zzang

As long as the family members are consenting adults, let them do whatever they want, I see nothing wrong with it except if they have children (but only for the reason of possible genetic defects).

MrDarwin

The genetic dangers of incest are highly overrated. I think that there are very good biological and evolutionary reasons for our aversion to incest, and I presume the risk of genetic abnormalities is the ostensible reason for outlawing it, but by this reasoning parents who are Rh incompatible, or both are carriers of sickle cell anemia or other known genetic diseases--in which case the children are at much greater risk of genetic disease than the children of the average incestuous couple--ought also to be prohibited to marry.

BTW I'm not so sure that aversion to incest is so universal among mammals. (I know that rodents will quite happily engage in incest.) I would expect it to be more prevalent in species that have few offspring and thus a much greater genetic investment in each of them.

Tom Saeterboe

kind of funny that science have given moralists a reason to condemn anyone that sleep with a relative. Seems that alot of people actually believes that you will get a freak with 5 legs and no teeth if you sleep with your sister. As someone said, if you make it illegal for relatives to have children, then you should make it illegal for people with bad genes to have childrens too.

remember a disscussion a had with some of my friends a while ago where the question of incest were brought up. It appeared that someone they knew was married to his cousin, and they had a child. These friends of mine were all non-belivers, but none of them display much of an interest in the world around them. I seldom give my own opinions during such disscussion, I usually question their views on the matter, cause I know they will find me very strange indeed. I was kind of shocked, they all considered incest to be sick, pervert, unormal and such things. Then I asked why they belived so. The answers was: "because they're relatives" and "because your kid is going to be a freak". Simply put we're left with the "because it is so"-argument, same argument that is used to explain why you can't have sex in public or why you can't walk around naked if you want. The "freak"-argument is kind of overrated, and it's use is more due to ignorance than actual facts.

I see no problem with incest as long as it's done voluntarily by adults.

Boro Nut

I don't think finding adult volunteers to do it is the problem. It's the cost of bribing the kids to keep quiet about it.

Boro Nut

Harumi

A good friend of mine had parents who were cousins. He's perfectly healthy, and didn't have a problem with what they did, after all, if they didn't, he wouldn't exist.

I think that incest is okay, as long as two adults are consenting and that they love each other.

Love is the important part I think, of any relationship. I don't feel anyone has the right to separate two people who love each other regardless of their relations or gender.

Just my opinion,
Dephanie

elwoodblues

It doesn't raise the risk as much as is commonly thought, especially in a relation as tenuous as cousins. However, the risk is real and increased by a non-trivial amount. Genetic screening shouldn't be required by any means, but it'd be a common courtesy for the hypothetical child.

Then again, I think that applies to any and all prospective parents. Find out ahead of time.

That raises other ethical issues, of course.

Ought Naught

Elwoodblues is right about the dangers of cousins having children being exaggerated and also about the increase in the rate of genetic defects being non-trivial:
<a href="http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/2002archive/04-02archive/k040302a.html" target="_blank">First cousin press release</a>

[ October 07, 2002: Message edited by: Ought Naught ]</p>

Kuu

In most countries of the world it is quite legal for cousins to marry. I believe it is also legal in quite a few of the states of the US.

Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin both married their cousins (I think).

I therefore do not consider that sex between cousins is incest at all.

MrDarwin

For the sake of this argument, it's probably best to exclude cousins from the definition of "incest"--since in some states and some countries cousins are free to marry--and also exclude parent/child, which runs into the same sticky problems as adult/child sexual relationships. That leaves brother-sister incest, taboos against which seem to be even stronger than taboos against homosexual sex. But precisely because of these taboos, I wonder if it might be more prevalent than anybody would want to admit?

So what are everybody's thoughts on homosexual incest? No chance of producing malformed babies, at least...

case

No, but think of the heart attack you'd give your parents.

I would have to agree that there seems to be strong taboos towards a brother and a sister having a relationship as oppossed to two cousins. If I may wax unintellectual with absolutely no sources to back up my ranting, I would say that the brother-sister model presents one of the oddest models of incest for people to comprhend, followed closely by the mother-son, then the father-daughter. I think this lies in the fact that mother-son/father-daughter models can easily fit into pre-concieved ideas of child abuse; in other words, people can rationalize this relationship by assuming that the adult is abusing the child. The brother/sister model isn't so easily reconciled with peoples pre-concieved notions of abuse. Does this mean that a brother or a sister couldn't abuse one another? Certainly not. In fact, I think that it happens all too often, and there is data to back this up. But I don't think that it is as easily reconciled with peoples ideas of abuse as the adult/child model.

Do I think that this behavior is "morally repugnant"? No. I actually know a few people who have had intimate relationships with members of their immediate family, and some who still do. Most of these people choose not to be open about their relationships simply because of the taboo against it that exists in society, much like homosexuals were 50 years ago. If it weren't for that, I think that people would be more open about their behavior.

On the other hand, I would point out that through my work, I encounter more people who are involved in these type of relationships through force. Which is exactly what many of you, and myself, find unacceptable, but this seems to be the case far more often then consentiual relationships.

Is consentiual incest a behavior that I would promote, or recommend? No more so than homosexuality, or heterosexuality, or beastiality, for that matter. Each type of relationship has issues that will inevitibally accompany it; in the case of incest, it seems to be a greater socital taboo against the act, and the fact that it is illegal. But then again, so was homosexuality, until a short time ago.