Should Incest be banned?

[Rival]

There is no demonstrable threat from gay marriage in my view, and I would suggest it is only superstitious folk who legislate on the basis of non-demonstrable threats.

See this is your problem, you're labelling people as 'superstitious' when I've just shown you that the 'superstition' is based in a very real disgust response. You don't understand it because you're a Westerner and you don't have that response - which is abnormal in most of the world, where folks do have the disgust response. I mean, it's not hard. Anal sex produces disease. Disease is bad. This is basic biology not superstition. If these people then go on to have sex with others they pass these infections along.

But I guess AIDs and other STIs are just a superstition.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

If the conditions given are in place (no reproductive and no power dynamics beyond the normal) then what two consenting adults do on their own time is their business.

 

[danieldemol]

See this is your problem, you're labelling people as 'superstitious' when I've just shown you that the 'superstition' is based in a very real disgust response. You don't understand it because you're a Westerner and you don't have that response - which is abnormal in most of the world, where folks do have the disgust response. I mean, it's not hard. Anal sex produces disease. Disease is bad. This is basic biology not superstition. If these people then go on to have sex with others they pass these infections along.

But I guess AIDs and other STIs are just a superstition.

Its the view that anal sex is exclusively gay sex that seems to me to be the superstition, as well as the view that legislation banning anal sex would have a net positive effect compared to promoting condom usage.

Banning homosexuality I see as the cause of greater harm than good and not necessarily relevant to the practice of anal sex anyway.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

It's interesting how many responses seem to be unable or unwilling to address the specific carefully worded and qualified relationship described in the OP.

Topics like this make people uncomfortable and they kneejerk. Notice how many people had to express disgust or shock that this was simply being discussed as a thread topic?

 

[Rival]

Topics like this make people uncomfortable and they kneejerk. Notice how many people had to express disgust or shock that this was simply being discussed as a thread topic?

Errr, yeah, because incest is disgusting.

See the above articles I posted.

Westerners are weird and lack purity culture/disgust culture.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Errr, yeah, because incest is disgusting.

A lot of topics are to certain people. Consider that ethologically, responses to behavior are necessarily different based on individuals and environment. Incest often occurs as a response to an organism's sexual desire overwhelming taboos,whether innate or cultural. This is due to the reproductive instinct being particularly acute.

My point wasn't to specifically judge people on experiencing disgust with incest, but to give an example of how, on a forum where a variety of topics (including disgusting things) are discussed, people feel the need to express it adamantly as if it weren't assumed to be disgusting. This is a kneejerk reaction. It's not bad per se, just interesting.

See the above articles I posted.

If you don't mind linking them for ease of access so I may peruse them later I will happily review them.

Westerners are weird and lack purity culture/disgust culture.

Interesting! I don't always see this. I wonder if this is based on the Western tendency to value individualism over collectivism?

 

[Rival]

A lot of topics are to certain people. Consider that ethologically, responses to behavior are necessarily different based on individuals and environment. Incest often occurs as a response to an organism's sexual desire overwhelming taboos,whether innate or cultural. This is due to the reproductive instinct being particularly acute.

My point wasn't to specifically judge people on experiencing disgust with incest, but to give an example of how, on a forum where a variety of topics (including disgusting things) are discussed, people feel the need to express it adamantly as if it weren't assumed to be disgusting. This is a kneejerk reaction. It's not bad per se, just interesting.



If you don't mind linking them for ease of access so I may peruse them later I will happily review them.



Interesting! I don't always see this. I wonder if this is based on the Western tendency to value individualism over cellectivism?

'Disgust plays an important role in conservatives' moral and political judgments, helping to explain why conservatives and liberals differ in their attitudes on issues related to purity. We examined the extent to which the emotion-regulation strategy reappraisal drives the disgust-conservatism relationship. We hypothesized that disgust has less influence on the political and moral judgments of liberals because they tend to regulate disgust reactions through emotional reappraisal more than conservatives. Study 1a found that a greater tendency to reappraise disgust was negatively associated with conservatism, independent of disgust sensitivity. Study 1b replicated this finding, demonstrating that the effect of reappraisal is unique to disgust. In Study 2, liberals condemned a disgusting act less than conservatives, and did so to the extent that they reappraised their initial disgust response. Study 3 manipulated participants' use of reappraisal when exposed to a video of men kissing. Conservatives instructed to reappraise their emotional reactions subsequently expressed more support for same-sex marriage than conservatives in the control condition, demonstrating attitudes statistically equivalent to liberal participants.'

Gut Check: Reappraisal of Disgust Helps Explain Liberal-Conservative Differences on Issues of Purity | Sociology

Disgust plays an important role in conservatives' moral and political judgments, helping to explain why conservatives and liberals differ in their attitudes on issues related to purity. We examined the extent to which the emotion-regulation strategy reappraisal drives the disgust-conservatism...

sociology.stanford.edu

What they are calling the 'conservative' view here aligns more broadly with non-Western cultures which have tended to retain purity culture, disgust culture etc. with strict sexual and food norms, differing thinking processes,

Liberals are WEIRDer than Conservatives

Guest post by Thomas Talhelm (on a recent publication with Haidt, mentioned by Tom Edsall in NYT) A few years ago, psychologists looked at all of the psychological studies of people in different cu…

righteousmind.com

Liberals and conservatives think as though they are from different cultures and see each other essentially as foreign due to these differences. But the 'conservatives' are more mainstream outside of Western countries, hence the higher proportion of what we would see as 'regressive' values outside the West. It's because of the disgust response you aptly noted. It's something most people have as innate that it has to be 'got rid of' rather than inculcated into a person to be disgusted.

So the liberal response (non-disgust, 'consent' sexual model) is WEIRD here.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I think it does, by the way I don't have a personal definition of grooming, I am quite content with this definition;

Child sexual exploitation and grooming

Guidance for school staff on how to spot the signs of sexual exploitation and how to respond.

www.schools.vic.gov.au

But can you explain how for example two gay (adult) twin brothers sleeping with each other meets the definition of grooming, or if it doesn't why you would blanket ban incest when it is the grooming that is the problem?

Personally I feel that these things are like a Venn diagram that may contain some overlap and some mutually exclusive territory.

For example it is possible to be both gay and a paedophile, so if it is paedophilia that is the problem why ban homosexuality when there are plenty of gay folk who are not also peadophiles?

I guess that's what I'm trying to explain, albeit perhaps not clearly enough.
Personally, I'm familiar with legal definitions of grooming that are based around establishment of a relationship with a junior to promote a sexual relationship. That alone makes it a problematic consideration when talking about familial relationships.

• Grooming does not necessarily involve any sexual activity or even discussion of sexual activity – for example, it may only involve establishing a relationship with the child, parent or carer for the purpose of facilitating sexual activity at a later time.

Source : Grooming offence.

Also, for it to be considered grooming, there is a requirement for it to end in an offence. From the same source;

• The sexual conduct must constitute an indictable sexual offence. This includes offences such as sexual penetration of a child, indecent assault and indecent act in the presence of a child. It does not include summary offences, such as upskirting and indecent behaviour in public.

So, whilst twin gay brothers is unlikely to be a relationship where there are coercive power dynamics whilst the two are underage compared to some other relationships, it's (again) a pretty edge case.

A 26 year old brother can sleep with his 16 year old sister (consensually) despite the protests of their parents, and in a home with younger siblings, and it doesn't meet any sort of grooming threshold, and would be perfectly fine under a removal of incest laws and a reliance on grooming laws as a means of protection.

I don't see that as a good thing, and see no societal benefit to that at all.

Finally, grooming laws where I live were explicitly changed to see other family members as victims, and not just the groomed individual. However with the removal of incest laws there is no consideration of third parties, or any impact on them. If my brother slept with my mother whilst I lived in the house, I'm supposed to be fine, even if I'm a junior without the option of leaving.

Yeah, nah. No societal benefit, no need for people to do it, definitely some possibility of harm.

 

[Whateverist]

But I guess AIDs and other STIs are just a superstition.

No more or less so than for any two human beings. So ban all sexual contact for everyone .. or just leave this up to individuals to decide?

The aspect that concerns me more is undue influence and both parties being old enough now to be deemed consenting adults doesn’t handle enough. If there is a generational gap one has to wonder whether older relative’s influence when the younger relative was less developed psychologically makes their current age less determinative. Presumably one could groom a child toward being submissive and/or hyper sexual while they are in your care.

But this becomes so hypothetical and I am so disinclined toward conspiracy thinking that I’m ready to back off altogether. Life is messy. Sh*t happens and the nanny state can only attend to so much. If anyone feels taken advantage of and they can document anything let them do so under existing law. After the fiasco of the recovered memories movement when caretakers exerted undue influence to implant memories of abuse in new patients during a period of vulnerability, I’d sooner put the energy into doing a better job of policing the psychotherapeutic community.

 

[We Never Know]

See this is your problem, you're labelling people as 'superstitious' when I've just shown you that the 'superstition' is based in a very real disgust response. You don't understand it because you're a Westerner and you don't have that response - which is abnormal in most of the world, where folks do have the disgust response. I mean, it's not hard. Anal sex produces disease. Disease is bad. This is basic biology not superstition. If these people then go on to have sex with others they pass these infections along.

But I guess AIDs and other STIs are just a superstition.

Its no secret the highest percent affected by HIV are gay.

"In the United States, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men are the population most affected by HIV"

Who Is at Risk for HIV?

HIV can affect anyone regardless of sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, gender, age, or where they live. However, certain groups of people in the United S...

www.hiv.gov

 

[dybmh]

The people here supporting incest are lacking what most people, according to studies, in the world have - the disgust response where we instinctively shy from things like incest, necrophilia and so on

I'm disgusted by it. I'm also disgusted by BDSM. But I'm not in favor of banning either of them. At risk of minimizing what you're saying, I'm a bit disgusted with public displays of affection, too. Being disgusted, imo, is not a good reason to ban something. I actually think the religious reason is the best reason. But I cannot justify imposing that belief on others. I think there needs to be real harm done, in order for it to be a crime. I don't see how 'making people uncomfortable' rises to that level of 'real harm done'.

 

[Rival]

I'm disgusted by it. I'm also disgusted by BDSM. But I'm not in favor of banning either of them. At risk of minimizing what you're saying, I'm a bit disgusted with public displays of affection, too. Being disgusted, imo, is not a good reason to ban something. I actually think the religious reason is the best reason. But I cannot justify imposing that belief on others. I think there needs to be real harm done, in order for it to be a crime. I don't see how 'making people uncomfortable' rises to that level of 'real harm done'.

Because in pre-medicine and unhygienic societies such things were more of an issue. Imagine if regular bathing weren't done and you're having sex with multiple people. Your disgust would serve you.

 

[dybmh]

Because in pre-medicine and unhygienic societies such things were more of an issue. Imagine if regular bathing weren't done and you're having sex with multiple people. Your disgust would serve you.

Is the disgust of the relationship described in the OP with all of those qualifications serving society? Does it accomplish something good? If there is a slippery slope, the qualifications have set up fences along the border. And, honestly, once a person uses the slipperly slope argument, it is an admission that the actual phenomena is not the problem.

 

[Rival]

Is the disgust of the relationship described in the OP with all of those qualifications serving society? Does it accomplish something good? If there is a slippery slope, the qualifications have set up fences along the border. And, honestly, once a person uses the slipperly slope argument, it is an admission that the actual phenomena is not the problem.

Incest is bad because of the genetic problem. We know this as human beings and are naturally disgusted by it, hence our desire for dissimilar partners/novel looks. This response persists no matter the context. It thus indicates a psychological problem with those involved in incestuous relationships from the start, given it is seen as the 'universal taboo'. We are genetically predisposed against it and if you are engaging in it we can safely say there's something wrong with you, the same way we do with necrophiliacs, paedophiles and people with a sexual interest in animals. On a fundamental level we realise this, if unconsciously, and revolt against such practices. Some things don't need to cause harm in an obvious sense, but may be seen as the results of an already disturbed psyche, as with necrophilia. The individual is a danger to himself.

 

[Alien826]

Hmm...I might not have been clear.

1) I don't see incest discussions as related to homosexual discussions at all. Full stop.

2) Some people try to tie them together. The generally religious right folk who want to have gay sex go back to being illegal (a less common position now than previously) often try and tie gay sex with other 'immoral' activities like pedophilia, bestiality and incest.

3) In this thread, the pro-incest argument has done the same. They've argued that allowing one indicates we should allow the other.

I totally disagree with that. And I think it's problematic to tie them together. They're separate issues. It's only anti-gay or pro-incest people that want to treat them as a single item (for opposite purposes).

Hope that clarifies my meaning, but happy to engage further if not.

Hmmm, I can't disagree with anything you say here, so why did I respond as I did? Let's see if I can identify the misunderstanding. You said

"gay sex and interracial sex are much less likely to be targeted for control if they are seen as standalone considerations not linked to incest".

I noted that gay sex had been targeted in the past quite readily without any talk of incest being involved. So I think I was taking you to mean that gay sex was less likely to be targeted than it actually was. Or to put it another way my point was that people don't need any help to be bigoted about it.

OK, it's a nit anyway. We seem to agree.

 

[dybmh]

Incest is bad because of the genetic problem. We know this as human beings and are naturally disgusted by it, hence our desire for dissimilar partners/novel looks. This response persists no matter the context. It thus indicates a psychological problem with those involved in incestuous relationships from the start, given it is seen as the 'universal taboo'. We are genetically predisposed against it and if you are engaging in it we can safely say there's something wrong with you, the same way we do with necrophiliacs, paedophiles and people with a sexual interest in animals. On a fundamental level we realise this, if unconsciously, and revolt against such practices. Some things don't need to cause harm in an obvious sense, but may be seen as the results of an already disturbed psyche, as with necrophilia. The individual is a danger to himself.

Maybe. I'm not so sure. I respectfully refer you to the example I brought earlier. When it comes to coupling, I feel like there is an element of randomness and chaos which is built into the system, naturally, which has surival benefit. I think this is what produces the desire for novelty, and for choosing a mate from outside the clan, so to speak.

The problem is ( well I'm saying it's not really a problem.. until it is ) ... when it is random and chaotic, then given enough time and a large population, the randomness which produces the healthy desire for relationships outside the clan, will rarely produce healthy desire for genetic similarity. When I say healthy, I mean it's not a pathological psychological problem. Yes, procreating isn't healthy in that case, but there's nothing inherently wrong with the person's mind. I expect, in those rare cases, it's simply naturally occuring diversity which originates from the same mechanism that produces the desire for a mate outside the clan. But in this case, the randomness produced a desire for sameness... randomly, not as a sign of mental illness.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Hmmm, I can't disagree with anything you say here, so why did I respond as I did? Let's see if I can identify the misunderstanding. You said

"gay sex and interracial sex are much less likely to be targeted for control if they are seen as standalone considerations not linked to incest".

I noted that gay sex had been targeted in the past quite readily without any talk of incest being involved. So I think I was taking you to mean that gay sex was less likely to be targeted than it actually was. Or to put it another way my point was that people don't need any help to be bigoted about it.

OK, it's a nit anyway. We seem to agree.

Yup, makes sense. It was possible to read what I originally wrote as me suggesting incest and gay sex had been treated as somewhat related issues in the past, etc. Whereas I was talking more about the (small but real) risk that trying to promote incest now could backfire and result in gay sex coming under attack. Basically it would be a stirring up of the morality police.

I'm against changes to incest law for a few reasons, that would be a relatively minor one, but I raised it more in response to what someone else had posted.

All good anyway, I hadn't assumed anything from your post than a need for me to clarify my intent and meaning.

 

[Yerda]

I really hope that's a joke.

Obviously not a very good one. I don't care what consenting adults do, personally.

 

[Rival]

This thread is quite disturbing.

The idea that 'consent' is the be all and end all is disturbing.

 

[We Never Know]

But a subjective opinion shouldn't be used as justification for passing laws, should it?

What the hell sort of reasoning is that?

I also support same sex marriage, do you think I'm gay?

I support animal rights. Do you think I'm an alpaca or something?

Wow! Why get mad and offensive if you think its ok?