# Children of incestuous relationships? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 9, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910 "2013-05-09T17:45:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/1 "2013-05-09T17:45:36Z")
A guy I know recently and rather unexpectedly told me that he is a product of incest: his mother was raped by her father, and nine months later he was born. He said he’d done tests and everything to prove it. I’m not a rube; I know that kind of thing happens. But outside of the movies I’d never encountered it first-hand - at least not that I’m aware of. Actually, maybe I am a bit of a rube, because I had a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around it as we talked. So I wonder: how rare is this? Do _you_ know anyone who was born of two relatives? (For the purposes of this thread let’s discount anything more distant than first cousins.) Or, if you don’t mind talking about it, was anyone here conceived under such circumstances? ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/2 "2013-05-09T18:02:38Z")
In certain cultures there is a preferences for intermarriage of closely related persons. I have met several such individuals. One statistic from the Wikipedia page on [Consanguinity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consanguinity): > [@](#): > > It is estimated that 55% of marriages between Mirpuri (Kashmiri) Pakistani Muslim immigrants in the United Kingdom are between first cousins,[16][17][18] where “preferential patrilateral parallel cousin marriage” (where a boy marries his father’s brother’s daughter) is often favored. So such relationships can be quite common in some cultures. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/3 "2013-05-09T18:37:15Z")
I don’t know anyone that claims this. But when I was in junior high, I knew a girl --OK, not really – who was pregnant. Word was (and you know how reliable junior high schoolers can be) that her father impregnated her. I know that she had and kept the baby. That would make him about 38 now. ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/4 "2013-05-09T19:41:29Z")
I don’t know anyone who was conceived in an incestuous relationship, but I know someone who committed incest. My ex-GF’s lifelong friend. She had sex with her own father. It wasn’t rape, she was a willing participant, and as far as we knew it only happened once. My GF had hooked up with her once while we were seeing each other, and the three of us almost had a threesome once. We didn’t but it had nothing to do with what she did with her father; I’m not sure I even knew about that at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Tequila\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a6a055/32.png) [@Tequila\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tequila_Party)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/5 "2013-05-09T20:29:33Z")
That last reply almost sounds like The Kiss by Katherine Harrison, but in it, she had a long-term consensual sexual relationship with her father. It also started when she was an adult. It was disturbing as hell. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/6 "2013-05-09T23:58:04Z")
Yet again I find myself surprised by something I probably should not have been surprised by. I’d’ve bet money, before reading this thread, that no daughter has _ever_ had consensual sex with a man who was both her biological father and raised her as his child. **Corkboard** do you know if it was just some kind of impulsive (drunken?) “let us never speak of this again” sort of event? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/7 "2013-05-10T00:02:34Z")
I have now discovered that Harris was not raised by the dad she later had a sexual relationship with, so that renders me less surprised. **Corkboard** , was your incesting friend raised by the dad she had sex with? ---
**Author:** ![HardlySanguine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HardlySanguine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HardlySanguine)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/8 "2013-05-10T00:07:15Z")
Heh. I bet we could find instances of daughters raping fathers. ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/9 "2013-05-10T00:23:46Z")
I worked with a lady who had at least two kids with her father, and was pregnant with a third during the time we worked together. She was rather open about the relationship she had with him, bragging about how her dad found her so attractive. Made for really weird lunch room conversation. Even odder, her mother worked with us, was aware of it all, and seemed proud of the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/10 "2013-05-10T00:40:24Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I’d’ve bet money, before reading this thread, that no daughter has _ever_ had consensual sex with a man who was both her biological father and raised her as his child. I have a hard time believing it has ever happened in a case where the daughter was raised in a halfway-normal, non-abusive environment in a culture where it was anywhere as near as taboo as it is in modern American culture (which I’m sure is MOST cultures). I did read the book The Kiss, and as disgusting and creepy as it was (not to mention pretty boring, which is hard to do given the subject matter), as you said, she wasn’t actually raised by her father. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/11 "2013-05-10T01:21:20Z")
> [@HardlySanguine](#): > > Heh. I bet we could find instances of daughters raping fathers. I’d eat my hat. ---
**Author:** ![dada2fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ccd318/32.png) [@dada2fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dada2fish)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/12 "2013-05-10T02:10:20Z")
I knew a woman who was the product of a series of rapes of a man to his daughter. In other words, this woman’s older sister was actually her mom. I don’t know all the details, whether the man was arrested or if they all just tried to move on from it, but the woman was physically normal, very smart, but heading toward a severe drinking problem. ---
**Author:** ![tomcar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tomcar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomcar)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/13 "2013-05-10T02:14:27Z")
> [@Student\_Driver](#): > > I worked with a lady who had at least two kids with her father, and was pregnant with a third during the time we worked together. She was rather open about the relationship she had with him, bragging about how her dad found her so attractive. Made for really weird lunch room conversation. Even odder, her mother worked with us, was aware of it all, and seemed proud of the whole thing. Come on! You have to be making this up. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/14 "2013-05-10T02:22:43Z")
Actress Lindsay Price is a celebrity example. Her parents were brother and sister. In this case it is somewhat mitigated by the fact that her mother was adopted and the couple are not biologically related. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/15 "2013-05-10T02:49:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Actress Lindsay Price is a celebrity example. Her parents were brother and sister. In this case it is somewhat mitigated by the fact that her mother was adopted and the couple are not biologically related. Well that’s a little creepy, but nowhere near a father-daughter situation. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/16 "2013-05-10T03:06:13Z")
> [@Student\_Driver](#): > > I worked with a lady who had at least two kids with her father, and was pregnant with a third during the time we worked together. She was rather open about the relationship she had with him, bragging about how her dad found her so attractive. Made for really weird lunch room conversation. Even odder, her mother worked with us, was aware of it all, and seemed proud of the whole thing. This is possibly the oddest and most disturbing thing I’ve ever read on here. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/17 "2013-05-10T03:07:09Z")
A close relative is probably a similar case to the “guy I know” in the OP. DNA testing has never been done, and the mother involved never spoke about it to her children, but circumstantial evidence makes it believable: the source of the information, the way the information was communicated (to whom and when), the other possible candidates for paternity, the vital statistics of the parties involved. I don’t want to get too specific here for obvious reasons, as said close relative is still alive. As a folklorist who is trained to be skeptical of oral narratives, I’d say the probablity of its being true is above 50%. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/18 "2013-05-10T03:14:15Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Well that’s a little creepy, but nowhere near a father-daughter situation. True. But she’s a child of an incestuous relationship, so I figured it was on topic. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/19 "2013-05-10T03:15:48Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > A close relative is probably a similar case to the “guy I know” in the OP. DNA testing has never been done, and the mother involved never spoke about it to her children, but circumstantial evidence makes it believable: the source of the information, the way the information was communicated (to whom and when), the other possible candidates for paternity, the vital statistics of the parties involved. > > I don’t want to get too specific here for obvious reasons, as said close relative is still alive. As a folklorist who is trained to be skeptical of oral narratives, I’d say the probablity of its being true is above 50%. I’d think it happens more than we know because people don’t want to talk about it. When it was the reveal at the end of Chinatown many people were shocked by the twist, but not the concept. There’s a lot of literature that carries the theme, perhaps based on folklore, but I think it’s all too common, all of the womens who have been the victims of rape by their father can’t be making it up. ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910/20 "2013-05-10T03:19:32Z")
My mom has worked as a social worker in Tennessee for about 14 years. There was a woman she was working with that was trying to get benefits for her child based on the death of the father. The mother and father had never been married yet shared the same last name. My mom having to know the circumstances of why this was the case found out from the woman that the father listed on the birth certificate was her biological brother. This was in East Tennessee and not unheard of. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/children-of-incestuous-relationships/657910.md?page=2)