Incest. Then and Now. What Attitude Is Correct?

Great Debates
81

How about “a Christian should not commit incest (as it runs counter to their belief system), and no-one should abuse their kids”? To condemn something due to its potential for abuse is vilifying it more than it warrants. That in itself becomes a source of abuse, for by condemning situations which are not otherwise abusive, we are turning them into abusive situations. This is a point I’ve been trying to make (with questionable success) in my pedophilia thread (more scandal for you :)…and yeah, folks, I’m getting back over there tonight; although it’s sounding like “Twin Threads” at this point). Even if the nonabusive incest relationships are a small minority, if our desire to protect our children from something gets to the point that we are rationalising abusing that minority to save the majority, then we’re being negligently insufficient in our protective efforts, IMHO.

If you feel that way (as most–yet evidently not all–people do), then he absolutely should not have sex with you. But the question is, what if you didn’t feel that way? Should he STILL reject you anyway? What if your question to him is “Daddy, why don’t you love me as much as Mommy?” what’s his answer supposed to be? Why should he have to say ‘no’ to your desire to include that form of intimacy in the relationship if it will make you feel rejected and less loved? Should he give cmkeller’s explanation from my thread:

Now, this was an answer as to why we have limits on age, not incest; but the answer itself is disturbingly vague. “Can’t say for sure”? “Guess”? “Assumed”? Why should this suffice as an explanation for anything? And why are the “leaders of society” more entitled to make this call than a child and their own parents? Just because they can? And why exactly are they (Reptilian Overlords? Illuminati? Who?) certain it’s not possibly good for a child? “Because we said so!” doesn’t cut it. I couldn’t in good conscience expect my child to accept that, because I can’t accept it.

All true, but the point is why does any of that justify forbidding sex in a relationship where it’s welcomed by all parties involved? That’s what I’m not getting. As a straight man, the idea of having sex with a guy is “icky” to me, but I doubt that anyone who values it would appreciate me outlawing it just because I have no use for it. I know my sisters would be peeved at me, but then they usually are. :rolleyes:

82

:smiley: Actually, my personal opinion is that I’m not doing it enough. No one else is complaining about it, though; so maybe I’m not being objective… But if we’re talking about sex as non-reproductively oriented physical gratification, then I don’t see how it’s anything other than really advanced cuddling in nature. Sure, driving a Formula 1 racer around a track at a three digit velocity is a lot different then puttering to the corner grocery in your Yugo, but they’re both still driving a car. The only difference I see is in degree of intensity.

They are both physical impacts to the body. Difference in intensity, maybe even in intent, but still physical impacts. So yes, in that way, they are the same thing.

aynrandlover: Wander over to my thread if you haven’t (link up there somewhere ^). It’s virtually all the same arguments on both sides. Deja vu is getting thick…

83

HA, yeah, I read that thread…time to copy and paste arguments.

84

Well the basis of the taboo is most likely genetics. Its a bad reproductive prospect. Lots of our ‘moral intuitions’ are really base instincts with pretty packaging.

The taboo isn’t going to be dispelled because law says, “If you do your sister we don’t care.” People are going to think its icky no matter what the law says. Now if we raised people to think its the greatest idea in the world to have sex with relatives you could overcome the ick factor. I don’t see the benifit in doing that.

So incest in and of itself shouldn’t be taboo, and shouldn’t make a betrayl of trust (like having sex with your maried sister) any worse legally. But people are going to react negatively to it, and culturally it has a lot of momentum. It may not be a rational taboo, but its understandable and unlikely to change.

85

I agree with most of what you said, but…

But now that condoms are around…?

It would be a tremendous benefit to the people who don’t mind it already, but do mind the criticism. Poor West Virginia… :slight_smile:

More people on my self-fulfilling prophecy badwagon. Who knows, maybe we can start a cultural revolution. “INCEST: I don’t do it, but it’s kool.”

HAHAHA

86

I don’t think the basis of the taboo is mostly genetics. There are too many counter-examples.Every society has some form of incest taboo, but who is covered by the taboo is different in each society, and even within a society, people who are equally related genetically may be treated differently. For example, it may be forbiddden to marry the child of your mother’s sibling ( marriage prohibitions are generally the same as sex prohibitions) while marrying the child of your father’s sibling may be not only accepted,but encouraged, although both first cousins are genetically equally related to you. In this society, people who are not related by blood, but are raised together from a young age (foster or adopted siblings or those raised in a communal situation) don’t technically come under the incest taboo, but are less likely to get sexually involved than those who know each other from a young age but aren’t raised together.There was a fairly well publicized case of the reverse situation a couple of years ago- a man and woman met as adults ,married and had children,and then discovered that they were biological siblings. The government got involved somehow ( either prosecution or child welfare) and what i heard people say was not “Eeeew, how could you marry your sister” but " They didn’t even know, it’s not like they’re really brother and sister."

87

I once read an article that dealt with the marriages of people who grew up on kibbutzim in Israel. Of all the people studied, not a single one chose to marry someone who they grew up with in the same kibbutz. While there is no taboo against marrying within your own kibbutz, people who grew up together in a kibbutz tend to view each other as siblings and do not wish to marry one another. (I don’t have a cite for the study, but this phenomenon is mentioned in this Encyclopedia Britannica article: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0,5716,118054+10,00.html)

I have also read that it is quite rare for any two people who knew each other well as young children – before the age of six or so – to marry or even have sex. This seems to hold true regardless of their culture or relationship to one another. As you say above, most people are more disturbed by the idea of a sexual relationship between unrelated people who grew up together (like adopted siblings) than they are by the idea of a similar relationship between closely related people who were raised seperately. The latter might be seen as unfortunate and risky for any children that might be produced, but not wrong in the same way that the former is.

While I think genetic concerns do play an important role in the incest taboo, the real issue may be the importance of forming extra-familial and extra-tribal relationships. This is something that is essential for both a healthy individual and a healthy tribe. It not only promotes genetic diversity, it also encourages good interpersonal skills as well as intertribal cooperation and sharing.

88

So, what some posters are saying in this thread is that a father who wants to teach his daughter (or son) the “facts of life”, should have that right? Or a father who wants to “show his love” for his daughter, should have that right?
Have you ever talked to women who have been sexually abused by their father? They do not feel happy, they do not feel loved, and it ruins their entire lives, both physically and emotionally. What some of you seem to be implying (or out right saying) is that incest is ok. Well, fine, incest is ok. However, sexual abuse, pedophilia, is absolutely not.
There are many posters on this board who have been sexually abused, and they are not greatful about the situation. Why? Because it is a violation. Sexually abusing children is no different from raping women. If sex on all levels is ok, is raping a grown woman ok? No. Because a woman’s, and a man’s body, should not be violated and breached, either physically or emotionally, by anybody against his/her will.
Children cannot give consent. Children are not capable of understand what sex is. Sex is not just about pleasure. Sex can be very emotionally stressful on both parties.
Parents have a very hard job. They must do their best to raise children as intelligent, productive, emotionally stable, adults. This, obviously, does not always happen. However, raping your young child will not help develop the necessary emotional and mental mechanisms to cope with inter-personal relationships.
Thankfully, I have never been put in that situation by my parents. However, I have been sexually abused when I was a child, and even now, 12 years later, it is still difficult for me to be intimate with my BF. I can’t even imagine what my life would be like if my body, my trust, my mind, would have been violated by someone, such as my father, who is supposed to protect me and love me. When what happened to me happened to me, I didn’t know anything about sexual taboos. Or what society expects. But I did know that what happened to me was painful, physically, emotionally, and mentally.
What you guys are arguing is not about incest. You are arguing about child, sexual abuse. The only people attracted to their children are sick individuals, who should seek out professional help.

I don’t really care what grown men and women do in the privacy of their own homes, as long as what they do is with adult men and women, who should be able to recgonize, understand, and evaluate what they are doing. Children simply cannot do that. To view a person as a purely physical being (Well, they have the proper organs, or, they’ve reached puberty) is extremely narrow-minded. Human Beings, especially children, are incredibly complex on every level. Saying they are mature enough physically is doing a grave disservice to children. I was capable of reproducing at 12, but I wasn’t mentally ready for sex.

89

I don’t think anyone has taken the stand of advocating incest. Unless I’m reading too fast and missing such a statement. What I do think is that you are confusing someone questioning why we feel the way we do feel about something with that person saying what we feel is wrong.

Obviously you have a strong emotional connection to the issue, and whatever tragedy you have suffered or witnessed is unfortunate but at the same time because you are affected on an emotional level regarding this subject you are obviously not able to seperate your emotive response to the context from your logical ability to question why it is that we have a general rule in society.

Also I have yet to see anyone here advocate any form of abuse. What has been going on is, mainly, the questioning of why we consider all forms of incest abuse. After all, if two adults of sound mind make a decision to do something that harms no one, does it matter what it is that they decide to do? While I do disagree with some assertations regarding child sexuality with an adult (I simply refuse to compare children with apes on an age vs intellect scale. After all Minks are born ready for sex, this does not mean my daughter should be having sex simply because she is smarter than a mink.), I also question the basis for the belief that ones familial relationships should have determining power over whome we should and should not be sexual with.

If the argument against incestual contact were one of pure logic then we (myself included) would not be grossed out by it or react with strong emotions when the subject is broached. It is obvious then that the baisis for out taboo is not only one of logic but derives from other sources as well.

You speak of a situation involving abuse. Incest such as you describe is not the only form of abuse. Hitting, yelling, deprivation of affection are all forms of abuse and certainly have much more in common with each other than say two siblings playing doctor or even two cousins engaged in what is common behavior in most jokes regarding people in the South.

Finally: Abusive sex is abusive sex no matter what the relationship between the people, be it stranger or be it mom or dad. You are not supposed to harm your own children nor are you to harm the children of others. That being said, and bear in mind that if read wrong this is a really creepy sentence: There are people out there not related to my daughter who could mess her up as much as or more than me were I to have sex with her. Why is that? Probably because I’m not a bad person in most ways (oh I’m stubborn and hog the remote and often fail to vacum but otherwise I’m an ok sod.), but there are some really bad people out there who mess people up and are not related to them. Now, I know that my daughter would be pretty effed up if I were to do something liek that to her. I know this because i was taught that it is wrong to do such things same as most of you. I know that even if she does not know about it now, she would eventually learn about it being bad and that she would eventually get messed up by it. That having been said. I question weather such an act would mess her up if there were no taboo? Other than the aforementioned aspect of physical abuse (and I really am grossing myself out by going in to detail here), I mean to say that if you remove tha taboo and if it were possible to have some sort of benign sexual contact with your own child (lets say frenching, no physical damge there but usually a strong taboo against it), would the act itself harm her or would society’s standards cause her the harm? I dunno’, and I’m not interested in finding out but I felt the question itself might serve to illustrate the premise of the OP in a somewhat detached manner.

Perhaps this discussion would resolve itself and actually take on the form of a GD rhather than an IMHO if we were to attempt to keep emotions and violent upset or accusatory remarks to a minimum?

[nitpick]
Also your statement is gender biased. There are statistics that demonstrate that in situations such as you describe there are nearly as many female abusers as male. [/nitpick]

90

Truly, zen, you have grasped the issue at hand. But since the OP was asking about how incest is viewed in society and we find one side feeling its yucky and the other feeling it’s tolerable, no matter how much longer we argue it does serve the original poster to find out which side seems more popular.

I’d say the ick side.

pepper, I think zen said it right…incest itself is not abuse, it is sex with a relative.

Zen, I know the animal argument might seem hard to follow, my only point to it isn’t to compare children to animals as everyone keeps insisting but to point out that something less than a child may have sex and something more than a child may have sex but a child itself may not have sex. Children can consent to back rubs and airplain rides as fun and pleasureable but not sexual activity as fun and pleasureable. They can be trained to use their genetalia for the natural purpose of waste evacuation but not the natural purpose of pleasure. In short, kids can consent to a hell of a lot of things but not sex? I dunno, seems like a weak argument to me. I consented when I had sex as a young’un…:slight_smile: …it just didn’t happen to be with an older girl or a relative. Still, it could have been and I would maintain: I wanted to do it. that’s why kids do stuff: because they want to. We try to afford them the luxury of hurting themself, but we surely don’t stop them from playing with the legos as soon as we see that they are having a good time. “OK, Jeremy, time to stare at the wall. You were having too much fun, there.” Absurd, see?

91

we try to afford them the luxury of NOT hurting themselves…
oops.

92

At a risk of being flamed, I would like to express an opinion in reference to what Pepperlandgirl mentioned above.

There is a difference, in my opinion, specially concerning this post, between molestation and consensual sex. Molestation is usually forced. Consensual sex is willingly participated in and enjoyed by both partners. I would not find it surprising that there are incestuous relationships where both participants enjoy what they are doing and continue to do so.

I have heard of or read of some willing sexual relationships between parents and kids, between step parents and kids, between brothers and sisters and step brothers and sisters.

There have even been a few movies exploring this, like Blue Lagoon, and then another, whose title I cannot recall, where a man and woman got stranded on an island, had a boy, who grew up and challenged the man for possession of the woman.

I wonder how many readers or posters here had their initial sexual encounter with a brother or sister? Not necessarily banging away but at least touching and exploring. I know several people, whose extended family lived within the same town, and had sex with first cousins. An ex-girlfriend of mine told me how one night when she was drunk and horny, she ran into her first cousin, who was also drunk and horny and they took care of each other sexually.

I would not assume that all incest is molestation in the direct sense of the word.

93

Personally, I think that being sexually abused by a close relative, such as a parent, might be even MORE traumatic than if it were a total stranger. Think about it: this person is supposed to love and protect and take care of you.
This is the ultimate betrayal in terms of parental abuse.

94

No one is disagreeing with you there. What we are wondering is if sexual involvement with a perent or older relative is inherently abusive and it would seem that experience doesn’t bear this out.

That said, I’ve been wondering how an adult would proposition a child and I can’t come up with anything. I think it is far more likely that if a parent tries to initiate sexually intimate contact it would be abusive. This is like a parent suggesting a child should eat all the vegetables. Any suggestion from a parent is likely to be received as a command or imperitave. However, there are clearly times when a suggestion is, after all, a suggestion. If a child sees mom and dad doin’ it and then wonders what its all about, I don’t feel that this is an improper time for such a suggestion. However, merely to sit the child down and start playing with it, Doesn’t this feel good?" is clearly a breach of sensitivity to the child’s feelings.

95

(emphasis mine) I’m going to take a shot in the dark and suggest that “we” haven’t talked to the psychologists trying to help incest victims recover, eh?

I’m willing to bet the proverbial farm that it is inherently abusive, but no, I can’t prove it. Our mileage and exposure may vary, but these are a few of the things I know of in a group of less than 30 kids, aged 11–15, unless otherwise stated:[ul]psychotic, seeing and hearing things that aren’t there
trying to cut a pet’s genitalia
girl attempts to seduce every single male she comes in contact with, true for almost ALL the girls
self mutilation
drug/alcohol dependency
bedwetting
firesetting
reenacting trauma with other kids
flashbacks
7 and 9 year old siblings with V.D.[/ul]…and I could go on. It’s horrific. Really.

Child rape isn’t just an intellectual argument. It’s also a bleak reality that destroys children. I’d like to assert that reality is a bit more important than this exercise.

Compassion for these kids all but dictates we don’t make light of their situations by finding intellectual reasons their rapes were ok. They’re all trying hard enough to do that to themselves.

96

No, “we,” as such, have not. However, there needs to be more behind this than just abuse victims to make my case, I need to find people who enjoyed it. This will probably prove difficult on my part, and if impossible, then perhaps I must concede my point. It still seems possible that: these children didn’t want nor ask to participate in these things, hence abuse.

BUT, what I wonder, is where this info came from, how the incest took place, etc. While the picture I conjure might not be pretty, it seems reasonable. I am not one to make blind ascertations in view of facts, though, so this is a step in the right direction.

[searching]

97

That’s one of the saddest things—many of the kids who don’t understand what’s happened to them would tell you they did enjoy it, they initiated it, and they think it was appropriate.

Same kids, of course, who are waking up in sheer terror.

Because of the complex coping mechanisms commonly demonstrated by victims that cause them to say, “Yes, I liked it, it was ok with me” I don’t think you could ever establish whether the child was truly ok with it, or using elaborate methods of continuing self defense.

98

Thought: no matter what, our whole society will not adjust to accepting parent/child incest overnight. Thus, the child has to either keep a secret for fear of stigma/shame, or deal with the stigma/shame.

Inherently abusive enough?