the reason for the legal situation is only increase risk of recessive genetic disorders, then there are plenty of other relationship-types that could be illegal on the same grounds. Is that the only reason for the legislation?

00:06 / 08.03.07

I think the difference is that incest is chosen whereas disability or hereditary disease isn't. Some people argue that people have a right to reproduce. By stopping syblings reproducing you don't remove the right to reproduce at the same time. If you tell disabled people/carriers of hereditary disease that they can't breed then that's eugenics.

And I'd have to say that fear of inbreeding isn't the only issue here. Twincest is still, afaik, illegal. Infertile incest isn't allowed. And I haven't been made aware of any laws that refer specifically to impregnation. There's no law, afaict, against turkey-bastering your child/child's cousin into existence. If inbreeding were the real fear then there would be.

00:28 / 08.03.07

I'm not sure it's entirely clear that it is "chosen". Clearly many people believe that many aspects of sexuality are not chosen, but are innate. Certainly some fetishes and other aspects of sexuality are voluntary (although not all healthy, probably). I think questions of the existance of free will, what is love, and how such things interact with what you might call a fetish comes into this somewhere. Here my late night brain has stopped working, however...

But as for eugenics, surely if you stop any two people reproducing only because their offspring might be disabled or diseased, that is by definition eugenics.

00:28 / 08.03.07

I think the difference is that incest is chosen whereas disability or hereditary disease isn't.
You might need to qualify that statement, and clarify the discussion. I'm pretty sure that you are talking about consentual situations only, but. Incest is often chosen by only one person, and is abuse of another, and is really fucking horrible.

00:34 / 08.03.07

Why are disabled parents allowed to have children, or people with hereditary diseases or women over 40? No-one says that is a crime.

To be fair, it was their lawyer who said so, not the couple themselves.

Really, whatever one's ethical objections to the situation might be, is it really something that the couple ought to be put in jail for? Certainly, with a conviction for incest on his CV, it's no big surprise that the guy is an an 'unemployed locksmith', as the article was kind enough to point out, and is likely to stay that way.

00:35 / 08.03.07

There's no law, afaict, against turkey-bastering your child/child's cousin into existence.

So is the law an ass, or is there a hidden rationale for 'ick'?

Is turkey-bastering your sister's child/your nephew into existance (and not kissing, or marrying, obviously) as icky, or less icky, or more icky than making an honest criminal of her?

00:54 / 08.03.07

Incest is often chosen by only one person, and is abuse of another, and is really fucking horrible.

That could apply to any sort of sexual, or indeed familial relationship though, surely?

In an abusive situation there would be other laws to cover it; in the absence of any evidence of abuse though, and assuming it's a matter between consenting adults, I'm not sure why incest, per se, whether or not I as a concerned citizen approve of it personally, should be considered a criminal offence.

On the other hand, as with euthanasia, the drug laws to a point, and so on, the statute books, in Germany and elsewhere, are unlikly to be changed any time soon because of the possible outcry in the nation's papers.

As with other cases of this kind of thing though, eg, consensual underage sex, it was probably a mistake for the couple to have children. Press-wise, in any case, they were really asking for trouble.

Leigh Monster loses its cool

01:56 / 08.03.07

Almost any time I hear about people fighting for their right to be a couple (or a triad, or whatever configuration they both/all desire) I reflexively support their cause. Hurrah consensual love in all its shapes and sizes! I'd support bestiality if I thought your sheep was in love with you and wanted it just as badly as you did.

However, most of the time when I hear about people fighting for their right to reproduce, I reflexively dismiss them. (These are both knee-jerk reactions, not well-thought-out ones.) It seems egocentric to me to be so intent on passing on your own genes that, given any valid reason not to* (including but not limited to high risk of birth defects), you'd take the energy that you had intended to use for parenting and put it towards litigation or fertility procedures rather than adopting a child that already exists and needs someone to raise it.

I don't really understand the ick factor that well, other than, as MC pointed out, incest would seem to be an indication that one is lacking in experience of the world outside the family (since as far as I know natural attraction between siblings is rare). But that doesn't apply here since this couple didn't grow up together.

*"children shouldn't have two daddies" is not a valid reason not to

Our Lady Has Left the Building

05:06 / 08.03.07

They already have a child don't they, who is indeed a 'poster child' for why siblings shouldn't breed, being a severely disabled child that will always require round-the-clock care.

Providing it were truly consensual I wouldn't care much about whether brother and sister want to fuck (insert humorous joke about my sister here) but breeding takes it to a different and more problematic level.

miss wonderstarr

06:41 / 08.03.07

I've found it notable recently that while sibling incest is still generally regarded as "ick", there's a now-established and thriving trend of twincest slash (especially around Heroes) that presents such relationships as romantic and sexy. I don't doubt there have always been people who thought sibling incest between attractive brothers or sisters was a big turn-on ~ I wrote some Luke and Leia slash years ago, which wasn't meant to be sexy so much as exploratory, and I almost thought I'd coined the term twincest in '02 ~ but it surprised me to see this tendency "coming out" so visibly and not being met by ick, but by other people joining in.

This is pretty anecdotal and based on a skim of recent Livejournal slash.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

06:57 / 08.03.07

Hasn't there been occasions in various eras and belief structures that siblingsex is better than letting outsiders in to pollute the bloodline? European royalty tends to keep it at the level of cousins marrying but am I right in thinking it happened in some of the Egyptian dynasties? Help me Barbelith!

Ex

07:18 / 08.03.07

I think that separating sex from reproduction, as several posters have mentioned, is really useful here.

i believe there's often a strong sexual component to reunions between adult biological family members - I've heard it described in ways that make sense by someone who felt it (in a documentary, rather than first hand). You're suddenly trying to fit this person into your life who could be very, very important, but as an adult you don't really have any pre-existing model for doing that in a 'sibling' way (for example) so you often feel it as a sexual attraction. See Wikipedia, mainly to prove I'm not making it up. Eastenders dabbled with it as a plotline once, but they kind of gave up and ignored it after a bit.

I can't instinctively imagine functional relationships between children and parents, given what hangs on them, but I think it's really really important that the law, other people's lives and their efforts to create such relationships shouldn't rest on my lack of imagination.

There's no way I would want to make interfamily abuse easier. I think age is a key factor. I believe the UK has some fine-tuning around people in positions of repsonsibility (teachers etc) and their charges in terms of the age of consent - would it be feasible to legalise incest at an age when one might hope people were deemed adult enough to make rational decisions? I have no idea at what age that would be, though.

08:35 / 08.03.07

Hasn't there been occasions in various eras and belief structures that siblingsex is better than letting outsiders in to pollute the bloodline? European royalty tends to keep it at the level of cousins marrying but am I right in thinking it happened in some of the Egyptian dynasties? Help me Barbelith!

True for the Egyptians at some points certainly. I think it was all about not diluting the divine essence for them (what with their royalty basically being percieved as gods and all). Of course they didn't have the benefit of knowing about genetics.

But as for eugenics, surely if you stop any two people reproducing only because their offspring might be disabled or diseased, that is by definition eugenics.

Well yes, but then technically allowing couples that are unable to have children to become pregnant via artificial means is also a eugenic technique (as was the couple who wanted to ensure their child was born deaf so that it could, in their view, have a better quality of life with it's parents).

The chance of any offspring, of an incestuous relationship, suffering disabilities is extremely high. Whilst, like most people here, I don't have a massive problem with their relationship I do feel that they shouldn't have gone so far as having children.

09:43 / 08.03.07

Some people argue that people have a right to reproduce. By stopping syblings reproducing you don't remove the right to reproduce at the same time. If you tell disabled people/carriers of hereditary disease that they can't breed then that's eugenics.

Do some people really argue that people have a right to reproduce? Are any of those people here? If so, I’d be interested to hear the argument.

As AG says, there are already laws to protect against children being abused by members of their family, and I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to distinguish between abusive relationship between people who are related and those who aren’t. Or, at least, I can’t see the value in doing so. For example, I don’t see why an adopted child should have less protection than one born of the parents. But I might be missing something.

As for the risk of genetic abnormality and/or disability, what parents aren’t risking that to some degree? Just on a practical level, how do we legislate around that? What level of risk should be prohibitive? How do you measure disability?

Lagrange's Nightmare

10:10 / 08.03.07

Just have a quick question about twincest; don't want to derail thread:

And I'd have to say that fear of inbreeding isn't the only issue here. Twincest is still, afaik, illegal. Infertile incest isn't allowed.

Is twincest homonormative? I'm asking cause i really don't know. Last time i checked appx 40% of twins are male-female pairs (ok i admit, i checked just then) Is there a time to use twincest and a time not to?

10:10 / 08.03.07

FRANCIS:
Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN:
I want to be one.
REG:
What?
STAN:
I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.
REG:
What?!
LORETTA:
It's my right as a man.
JUDITH:
Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA:
I want to have babies.
REG:
You want to have babies?!
LORETTA:
It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
REG:
But... you can't have babies.
LORETTA:
Don't you oppress me.

Um, apologies. I can't find any of the details of the "right to baby" rhetoric online. If I could get to my old Ethics text books I'd be all over that, but they are all packed up ready to move to the other side of the world. I'll email one of my Ethics student friends about it for you.

10:30 / 08.03.07

Thanks Princess. I could have a stab at making the case but I think I’d run into trouble pretty quickly.

Thinking about the topic more generally, although I can’t really muster a rational argument against incestuous relationships, I instinctively recognise the taboo. For example, the first time I saw incest pornography (of which there seems to be an increasing amount) it had a powerful effect on me that seemed to spring from something more fundamental than a learned response. I’m not sure how much weight we should give this kind of brute intuition, but if we’re looking at the moral aspects, perhaps a gut-level feeling of wrongness shouldn’t be completely discounted.

miss wonderstarr

10:46 / 08.03.07

I thought twincest could just as easily refer to male/female relationships.

10:51 / 08.03.07

As for the risk of genetic abnormality and/or disability, what parents aren’t risking that to some degree?

True, but the risk is significantly higher when closely related couples have children. Okay, arguably, this is no different from two people who bear a dominant gene for an inheritable disease having children (although I personally would argue that shouldn't be exactly encouraged either).

Bear in mind that it won't just be the children that could suffer from these abnormalities/disabilities. There is a chance that they could then pass onto any offspring of the children. Hopefully any problems would eventually be bred out if the children mated with non-related partners (assuming the children didn't decide to follow their parent's example of course, in which case the problem gets worse).

Less searchable M0rd4nt

10:52 / 08.03.07

To be fair, it was their lawyer who said so, not the couple themselves.

I knowthat, Granny. However, they no doubt knew pretty much the spin that their lawyer was going to put on things; he's their lawyer and they therefore bear some responsibility for anything he says to the press.

10:59 / 08.03.07

Evil, It doesn’t sound like this has anything particularly to do with incest though. Incest is just one of a number of circumstances that can increase the chance of birth defects. I don’t think this in itself accounts for the taboo. It sounds more like a justification for codifying the taboo.

11:09 / 08.03.07

They already have a child don't they, who is indeed a 'poster child' for why siblings shouldn't breed, being a severely disabled child that will always require round-the-clock care.

I don't think they do, they said in the article: "People have said that our children are disabled, but that is wrong. They are not disabled," said Patrick.

"Eric, our eldest child, has epilepsy, but he was born two months premature, he also has learning difficulties. Our other daughter, Sarah, has special needs," Patrick said.

11:18 / 08.03.07

Evil, It doesn’t sound like this has anything particularly to do with incest though. Incest is just one of a number of circumstances that can increase the chance of birth defects. I don’t think this in itself accounts for the taboo. It sounds more like a justification for codifying the taboo.

Two people with a very similar genetic make-up having children means that there is a much higher risk of genetic abnormalities simply because negative traits which are recessive within the parents are more likely to be expressed, and remember that it will not just be one negative trait there will be a number of them. When a person mates with someone who is not extremely similar to them (genetically) then there is a much lower chance of multiple recessive negative traits being expressed. Some might, but certainly not as many as if related couples mate.

I agree that it's only one of a number of things which can cause birth defects, it is however the most surefire way for those defects to occur. Far more so than someone being exposed to secondary smoke or having the odd shot of vodka (and unlike those it only needs a successful conception for the damage to be done).

As I say, I have no real problem with the choice of some people to live incestuously. But from the viewpoint of genetic health mating by incest is extremely unwise.

I disagree that the "ick" factor is the primary reason why it is illegal in society. Historically the civilisations/families which practised incest tended to die out (the less diversity, the greater vulnerability to being wiped out by the same disease).

Lagrange's Nightmare

11:56 / 08.03.07

According to the Guardian Article it's legal in quite a few countries:

Napoleon abolished France's incest laws in 1810. Neither is it a crime in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal or Turkey. Japan, Argentina and Brazil have also legalised it in recent years

I must admit i don't really understand how bad the risk of diseases are, but i believe it gets worse for sequential generations of children born from incestous relationships. Presuming the chances of bad complications gets high enough will the parents who fought for their right, then deny their children the same rights? Where do you draw the line?

12:31 / 08.03.07

Quite. However you cut it, this is going to overlap with lots of other genetically risky couplings. I don’t know much about the scale of the risk, although the geneticist the article quotes cites a figure of 50%. I don’t think the comparison with other hereditary diseases where recessive genes come into play is completely wrong-headed. Two people who are carriers of another genetic defect might well take their chances without, I suspect, the opprobrium heaped on a brother and sister.

I disagree that the "ick" factor is the primary reason why it is illegal in society. Historically the civilisations/families which practised incest tended to die out (the less diversity, the greater vulnerability to being wiped out by the same disease).

If the ‘ick’ factor is separable from the practical objections, whither the ‘ick’?

12:42 / 08.03.07

there are already laws to protect against children being abused by members of their family

...that don't seem to work very well. I'd be worried about the potential for abuse as well, and in general I'd say incest was a bad idea for lots of reasons beyond the danger of inbred kids.
On the other hand, I don't think exceptions should be criminalised. When long-lost siblings are attracted to each other, that doesn't seem the same as people who've grown up together staying together as a romantic couple, and certainly not a reason to put them in prison.

I'm slightly conflicted about it (BTW I'm an only child) because on the one hand there's always the occasions where it seems perfectly justifiable, contrasted with the similarity to arguments used to justify abuse (e.g. NAMBLA). I wouldn't want to imprison people for incest but I certainly wouldn't want a society where it was the norm.

12:45 / 08.03.07

I'd say incest was a bad idea for lots of reasons beyond the danger of inbred kids.

Cool. What are they?

12:47 / 08.03.07

whither the ‘ick’?

It's taboo innit. We're (generally) trained from childhood to see the family as a unit with the rest of the world outside, and seek romantic and sexual partners out in the big wide world. We're taught that it's wrong.

12:51 / 08.03.07

Those are the reasons – because we’re taught it’s wrong?

12:56 / 08.03.07

Or, if that’s an interpost, I can think of lots of things my parents discouraged that don’t have what could be described as an ‘ick factor’.

13:22 / 08.03.07

What are they?

In my humble, talking specifically about siblings, it seems to me that overlapping the complications of sexual relationships with intrafamilial relations would often be a recipe for disaster. Imagine breaking up a romantic relationship with your brother or sister for example, the fallout would be catastrophic. Especially at the most likely age for sexual experimentation, teens, a time when you should be developing an independent identity and forging significant relations of your own, turning that development towards the stable 'safe' relationships you already have with a sibling seems like fear to me. The power imbalance between older & younger siblings is likely to be mirrored in their relationship, interacting with parents is often going to be difficult to say the least, the desire to have children is going to arise, the mistakes you make and move on from could tear families apart, the stigma and prejudice are going to be a big problem which is likely to lead to secret relationships which have their own problems etc. Obviously not all these are going to apply, but they seem like pitfalls to me.

Cousin incest is pretty common in some places*, and seems to raise fewer issues and less ick. How do people feel about kissing cousins?

*I'd have to look to find solid evidence to support that but in the small rural communities around where I grew up it definitely wasn't unheard of.

13:26 / 08.03.07

I can think of lots of things my parents discouraged that don’t have what could be described as an ‘ick factor’

Also teachers, contemporaries, the media, society in general. I don't mean in the same way we're taught to make mum's pastry or our specific family values, but more overall societal norms like politeness.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

13:30 / 08.03.07

It's not a matter of being "taught" that it is wrong, Quants. There appears to be a powerful revulsion against fucking your immediate family hardwired into the brain. Many scientific studies have confirmed this. The Wikipedia article linked to above mentions the phenomenon, called the Westermarck effect. It isn't perfect, of course, otherwise there would never be any incest; it's also prone to putting one off completely unrelated individuals with whom one happens to have been raised in close proximity (as in the case of certain societies where children marked for an arranged marriage are raised in the same household). At some point in the proceedings, a switch gets thrown in the developing brain which says "aha, that must be Mum, that must be Dad, that must be Sis, so I'm not going to fancy them."

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