Over on facebook a woman with the same last name as me (its an unusual last name) sent me a message, so I sent her one back asking her if she had any relatives in the town my grandparents came from. She said she did (this town was where my ancestors about 6 or 7 generations ago settled, and with each generation more and more people just stay in the town and the general area so there are several people there with our last name). So she is probably my 4th or 5th cousin. But she is damn attractive, so all in all this is pretty funny. At least to me. Hell we, only have 99.03125% of our DNA in common if she is a 4th cousin. If we had kids I bet they’d have no more deformities than the rest of society.
I have had a thing for a second cousin since we were both 15. We’re the same age, and now we’re almost 30 and I still find him unbelievably hot & compatible to me.
If the family wouldn’t just freak, they’d actually be pretty happy, I think, it’d be someone of our own race, culture, upbringing, etc.
So I wouldn’t worry about your attraction to someone that far away!
See, that’s kinda funny, because…well, lemme start from the beginning:
Back in the day, my co-worker’s husband was in a band, and the guitarist from that band was dating a stripper. So, we all used to go to the club and get in for free, because we knew her. There was one girl who danced there who had a HAWT body, but there was something about her face that was…a little off. Not that she wasn’t pretty, it was just…not right. No one could put their finger on it, until I said, “She’s like looking at your cousin.” So from then on, we called her the Cousin-Faced Girl.
Go for it, dude. Fourth cousins are barely related to one another. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were fourth cousins. Biologically speaking, fourth (or higher) cousins have no greater chance of having genetic disordered kids than two “random” people. And it’s not like you were raised cousins or anything.
If people were really scared of having kids with genetic disorders, they’d never breed within their own race or ethnicity. And technically speaking, everyone is related to everyone. So yeah, I’d bite.
Disturbingly enough, I’m married to my cousin. Of course it’s multiple generations ago, and by marriage. But we’re cousins. Our child has no deformities or oddities, other than being very alert and curious about everything.
If she’s your 4th or fifth cousin, she’s hardly related at all. Did you know that most of Henry VIII’s wives were either his third, fourth or fifth cousins? See? Success all the way! :o
Seriously, as far as your prospective offspring might fare, all I can offer is the anecdotal evidence that there was a girl in my high school who used to regularly get the top mark in Physics, and her parents were second cousins and had been born with the same surname.
Ditto on the whole go for it thing. Fourth cousins? As in shared just one set of great[sup]3[/sup] grandparents? That still gives you 60 different ancestors from the same generation. That should be enough genetic diversity for anyone. With slightly worse recordkeeping, it’s good odds you would never even have known.
My mom comes from family of 11 kids, and was raised a few doors down from her 12 first cousins. This extended family remained close, and I was growing up, whenever we were in Iowa, it was nonstop Uncle This, and Cousin Whatever. Literally it took me years to sort it all out, who was who. About the time I got to 17-18, I started paying closer attention to one of my relatives. A couple years younger than me, Cousin Hottie, also seemed to be paying attention to me.
We would often talk and BS, nothing flirtatious or out of line really. One day, at a big-ass gathering at an aunt’s house, Cousin Hottie asks me if I’d like to scram, maybe get a bite to eat or a movie or something. I borrow the uncle’s pickup (it’s Iowa, remember?) and off we go. We’re no more than a block out and Hottie pulls a joint the size of my…uh, my finger out of her purse, and asks me if I’m interested. So, yeah - hot cousin, drugs, pickup, late Saturday night…
About an hour later we’re parked at a drive-in, making out like wild beats. I ask, hey, is this weird or is it me? Well, Cuz Hottie has done her homework before deciding to jump me, God knows, I’d have never crossed the line, although I had absolutely considered it. How we were related was - her grandfather, and my mom are first cousins. According to her “research” this made us second cousins once removed and thus, fully free to explore naughtiness together.
“But only if you’re ok with that”.
I was ok with it, and we saw each other on and off for a couple years, even to the point where I’d go visit her when she went to school in Iowa City. We thought we’d had them all fooled into thinking we were just close cousins, but as the years went by, I caught wind that pretty much the whole family knew what we were up to, and that while some considered it a major scandal, others thought it was just cute as hell - her mom even fell into that second category.
My brother once told me a story about how he was talking to our cousin, who I’ll call J. J is more like a sister than a cousin to us, since we grew up spending a lot of time together. One day he was lamenting about not having a girlfriend when she said, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll hook you up with my cousin, S.” My brother says, “Wouldn’t she be my cousin, too?”
J just said, “EWWWWWWWW!!! Never mind! Never mind!! EWWWWWWWW!!!”
Anyhoo, I know the feeling. Me and the parents aren’t really famil ypeople, so I met a lot of my mom’s side for the first time a couple years ago at Thanksgiving. Man, my mom’s brother’s daughter is, well, hot.
I spent the night at my hot half-cousins house one night and we slept in the same bed. Nothing “happened” but I don’t think either of us actually slept much that night. Yeah, it was weird. Weird but kinda hot.
