Before any wiseass cracks a funny - I am ONLY curious… nothing more!!
So, when did it become socially unacceptable?
I figured that maybe it had something to do with the fact that children born of siblings have some sort of genetic defect.
I don’t know when it first became socially unacceptable, but I think looking at the Baldwin brothers sealed the deal.
But seriously, if you believe the Adam and Eve story, wouldn’t incest have to be a viable alternative to extinction?
I think, in the meantime, the “ick - omygod -wretch wretch” factor works for most people when contemplating a romp in the hay with bro or sis.
For those who don’t find the idea all that disturbing, I have a banjo waiting for you to play down by the bridge over the crick.
Probably sometime before we diverged from our closest relatives. Great apes avoid bonking close relatives, too.
At least that’s what I gather from what I’ve been reading lately. While I’m not sure it directly addresses your question (I’m only about 1/4 of the way through it) Mother nature : a history of mothers, infants, and natural selection by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy does have some interesting sections on the sexual practices of our closest relatives the Chimpanzees, and also Gorillas and Orangutans.
What makes you think it was ever acceptable?
Incest appears in mythology, and among historic royal families, but I am unaware of any evidence that would support the idea that there has ever been any society where incest was considered acceptable among ordinary humans. As Motorgirl points out above, incest is also very rare among apes.
The obvious genetic problems that frequently result from incest are unlikely to be the original cause of human aversion to incest, although they are certainly a contributing factor.
We have it, alive and kicking, in our family. It’s pretty weird because they don’t hide it at all. The whole family is aware and about half are accepting and half aren’t.
On a side note, is it unacceptable to marry/have a relationship/boink a step-brother or step-sister (assuming all are of age)?
How about a child who was adopted? I’ve always wondered if there’s any chance an adopted child would end up marrying an actual sister or brother with out realizing it.
Oh. My. God. You can’t just drive-by like that on us. What the hell?!?
In response to the OP, an avoidance of mating with close blood relatives seems to be built into most animals. Unless kept in unnatural conditions, such as in a laboratory, or trapped in a small geographical area, incest is rare among animals in the wild. I’m not exactly sure why this should be- it’s not as though most species have an understanding of how genetics work. There may be some sort of imprinting process that occurs after birth, at least in mammals and birds, in which the mother is identified and females bearing a close resemblance to the mother are not afterward selected as sexual partners. Of course, this is a complete WAG, but it’s the best I can come up with. The social practices of many animals would also bear this out. In group-dwelling animals, one sex usually disperses and seeks out another group to join or dominate, such as in elephants and hyenas. Non-social animals would naturally disperse upon maturity as well, establishing specific territories which do not overlap with close kin.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. The cheetah at some point in the not-too-distant past passed through a genetic bottle-neck, probably as the result of massive epidemics and/or habitat loss. All present-day individuals in the species are extremely closely related, leading to many and various problems. This indicates that the species more or less had to re-build itself with a very small group of founding members. There seem to be strong inherent taboos against incest, but the drive for survival and reproduction can override this in desperate circumstances.
It should also be pointed out that inbreeding or line-breeding does not automatically produce defective offspring. It is a tactic commonly used in the production of many domestic animals, most notably the dog. Inbreeding fixes certain characteristics due to the high probability of a match at various gene sites. But because of this high probability, genetic defects are also fixed within a line, as two individuals are more likely to carry a deletrious gene at the same site which will be expressed in the offspring. This is why various recessive and deleterious genes, while floating around in the population at large, are so seldom expressed. The chances of two non-related parents carrying the gene at the same site are low. But in inbred populations, it’s the reverse, which is why we have lots of pure-bred dogs with various genetic problems like hip dysplasia and Von Willebrand’s disease. This is usually termed as hybrid vigor, a phenomenon by which non-inbred animals are often healthier and freer of disease than inbred ones.
My mother once told me about a family that this happened to. A woman in her community married some guy, and all of their kids but one had really bad genetic disorders. The woman perished prematurely from cancer, and on her deathbed her mother told her that she had married her brother (I don’t know if he was half or full). You’d think she would have said something before the wedding :rolleyes: .
When I was young my father taught in a community where Incest was common. And it seemed to be accepted by the locals as a normal sexual outlet.
YICK
I was under the impression that incest was common in ancient Egypt among the royalty but I thought the incidence of defects were rare.
Sorry for the drive-by. My husband’s sister has been living with her mother’s brother for over 10 years. They are past child-bearing years “THIS time”, but years ago, when they originally started carrying on, she was fully capable of having kids. They didn’t (whew!). Anyway, my mother-in-law, the poor thing, had to accept it. Either that, or she disowns her brother and her own kid. We were cooler with it years ago, but as time goes on, I see how it hurt the families so much. I don’t say anything, but it freaks me out more and more all the time. Her kids are very cool toward them, and half of his brood of 7 won’t even talk to him.
When it first started back in the 70s, she and her husband divorced and he got custody of the kids. His ex-wife still lives next door to my in-laws. How uncomfortable must THAT be???
I meant, “Her kids are very cool toward them,” in a bad way.
That’s some story, Kalhoun! Mkay, now you’ve got me humming that song from the South Park movie.
I tihnk incest became less and less accepted around the same time people stopped blood letting and buring people at the stake, but what do I know.
At first, the whole family was freaking out (back in the '70s) and my husband said that they weren’t hurting anyone. He was really the only support they had. But as years passed, they broke up, he went back to auntie, and eveything was Jake.
Then about 10 years ago he came around again. She didn’t tell anyone for a while, but then they just decided to go for it. By now the family is used to it (not that they like it) so I guess everyone is just resigned to it the second time around.
The more I think about it, the more weirded out I get. I just can’t picture him having the 'nads to go up to her parents and tell them he’s doing her.
Lieu, I’m not up to par on my South Park. Hum a few verses…
Actually, the opposite may be true . . . at least in rats. One study was done using lab rats in which a mother rat’s genitals were painted with lemon juice. When her young reached sexual maturity, they showed a marked preference for females who were also painted with the lemon juice. A similar study was done by painting a red dot on the mother rat’s head with the same results. It seems that males try to mate with a girl like the one who mated with dear old dad . . . The mother becomes the model for a potential mate.
In many mammals, it’s generally the males who are kicked out of the mother’s territory, while the females are either allowed to stay, or develop territory close by. A good deal of animal social groups are matriarchies which have a principal male who mates with all of the females. This helps avoid accidental incest with a sibling, and helps ensure a wide-spread distribution of the parent’s DNA.
Quite true. ** Andrimitum ** brought up the royal families of Egypt, in which brother-sister marriage was their way of keeping the power within the family. A good deal of them lived to a ripe old age, and their mummies don’t show deformities. The only “defective” that comes to mind is Ankhenaten, the “heretic prince,” father of Tutankhamen. Statues of Ankhey show a strange-looking fellow with an overly-long face, and very womanly hips.
Sheesh! I didn’t think things like this happened outside of trashy V.C Andrews novels!
I think incest has always been socially unacceptable. Those who disagree and engage in it are, by far, the rare exceptions. As has been discussed already, there are hard-wired genetic and behavioral defenses against it, because otherwise our species wouldn’t have made it. All the social rules and justifications (and, to my atheist perspective, “moral edicts handed down from above”) are merely a posteriori rationalizations for what is effectively a biological imperative.
Four syllables. First two rhyme with uncle, last two rhyme with fucker.
Uh, wait.
Finally a thread worthy of my favorite sig line!
She told me she loved me like a brother. She was from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
IIRC from my old anthro days, incest taboos were common among peoples who didn’t even recognize the male role in reproduction, much less hold sophisticated insights into genetics and inbreeding. I remember several theories advanced to explain the taboos. One was that sexual alliance inside the family compromised the family unit by causing dissension, etc. Another theory claimed that incest “wasted a marriage”, i.e. squandered a potential social alliance with an outside group.
Neither of these theories sound adequate to me, btw, but I offer them for consideration.
Veb
But not cats, the little beasts. We have one cat that did his own mother, who was therefore simultaneously the mother and grandmother of the resulting kitten.
The resulting kitten is is a beautiful Ragdoll who is very easygoing, but not the sharpest tool in the shed as they say. He has a nervous twitch in his tail which causes him to attack it; when these proceedings get to be too much for him he scurries into another room. This makes him the only cat I am aware of who gets chased by his tail.
So would it be socially awkward, gross, an abomination or sinful if a real life Greg Brady had “relations” with a real life Marsha Brady? Does anyone know of people with adopted siblings and lusted after them, buoyed by the fact that their sibling is not a blood relative? Perhaps actually acting on their desires rather than lusting?