This is a little awkward, but as a dedicated non-parent I sometimes can’t help wondering how parents aren’t attracted to their children. I mean, every mother’s son is the best-looking, and every daddy’s daughter is the cutest and prettiest, right?.. so ladies, if you have before you a young man who looks and acts much like your husband and lover, only in a younger and more virile package, how do you not want a piece of the action?
Men, you have a fairly hot wife and a 15 year old who looks like a slightly hotter and much younger version of her. Why are you not interested in tapping it?
Does the “I made that” signal turn off hotness in family? Do you just hit the Ignore button really hard?
I have a female cousin who was a major, major babe. Just fucking gorgeous.
But I never had any attraction to her. I suspect it’s much the same.
Some of both, with an emphasis on the later.
My stepmother told me about this phenomenon when I was about 15 and my oldest step-brother was the age of his father when he (the brother) was conceived. So there was this guy hanging around her house who looked a whole lot like a guy she once liked to have sex with, and that oogied her out a bit. I thought she was the bravest person in the world to admit it out loud. And now that my own son is about to turn 16, I know what she means in a whole new way. It’s really weird to see the physical changes through puberty, but it’s really, *really *weird to realize one day that your kid is hot.
The incest taboo is strongly wired though. It’s actually even harder when you realize your kid’s friends, or your friend’s kids, are really hot. :smack:
I only have six first cousins and one of them is super smoking hot to the point of older male family members commenting on it including our grandfather. I can see it but I am also older than she is by 10 years or so and changed her diapers when she was little. That tends to kill the whole attraction thing. I also have a stepsister who is in college at the University of Texas on a tennis scholarship. She is way younger than me and very hot as well. She is also super-flirtaous to the point of being ridiculous such as sitting way, way closer to me than she should and rubbing my upper legs on a porch swing. I was in my early 30’s at the time, married, and yet I can say that their was some attraction there with this 18 year old stepsister. I have enough sense not to do anything else but boy, that took a hit from the emergency override button a few times.
My young daughters should not have anything to worry about in the looks department but that is completely different. There seems to be a biologic shutoff valve in normal parent/child relationships. For instance, I take care of my daughters all the time, see them run around naked, change the little ones diaper etc. They have girly parts but obviously that does nothing for me sexually. If it did, I would be an incestuous pedophile. Yet, I can stare at women with the same parts for hours on end later that night on TV or the internet with very different results.
I think it’s biological. I think both my children are attractive, but they’re my kids.
It’s like a fine piece of art…you can admire it, and think it’s beautiful, but that’s as far as it goes.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts in 10 years. Not that you aren’t entitled to an opinion, of course. But I don’t think the OP is asking about randomly related people, but teenage offspring. Children who, pretty much by definition, look like the person you found attractive enough to have sex with once upon a time (or maybe even currently), only at the reproductive prime of their looks. That’s a totally different experience as a parent than changing diapers and seeing cute little kid butts (and bits).
My experience is one more of disgust than lust, but the disgust is born of that recognition that, were we unrelated (and of appropriate mating age), yeah, I’d hit that. shudder
I had the experience of seeing three young teenage hotties walking down a mall together and thinking some incredibly lecherous, Dirty Old Man type thoughts. They turned around and started walking back, and I realized one of them was my stepdaughter. I was really embarrassed about that.
No need to be embarrassed. If you’d known it was your step-daughter and still ogled her, that would be one thing. But you saw a cute young thang, nodded “mmmmm-hmmmmm” to yourself, then realized who she was. That’s different.
I’ve often wondered about this. I don’t have kids, but have a ton of relatives. Strangely, nobody is hot in my generation, but several of my cousins kids are hot. Yeah, the next generation is a definite improvement over mine.
Totally off topic, but I had a similar experience in the grocery store: I see this woman with an amazing ass bending over some fruit or something in the produce section. I’m thinking “Mmm, that’s nice, I wish I could get a piece of that” when she stands up and … it’s my wife!
Yeah, she likes it when I tell that story.
My son’s sister, “Liz,” who is in her early twenties, lives with me and Mrs. Rhymer. She’s no actual blood relation to me, but I’ve known her for her entire life, and though I know intellectually she’s cute, there’s no sexual attraction–though I’ll confess I have to see her face, or know it’s her if I’m seeing her from the back, for the “Don’t-Think-of-Her-As-Hot” circuit kicks in.
It can be annoying when Liz and Mrs. Rhymer decide to go work out together and both are wearing shorts & tees.
Interesting - I almost posted this OP yesterday. The girl I’m seeing apparently looks exactly like her mother did at her age, and pictures were produced to corroborate.
I have a 23 year old daughter that is gorgeous. Long dark brown hair, huge brown eyes, cute body, the whole thing.
(Attest to this Why Not she dropped in briefly to a Dopefest last year)
Since she hit about 17-18, I’ve been acutely aware that this is what it is. I have never, ever looked at her that way though. There’s a difference between “gee, my kid is a babe” and "gee, she’s a babe, and… "
Truth is that if I heard any man my age even think something out loud like that about her, I’d probably get into a neck snappin’ frame of mind.
Now - there’s more than a couple of her friends that I’d surrender to in a heartbeat. Double standard? Hell yes, but there’s just something hard-wired that makes the thought of my own kid actually physically revolting. I’m here to protect her and keep her safe, not use her to get off.
Ick.
Well, sort of. The process of watching the person grow up in your family has more to do with this than the blood relation does. Research has shown that there appears to be some inherent biological tendency that means that the more time you spend around someone during the first 3 years of their life (roughly), the less likely you are to be attracted to them later in life (and likewise, the people that young person spent time with in their early years will later be unattractive to them too).
It appears to happen regardless of blood relation. So if you took two unrelated kids and raised them together from birth, they’d likely find the idea of getting married later in life as disgusting as you would find the idea of making out with one of your genetic parents or siblings that you had known all your life (if you met them for the first time as adults, guess what? You might indeed experience a strong attraction to them based on their similarity to you!).
This phenomenon is known as the Westermarck effect.
Yep, she’s a looker!
Exactly! It’s like you’re not entirely unaffected, because you know they’re attractive, but the whole thing is kind of repulsive, in a very visceral way. No normal unrelated heterosexual man is going to look at your daughter and think, “ick.” Even if she’s not their specific type, she’s undeniably pretty, not icky.
I don’t have kids either, but I do have siblings. Do you? Are you attracted to them? I sure ain’t. One of them is objectively speaking pretty good-looking, but…ew. No.
I think lavenderviolet hit the nail on the head.
I think it has to do with the image that one has of their children. My parents and other family members still call my by my diminutive name which to me means in their heads, in some way, shape or form, they still see me as the innocent little 5 yr old boy that was so endearing to them. I think it is that image that keeps parents from looking at their teenage kids in a sexual way.
I saw a segment on some news magazine, like 20/20 maybe, about a woman who had met her grown son that she had given up for adoption as a baby. As she got to know him, she actually developed romantic feelings for him. I find that really icky. But it does prove that it can happen, if you didn’t know the person as they grew up.
As the father of four, including two teenage daughters who get followed around by a trail of boys everywhere they go – never crossed my mind. They act like teen-agers, for cryin’ out loud
*-- OMG, that’s sooo lame, Dad
– tsk, Dad, that’s, like, so last year
– could you stand a little farther away, eewwww! *
It doesn’t matter how hot they are; they’re not of my generation, so I’m not attracted. Same for most of their hot friends. Maybe because for me the only attraction ever worth really pursuing was the reciprocated attraction, and they don’t think I’m a prize, that’s for sure. I was just never going to try that hard to win some woman over!
Also, an observation: Maybe it’s just my family, but it seems pretty consistent that the boys look like the moms and the girls look like the dads. So they look more like my sister than my wife.
Plus, my wife is still hot at 40something and much more my type, still has me completely worn out most nights and/or mornings and not looking for anything extracurricular! 
So…did you get a piece of that?;)