Toto

Is it in fact illegal? A brother and sister (e.g.) cannot marry, and in many but not all states first cousins cannot marry, but what happens behind closed doors is probably not a violation of a criminal law.

Scalia said:

But this was histrionics. I don't think there are any surviving laws criminalizing adultery or masturbation, e.g.

Toto

It appears that there are some criminal laws. William Saletan in his Slate magazine column, reports one Tennessee case where a young woman was sentenced to prison for an incestuous relationship with her uncle that started when she was a minor. (No record of what happened to the uncle.)

Jewel

The Chicken Little's of the world claim the sky is falling practically any time social progress is made. They cried doom when segragation was outlawed as I'm sure they did when women were given the right to vote and slavery was abolished. Same story different props. :banghead:

The world may very well end, but this ruling won't be the cause -- well, that is unless the doomsayers destroy the world because of the ruling...

never been there

One argument for legally prohibiting incest between adults is essentially the same as the ban on psychologists or psychiatrists ever having sex with (even former) patients. Although it restricts a few people from having consensual sex, the nature of the relationship has such potential for manipulation that, given the proportion of the population made up of slimeballs, the frequency of ethically dubious sex would greatly exceed that of ethically irrelevant sex.

It also shows that we don't claim to be able to judge the difference. In the case of workplace sexual harassment, on the other hand, the same difficulty exists but a no-contact rule would infringe on too many consenting couples (essentially everyone who isn't engaged by the time they leave school).

Toto

There is an old thread in MF&P on Incest: Culture and Socialization, although I don't think they solved the problem.

DMB

I don't see how bigamy or polygamy could be considered private consensual activities. Marriage (as opposed to simple cohabitation) is a matter of a public contract and as such is subject to regulation in much the same way as other kinds of contract.

In modern western society there is normally no control over ordinary fornication or adultery. You only get into trouble if you do things with an under-age or mentally incompetent person or if you go through multiple marriage ceremonies. Do there remain states in the USA where either adultery or fornication is still a crime?

beejay

Thanks, Toto. I guess I should have known the discussion would have taken place somewhere here.

I'll take my "if gay sex is legal, why isn't incest" discussion there if it's not already answered there...

Jet Grind

beejay,

Do you think incest should be illegal?

If so, why?

beejay

At this point, I'm not sure. (I haven't read the other thread.)

A month ago, I would have said "sure", without thinking about it. But after hearing the arguments that the court has said consensual, noncommercial adult sex is a privacy matter, I think probably "no".

[Not that it makes a huge difference, since the incest taboo comes from being raised together. I've heard of studies that it is the first 18 months of being raised together that solidifies this taboo, no law required.]

(And as someone asked, is it actually illegal? And have people been prosecuted recently? Internet searches for this are hard to do, because if you search for "illegal incest", can you imagine what you get?)

Stephen Maturin

It's illegal everywhere in the U.S., though what qualifies as incestuous varies somewhat from state to state. The prohibitions come in the forms of marriage laws regulating who can marry and criminal laws regulating who can have sex. Here's a pretty good general description published a little over a year ago. The article doesn't contain any information on prosecutions, though.