My sister’s a professional actress and is very beautiful. No, I don’t find myself attracted to her at all.
Why? I don’t know. It’s more than conditioning, though - I think we have an instinctive aversion to being attracted to siblings.
I have a sister. I’m bi, and she’s a beautiful young teenager. But, for God’s sake, she’s my freakin’ sister!
It’s really hard to be attracted to someone when A.) You still remember when they were four years old, standing on the toilet seat and singing, “toilet seat is my favorite thing.” (I taped this for future blackmail purposes) and B.) half the time they annoy the living crap out of you.
Plus, it’s just wrong. Probably some sort of evolutionary instinct to keep us from inbreeding or something.
I dont see whats so strange about the topic. Incest leads to inbreeding, therefore there is a VERY strong anti-incest taboo in our mind.
I am not attracted to other men. I dont find that mysterious at all: Homosexuality is evolutionarily useless, so most of us are straight. Simply put, homosexuals do not reproduce and die out. Its the same with incest. Of course, in this age of almost perfect contraceptives, there is no real reason not to commit incest, but, believe me, the natural taboo, along with the social conditioning makes it VERY weird.
Personally, I have an older sister (Im 17, she is 21), and I ve been told that she is pretty. I wouldnt know, I cant even judge her looks as accurately as with other girls… No attraction whatsoever.
Eh. What can I say? I can (quasi-)objectively see that my sister’s pretty hot, but I’ve never felt the slightest twinge of sexual attraction to her. On the other hand, I’d happily have sex with any of my attractive female friends, regardless how long or how well I’ve known them. I can’t explain why, but being attracted to a “sisterly” friend seems perfectly natural whereas being attracted to my sister just doesn’t happen.
I often notice people are attractive without having any sexual desire towards them. This includes both men and women. Assuming you’re heterosexual, Surreal, have you ever noticed that someone is beautiful from the same sex as you are ?
I can notice beauty without feeling desire in a lot of things. I mean flowers are beautiful, sunsets are beautiful, people are beautiful, animals are beautiful, but that doesn’t mean I feel the urge to bonk senseless every person that is attractive, or that I’m into beastiality or that there is sexual tension between myself and a pot plant ! It is quite possible to notice beauty without wanting to have sex with it 
This is funny for me to read. I have two younger brothers, both very attractive to a variety of women. My younger sister is a very attractive woman herself. I am very close to one of my brothers, my sister’s closer to the other one. The one I’m close to - well, all of his girlfriends have been short, petite brunettes. Like me. The other brother goes for tall, busty blondes - like my sister. Neither of my brothers are attracted to me or my sister specifically, but obviously they find in us attractive qualities.
I can objectively see that both of my brothers are good-looking - but I also think a fair number of actors and actresses are good-looking, and I don’t really want to sleep with any of them.
My little (six years younger) sister is a strawberry blonde with hazel eyes and a wonderful face. Her beauty is what I would consider classic. She is also thin, yet curvy, with huge breasts. Unlike me, she has perfect teeth, too. She was a boy magnet all through her high school years.
Guess what? I’m not attracted to her physically, nor can I remember any time in the past when I was.
It’s like viewing a painting from one of the masters. You can appreciate the pure human beauty of the woman without needing to feel like you should stick your dick in her.
Looking at old photos of my mom, her sister and my grandmom, I was pleased to see that they were quite lovely women, also.
For most people, note I say “most,” the sibling, parent, or other close relation factor removes “sexual” so far away, it isn’t even consciously thought of. You don’t “repel” from thoughts of sexual attraction to them. It never even enters your mind.
Until someone posts a question like the OP.
As has been said already in this thread, if you had a sibling, you would understand.
I remember when my sister hit puberty and developed huge breasts, it embarrassed the hell out of her for a while that my brother and I noticed them. It was not so much in a sexual way; they just looked strange, popping out of nowhere. I was only about 6-7 years old at the time, and I thought it was funny to just grab her breasts. This habit was NOT long-lived. 
On the few occasions where I saw my sister in a state of dishabille I did have a mental reaction, but not a physical one. But I was pretty well-educated about the basic mechanics and psychology of sex at a quite young age, so I never felt guilty about it, nor did I let the thoughts linger. I’ve never found my sister at all physically attractive, and now that we’re adults, I don’t even like her personality.
I have cousins who married some damn gorgeous women though. I lusted after them with no remorse at all.
Esquire magazine a few years ago had an article about an incest case prosecuted in Wisconsin, a rare legal occurrence. The brother and sister had been raised separately due to divorce, and the lack of “conditioning” that deglamorizes your siblings as you grow up may have contributed to their attraction when they met up as adults. What led to their prosecution and imprisonment was their having two children together. Ya, I know, ick.
Why does nobody want to marry a virgin in (name of State where incest is common?)
If she ain’t good enough for family, she ain’t good enough for me!
Both my sisters are what different demographic groups in this country would consider attractive. I have never thought more than “oh, she looks like her friend who’s hot, so I guess by association … but no, nevermind, she’s my sister” about them.
Part of it is that they annoy the faaaack out of me, part of it is just that I’ve gotten used to them, and part is just this sense that it’d be icky.
Interestingly enough, my brother, it seems, is developing into the sort of person people will probably lust after. He’s still my little annoying brother to me, though. That’ll change … someday.
My cousin, OTOH…
I often wonder. With the orgasm and procreation increasingly becoming two seperate goals of sex whether that has led to an increase in incest and if it hasn’t whether that was because other factors of “liberation” were at work decreasing the likelyhood of it. What’s weird is if you imagine what the world will be like 50 years into the future and let logic fully slide down any and all slippery slope arguments you can come to some very bizarre outcomes. “I’ll just cut a hole in the watermelon, a little lubrication and voila!”
Hmm, anyway I also have a sister and a mother, both of whom are very pretty, about whom I’ve never thought about in a sexual manner. Just never crossed my mind. I did have a very weird dream about my mother once though which made me feel very icky for a day but that just reinforced the ick factor. So here’s another post to say “Youjust don’t think about it.”
I was kinda on the fence about this one, until I read Zebra’s post, and felt a-stirrin’. But I don’t have a sister, so I’ll never know for sure.
I did sleep with my girlfriends mother once, does that count?
I’m three years older than my sister and I think she’s become pretty, and I’m happy for her. I’m not attracted to her at all, and I would even say I get bothered when my friends make comments about her. I’m very protective with her to the point that I have wanted to do bodily harm to people that have said things about her to me. She’s my younger sister and that’s the way I still think of her. I have no problem with her boyfriend that is the same age as her, but I get mad if someone older around my age says something.
by RickJay
I don’t know about that. I remember an article in Sports Illustrated a couple years ago about Terrell Owens. He lived in a small town with his grandma (?) in, I think, Mississippi. He started to get a crush on a girl in the neighborhood. It turned out that she was his half-sister and he never knew. He didn’t find out until I wasn’t allowed to see hang out with her anymore. He was young at the time though, so who knows.
Once, when I was around 14, I fell sick and became very congested. That evening, my mother came into my room and started rubbing Vicks VapoRub on my chest.
My body ‘reacted’ to the sensation.
In biology, there is something called the Westermark Effect which suggests that there is an aversion to sexual contact between people raised in the same household before the age of six.
The support I have for this is a bit dated (the individual studes come from J. Patrick Gray’s Primate Sociobiology [1985]) but seem to be pretty conclusive. FTR, I am not a biologist.
In any case, the studies’ findings are based on marriage patterns, sexual activity, and reproductive rates of non-related children raised in the same household. They each found that for individuals from the same group, there tends to be less sexual interaction, higher rates of divorce for those that do marry, and lower rates of reproductive success.
Interestingly enough, if the Westermark Effect does provide a biological basis for some kind of incest taboo, it would suggest that it isn’t the fact that she’s your sister that makes her unattractive but, rather, that you were simply raised in the same household.
Oops. Make that the Westermarck Effect.
When you’re 14, your dick gets hard when a car drives by or the neighbor’s dog barks. Doesn’t mean you want to nail Fido in the back seat of the Camry.
Well, Surreal…you sure live up your nom de plume! You must be surreal to think this isn’t weird! Well, you know what they say…incest is best! It’s a game the whole family can play…
Hey, maybe we should start a thread about incest jokes! 
Whatever you do, Surreal…stay away from my sister! 
- Jinx
Looking at the stories related here, I’m wondering how much of the aversion is because they’re your siblings, and how much because you’ve just been around them so much and seen them in such unflattering ways, that it just washes out any attractivness. I also am without a sister, so I don’t know what it’s truely like, but I see an awful lot of the “watched her/him puke/look lousy/irritate the hell out of me” comments here, as well as the “it’s just wrong, they’re my sister/brother”.