# Why is incest associated with poor white people, particularly in the Southern U.S.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 7, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603 "2011-04-07T23:36:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/101 "2013-12-22T01:32:47Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Of course they were, but no-one ever steps up to protest the white trash poor being slandered or derided, unlike a number of other groups in the USA, each of whom has interest groups or money to fund such defenders. Slander women, blacks, muslims, jews, catholics etc. and there will be an instant fuss with accusations of racism, sexism whatever. Slander the rich, and they don’t care, because they’ve got the money. Slander people as a group who live in trailer-parks or are homeless and no-one cares. > Which was rather the point. > No-one sneers at polacks nowadays, since they blended in, but as late as the 1970s Italians found it necessary to form the \*\*Italian-American Civil Rights League \*\*founded by Joey Columbo to protest stereotypes and slights against Italian Americans, such as the image that they and Sicilians in particular, had connections to the Mafia. > White trash don’t have that sort of money. Yeah except slander a nigger, kike, wetback etc. (to use the words of such slanderers) and its not ok. Maybe white trash should quit relying on a long history of supremacy and they too could make the case they should not be treated bad. The hard part about that is that they relied upon putting other races down in order to justify their own laziness and/or bad luck. Karma is a bitch. By the way the IACRL was a joke. If you too stupid to know that, please post on another board. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/102 "2013-12-22T17:09:51Z")
Humans are born with a need to have sex with those around them. With regards to who we have sex with, we’re mostly products of our environment. In our culture, incest violates both laws and social norms. In order for a subculture to have the same regard for the law as the rest of society, they need to be aware of the law, and in the case of incest where the consequences of breaking the law are not readily obvious, there needs to be a decent chance of getting caught. In order for a subculture to adhere to a particular social norm, its members need to interact with outsiders to the extent that they are aware of the norm, and, perhaps more importantly, they need to be dependent enough on others that they are willing to put their own idiosyncrasies aside, if needed, to gain the acceptance of others. To reiterate what’s already been said here, subcultures such as rural Southerners that get stereotyped as incestuous tend to be isolated and would not have been subject to outreach by law enforcement or social service entities back when the stereotype developed. Also, they were self sufficient enough that they didn’t need to care what other people thought in order to survive economically. Hence, there was less pressure to avoid incest than there was for society in general. And, of course, derogatory jokes and anecdotes about people who are less worldly or sophisticated than those telling them tend to be funny as hell, which is why the stereotype perpetuates. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/103 "2013-12-22T17:36:09Z")
> [@Vaevictis](#): > > Yeah except slander a nigger, kike, wetback etc. (to use the words of such slanderers) and its not ok. Maybe white trash should quit relying on a long history of supremacy and they too could make the case they should not be treated bad. The hard part about that is that they relied upon putting other races down in order to justify their own laziness and/or bad luck. Karma is a bitch. > > By the way the IACRL was a joke. If you too stupid to know that, please post on another board. The word slander does not have the definition you think it does. ---
**Author:** ![SerafinaPekala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@SerafinaPekala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SerafinaPekala)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/104 "2013-12-22T20:32:12Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > \“he might be a drooling half-blind dwarf with webbed toes, …” \ That pretty much describes my first DH. Bless his heart. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/105 "2013-12-23T02:59:56Z")
> [@Vaevictis](#): > > By the way the IACRL was a joke. If you too stupid to know that, please post on another board. **Moderator Warning** **Vaevictis** , you’ve been around long enough to know that insults aren’t permitted in GQ. The rest of your post isn’t appropriate for GQ either. This is an official warning. Do not do this again. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/106 "2013-12-23T04:20:33Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Actually it may be worth pointing out that in the particular case of first cousin marriages, this abhorrance is also mainly an American thing. > In Britain and most of Europe — quite apart from the tangled natural customs of Africa and the Middle East ( Especially Pakistan where it is almost mandatory, and to which fine country it has done no more harm than a host of other environmental patterns ) — first cousin marriage is not considered incestuous nor cause for alarm. > Famously Judaism permits uncle-niece marriages \*, and whilst some jewish communities unfortunately suffer from specific hereditary diseases, I really really doubt that was ever a contributory factor. > > - _Dunno_ about aunt-nephew marriages; but the God of Abraham being fairly misogynistic, I have doubts. What was sauce for the goose was not always sauce for the gander. Funny coincidence: I dipped into this thread tonight after having heard, for the first time, that my father had an aunt who he never heard about till about a decade ago, who was expelled from her shithole shtetl to another shithole shtetle because she had married her Uncle. Halachically kosher, as you say, but who knows why she got the big boot. There was a scandalous age difference between the old guy and her. My father said that the reverse is against Halacha, as you thought. Although I trust him, gotta check. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/107 "2013-12-23T04:31:06Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I can see that comparing the two cultures in the two sides of my family: Mom’s from Catalonia, a region where it has always been easy to inject “outside blood” into the family tree. One of her cousins, daughter of first-cousins, married a first-cousin. I found out because the whole family was terribly offended (if it had been the US I think they would have sued) because the younger couple had problems conceiving and the doctors dared suggest it might be due to “excessive consanguinity”. I’ve polled Catalans of widely-varying socioeconomic backgrounds and the general reaction is along the lines of: “first-cousin marriage, so what, why are you making a fuss about it; a second generation may be a bit too much but, seriously, why would it be a problem?” > Only one of Mom’s grandparents was born in Catalonia, his father was Italian and his mother’s family had lived in a village near Barcelona for centuries: this gives me more “Catalan blood” than 95% of my Catalan classmates (not just a round number picked from my left elbow, it’s the actual value). > Dad’s side of the family (including yours truly) views second-cousins as inelligible, third-cousins barely worth considering. The last time one of Dad’s ancestors was born outside of the triangle delimited by Bilbao, Olite and Bayonne was in the 14th century. My class was the first one taught by my 11th grade history teacher, who was an outside: she gave us an assignment to draw our family trees “as far back as possible” and had an utter nerdgasm seeing 32 trees which all went to the Probanzas de Sangre of the earliest 18th Century - Probanzas which may delve as far as the 10th in order to prove that our ancestors had the right to address the King. The only families which got those were from the areas now included in Navarra and Euskadi, any side of your family that has them has been in that area for half a milenium if not longer. So you’re future husband must be a first cousin? Or are you saying that your family genealogies from your father’ side don’t count anyone beyond a first, because it would get out of hand? If the first, what’s the pool like? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2013, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/108 "2013-12-23T04:39:45Z")
Jews: Yeah, Leviticus 18:14, no Aunts:Nephews. Who’s and what’s can and can’t of marriage summary and cites [here](http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1226326/jewish/Permitted-Marriages.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Brynhildr\_Budladottir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Brynhildr\_Budladottir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynhildr_Budladottir)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2013, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/109 "2013-12-23T07:59:57Z")
About cultures and incest: I’m Chinese Malaysian Australian and Chinese culture has a taboo against incest so much that you can’t even marry someone with the same surname in case they might be your distant relative. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2013, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/110 "2013-12-23T10:00:56Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > So you’re future husband must be a first cousin? > > Or are you saying that your family genealogies from your father’ side don’t count anyone beyond a first, because it would get out of hand? > > If the first, what’s the pool like? The opposite: my father’s family considers anybody from third-cousin on closer as too close. And yes, we do track. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2013, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/111 "2013-12-23T12:31:23Z")
Incest as in child abuse happens everywhere. It’s more likely to get out of hand - go on for a long time, not stopped, the perpetrators show less restraint, etc. - when the group is marginalized. Backwater communities are ideal for causing this - few new people come into the area to convey the social norms, few people from outside sticking their noses in to ensure the social norms are followed, less likely to come to the attention of the authorities, etc. As a result, the males in the family probably learn from their elders and continue the cycle of abuse, and females continue to be abused by multiple family members and have nobody to turn to. In fact, given proper social upbringing, **skdo23** , humans are typically conditioned NOT to have sex with those around them. It’s an effect noted in Israeli kibbutz collectives but seen everywhere, where boys and girls raised closely together, even non-relatives, mostly choose their partners from outside the childhood group. I suspect isolation (and general male horniness) will overcome this tendency for the purpose of sexual relief, but not for the urge to pair and bond. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603/112 "2013-12-24T17:03:45Z")
Uncle niece marriages were outlawed in England by the Victorian era but not in Germany. Queen Victoria’s mother was first married to her uncle before she married Victoria’s father. Prince Albert’s father married a niece after Albert’s mother died. So his stepmother was also his first cousin and someone he had known for years. Cite: \*We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals \*by Gillian Gill. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-incest-associated-with-poor-white-people-particularly-in-the-southern-u-s/577603.md?page=5)