Siblings? Half-siblings? Stepsiblings? Adopted siblings?
First, second, third cousins? Uncle/aunt and Niece/nephew?
When do you lose the “EWWWWWWWWWWWWW” factor?
The ones that do give me the creeps (hypothetically, since I don’t know anyone in a relationship like this) are Parent/Child, Grandparent/Grandchild, or non-consentual.
Anything else is okay by me, as long as the participants are consenting adults.
Funny story:
When I was in tenth grade a new student came into our History class. He was as cute as could be and I was smitten with him. My first cousin Katy* also crushed on him, as she shared her thoughts with me on our lunch break. We were the same age and had mucho in common, including boys.
Later that day I told my mom we had a new kid and he’s dreamy and shit and Katy likes him too, oh and his name is Blanky McBlank. I think he likes me best.
Mom looks at me point blank and says “You sure his name is Blanky McBlank”?
Why, yes, I am.
“He’s your third cousin. His mother just moved back to town after a nasty divorce. I don’t think you want to have a crush on him”.
I immediately called Cousin Katy to tell her the news but she had already been warned by her mother. Eww. Ick. Spit. What did we ever see in him? He’s ghastly! Gross, that’s just ewww.
So, long story short. We realized we were all family , the kin got together for a barbecue and we laugh about this shit today. I guess the point is those crushy feelings went away when we found out we were cousins. We are all still good, good friends.
I didn’t answer your question, did I? I personally find incest icky and yukky, yet I would not call for the blood of any adults who practiced it consentially. If both parties are willing and adult then who am I to bring my discomfort into it? So, yeah, I guess “too close” is up to the participants.
*not her real name
Anything in a ‘direct line’ and one line over too.
So Parents, Grandparents etc, Cousins, Uncle/Aunt would all be too close.
I don’t think it would bother me beyond that but maybe if I was in that position I would find myself feeling different.
Too late to edit but I think I meant to spell it “consentually”.
I’d say second cousins* and more distant isn’t too bad- as long as you weren’t raised together. Step siblings would be fine if the kids got together first, then the parents married, or if the children were adults before the parents married. Adopted or half siblings? No.
*Not first cousins once removed, but cases where you share g-grandparents but not grandparents
Interesting thread, I naively thought there would have been one correct answer.
“Third cousin” barely counts as related; it means you have a common ancestor in a great, great grandparent. My great-great-grandfather lived and died in Ireland and was a contemporary of Lincoln’s. If I were in a room with a third cousin, I’d have absolutely no way of knowing it.
Personally, I think anyone (same generation) farther away than a first cousin is hunky-dory, and most states don’t even prohibit marriages between first cousins. I have heard that in Pakistan (and much of the rest of the world), arranged marriages between first cousins are pretty much the norm.
I believe it was Uncle Cecil who once said we’re all at least thirteenth cousins from one another.
Depends on how hot she is …
I think the spelling is “consensually.” You should be aware, though, that this word has absolutely no meaning outside the context of an alibi for rape suspects. For consenting adults who want to have sex with each other, the correct term is “hibbity bibbity.”
Hibbity bibbity. Heh.
Anything closer than first cousins would bother me. First cousin marriage is very common worldwide, if memories of my long-ago kinship course serve me correctly. I had some very cute male cousins, too, so perhaps that’s a factor. Heh.
I don’t want to even imagine my parents or siblings in a sexual context.
An advice columnist for Esquire was asked this very question about a year ago. IIRC, she put as off-limits “anything between brother-sister, parent-child, cousin-cousin or Gyllenhaal-Gyllenhaal.”
One of my first cousins was getting married so a bunch of relatives who hadn’t seen each other in years were getting together. My sister was chatting with another one of my first cousins, a young lady about 16-17 years old at the time. This cousin noticed three guys across the room and said something complementary about their degree of hotness.
My sister replied “Those three guys are my brothers, they are your first cousins”.
That would be my answer. Tho’ if they were first cousins raised as closely as family, that would bother me some. It’s not just the biologicaly relationship, it’s the emotional one. Step-siblings (who have been raised together, not just having met a teenagers) or a step-parent/step-child relationship would also bother. I think the dynamics would be kinda oogy in such a match.
I think anything more distant than first cousins would be okay. I feel a bit grossed out at the thought of marrying a first cousin. I worked for a guy who was married to his first cousin and it just seemed wrong that his father was her uncle, and her mother was his aunt.
I remember feeling absolutely vomitous at my Grandmother’s wake when one of my younger first cousins (she was about 18 at the time) kept hitting on my brother - YECCHHHH! I always knew that she was a whoring little skank, but that was just too much!
ETA:
I recall from a BBC documentary that most of the Pakistanis in Bradford in the UK are descended from 2 families in Pakistan. No wonder then that they have such a high incidence of thalassaemia (sp?).
You make a list of seven names - yours, your two parents, your four grandparents. That other person makes the same list.
If there’s any overlap between the lists, then there’s a problem. (This is assuming that there’d already be enough ‘age difference’ eww for a parent-great-grandchild or similar thing.)
This was actually what I’d settled on as the ‘anti-incest algorithm’ in a kind of community simulation project I once worked out - like the sims except no pretty pictures.
From a personal point of view, I haven’t met the blood relative I’d want to be with.
But siblings-in-law and cousins-in-law? Some are hotties, so gotta put blinders on.
As for other folk, I don’t care at all. You could have sex with your twin or clone for all I care.
In the history of the rulers of Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, pretty much all the combinations were tried and accepted. After all, who’s going to scold the royals?
Genetically speaking, there is little risk associated with 1st cousins reproducing together.
Interesting question – there IS, for each of us, quite separately from what’s the legal or social-acceptance milieu, a personal range of relations that provoke the *“OMG, incest!” * reaction, AND, at least in my experience, an intermediate range that creates a less-visceral “are you sure that’s a good idea?” reaction.
I honestly cannot muster the “OMG, incest!” emotional reaction when talking about cousins. Further, if a set of cousins have been raised as relative (ha,ha) strangers to one another, and the parents don’t particularly care, it may not even be worth the “are you sure?” reaction; as mentioned, the main potential pitfall is how the familial relationships are working, not the genetic bloodline.
If a step-relation is created AFTER the affected parties are of Age, I get no revulsion, either. In the case of relatives-in-law, it’s not a matter of incest, it’s a matter of ethics.
I only get the “incest!” emotional vibe when we’re talking within the 3rd. degree of consanguinity (Uncle/Aunt–Nephew/Niece), including of course direct ancestor-descendant(*) and siblings full, half and adoptive.
(*And yes, like Heinlein and other authors, I’ve wondered what would be the deal in a world where longevity led to coexistence of ancestors and descendants into the tens of generations…)
Personally, I find up thru second cousins to be oogy, and third cousins iffy. Why? Dunno - just a visceral reaction. Frankly, no one in my family appeals to me that much in that way, tho my cousin Joe was a good-looking teen.
Step-parent/stepchild is too Springer-esque for my blood. Adopted sibs - depends upon the circumstances.