Incest - Right Or Wrong?

[suedonim]

I was quite intrigued to read this story about two siblings in Germany who are seeking to overturn the laws on incest. Are their civil rights being breached or is the law there for a good reason?

Not sure of ins ands outs but think it's all to do with genetics and passing on healthy well mixed genes. Incest has been taboo for centuries and in most societies and cultures I think.

This is very interesting morally and ethically.

We do have a long-standing instinctive feeling that incest is not right - maybe it is because genetically succesfull societies have been ones that have grown outwards, not inwards, genetically.

But in terms of a relationship between consenting and equal adult individuals, I find it hard to say it should be illegal. A symptom of emotional dysfunction, maybe (and the story of this couple may hint that way)but without the question of children, does it harm anyone else?

The children issue is far more complex.

There is a theory that as a species we are no longer evolving. That we adapt our environment, rather than evolve in response to it. Maybe we don't need to relay on genetic diversity to survive as we have in former ages. It isn't ilegal for two carriers of genetic conditions to have a child - though most seem to seek counselling to avoid passing on the condition - but i do find it hard to agree that siblings should even contemplate having children.

I think it's outrageous to suggest that there is a correlation with disabled people having children where there is no genetically transmittable cause. And in any case, many disabled parents do end up having thier children taken away because someone considers them not able to cae for them.

The needs of a child should always be paramount.....

I can see their argument about offspring being disabled, but the law is also there to protect people from others who may have some sort of authority over them. A father and daughter perhaps.

But should the law extend to equal consenting adults?
A deepfelt taboo is different from a criminal offence.

Also, it doesn't say that any of the couples children are disabled, and unless there are other parenting issues, it seems harsh to hav taken the children away from their parents.

I agree I see no reason why the children have been taken away. I suppose I can't see any reason why consenting adults shouldn't be allowed but I have to admit it gives me the creeps but the law is there to protect people's rights not to stop me getting the creeps.

They do have at least two severely disabled children, but it seems to me quite unlikely to be solely because they are the products of incest. The girl herself sounds learning disabled from the interview in yesterday's paper, and she has several more disabled siblings, including at least one that died in infancy from its disability. Though if they both have the genes for this kind of disability, it seems even more likely that any children they have will be disabled.
I think this is a very, very sad case. They both seem very fragile, damaged people, and in her case especially, learning-disabled too.
Was surprised to see that in most European countries incest is not illegal. In Germany the law was introduced by the Nazis as part of the eugenics programme.

Oh, and I think they are unable to care for the children and aren't seeking to have the disabled ones returned.

I have the same 'creeps v rights' feeling.

I think it is significant that these two did not actually grow up together in the same family home, but met later as adults.

It probably happens from time to time without anyone realising. Especially amongst half brothers and sisters.

Aloha - that is all much more iluminating.

And even sadder.

Yes, incest taboo only works if you don't grow up together. Interestingly, societies where children are betrothed in infancy and then brought up together tend to have lower birth rates as we tend not to want to have sex with people we regard as siblings.

I also think that now he has had a vasectomy they should be left alone.

I agree - if he has had a vasewectomy, they should be left alone.

or maybe given kindly help and support.

Going out now but will be back later - your thoughts are v interesting.

I read somewhere that this is actually quite common, where siblings meet in later life and where the bond that is formed between them is closer to a sexual one than a sibling one iyswim but that most do not act on it. . In fact there was a woman on this morning about a year ago I think it was, who had traced her brother and after they met they had indeed left their respective partners to live together in a sexual relationship. It was only after about 6 months that she began to realize that this wasn't normal and actually ended the relationship to go back to her husband.

Surely if you haven't grown up with someone, then to you they're not really a sibling are they. There was a storyline in casualty a few years back where one of the nurses had developed a relationship with a man, only to discover that he was her brother who her mother had given up for adoption as a baby.

I would imagine that in this day and age of sperm/egg donation, it would be quite possible to develop a relationship with a half sibling without even realizing it.

I can well imagine with changing family dynamics that this relationship will become more common in future. I suppose you would get into difficulties if the children of siblings also decided to have children together.

When we lived in the north of Scotland inbred families were still quite common. A teacher friend had a small child in her class who said his big brother was coming to meet him that day. When the chap arrived the little boy said 'Hello dad' so friend said 'I thought your brother was coming?' She was somewhat startled when small boy replied 'This is my brother. He's my dad as well!'

Yes, the incest taboo is 'enforced' in humans by a general refusal to shag anyone you grew up with. Certainly, I've read that in kibbutzes, children who were raised together, even though they were unrelated, tended not to ever get involved when they were older.

The incest taboo is/was not universal. In ancient Egypt, brothers and sisters in the Pharoanic dynasties used to marry, and the high incidence of things like porphyria and haemophilia in European royal families is due, bluntly, to too much inbreeding between cousins as a way of making sure no "commoners" got mixed in with royalty.

Mind you, and just to, you know, throw you all a bit of a curve to play with, if it's incest between either same-sex relatives or where one or both are too old for conception to occur, is that more or less worrying? (if, in this hypothesis, all parties involved are consenting adults)

universally accepted societal taboos exist for one reason and one reason only....because there is a universal (denied) impulse.

there are good reasons why that taboo is in place (big gene pool = healthier population) but we need to acknowledge that the incest impulse is there. present. and strong.

it is an incredibly interesting area and one which fascinates me.

Sorry sophable, but that's rubbish. Because the incest taboo is not universal. Which means that the desire to get jiggy with one's siblings or parents is not universal either.

WIth siblings who grow up together, there's mostly a degree of distaste for looking at each other in a sexually desirable light because these are the people who you've either seen or been seen by, sh*tting on the carpet, dancing around in an embarassing fashion at the school play or smearing chocolate mousse into your eyebrows. Which is not, apart from in the case of a few specialist fetishists, much of a turn on.
Parent-child incest seems to thrive more in remote places, or in families who are deeply cut off from other people. And it's utterly wrong and abhorrent unless it's a case of not meeting till the child is an adult (adoption, father never knew of child's existence, eetc) and even then it's dubious because the power balance isso utterly unequal.

madamez you are being....erm....haven't got a polite word for it....intellectually challenged.

you are arguing that there isn't a universal taboo because in ancient egypt and other societies it was acted on?????

you feel that intimate contact including living with people and seeing them piss and shit means that you are not turned on by them? hmmmmm.

go and read some stuff and then come back and talk to me about why the incest taboo exists.

the 'distaste' is born of taboo. a good and right taboo and i don't argue with it...but the taboo protects against an existant impulse.

'And it's utterly wrong and abhorrent unless it's a case of not meeting till the child is an adult '

errrr....this is the THE INCEST TABOO that you are describing.

"Yes, the incest taboo is 'enforced' in humans by a general refusal to shag anyone you grew up with"
I am not in the least sure I can agree with that. Until very very recently in human history, the only possible sexual partners were people you "grew up with" to a greater or lesser extent. beginning and maintaining a relationship with someone even from a neighbouring village was logistically very difficult
even in the small town I grew up in, a very significant number of people have had sexual and romantic relationships with people they have known well since childhood. And relationships between cousins are very common too.
if it is a taboo, it is a very recent one.

hi harpsi...