iPoW #4 - How's Your Sister?

[Honor]

I think, by now, everyone in the world has heard the catchy (read: disgustingly juvenile) little rhyme I'm not going to repeat.

Let's explore the limits of consensual sexuality for a moment.

Well... Actually, let's explore something that it's fairly amazing constitutes a limit of consensual sexuality.

I think, if you went to most rational, mature, educated people, you could ask them "Do you think consensual sex between two people capable of forming consent should be illegal?" they'd say "No." But, then, you could offer a number of situations that fell well within that guideline, and would still give them that "Oh, my ghod... I've accidentally swallowed a live bug." look.

Question is, should the freedom to do as you wish with your own body extend to doing as you (and your sister) wish with your sister's body, too?

How about mom? How about Grandma? How about your daughter?

You know the drill... What you vote is only half the story. Why'd you vote that way? Can you come up with a better argument than "Because it makes me feel dead inside when I think about it!!! >.< " After all... Just because the thought of something makes your stomach turn, is that a good enough reason to prevent others from doing it?

Edit: Holy Crap... You're right, of course. 4 it is.

[Xero]

ok honor its go time
kidding

I don't have a problem with consensual incest, but forced, or otherwise unwarranted incest, should be treated as other rape cases, the whole gambit of therapy and such(that I've seen lack in other cases of incest).
family are usually the people you keep closest emotionally and teach each other almost everything they need to know about life
so why not about sexual education?
other than a talk and a dirty mag

I'll clean this up in the morning
I'm beat

[Lesotheron]

I believe I've already stated my position in another thread. Consentual incest is no different than a one-night stand, a monogamous relationship or a lifelong marriage.

Any consenting adult should have the right to sleep with whomever they choose, be it: Bob down the street, Sue from work or Auntie Steve who just had his "innie" made into an "outie".

I love it when people argue that procreation from consentual incest increases the chances of birth defects or deformities. According to medical research, it nearly doubles the chances of recessive genes causing health problems or physical malformations, from 2.7% to 4.3%.

I'll tell ya, those numbers just make my skin crawl. 4.3% chance of having an unhealthy child? You've already beaten those odds if you've gotten that cute cousin of yours to sleep with you.

As long as both parties are at the "age of consent" where they live, they should be able to date, marry and live happily ever after just the same as any other two people, regardless of gender or genetic makeup.

*EDIT*

By the way, isn't this IPOW #4? I thought #3 was about the homeless problem.

[Aeridus]

*EDIT*

By the way, isn't this IPOW #4? I thought #3 was about the homeless problem.

Me too...

Anyway, I think all forms of consensual incest are fine, as long as there's "grass on the field" so to speak. Of course, there is the issue of whether or not incest between a father and daughter is somewhat coerced (ie I'll buy you a new car if you suck daddy's cock)...

But yeah, procreation from incest between siblings is generally not a good idea. Cousins is pushing it, but the genes are sufficiently far apart that there shouldn't be any major birth defects. Anything more distant than cousins blood-wise is pretty safe.

[Lowky]

I see no problem with sex between consenting adults including procreation. Yes you may have some recessive gene issues, but those tend to follow darwinism to it's logical conclusion and disappear after a few generations. If it was such an issue, people wouldn't breed cattle, dogs, cats, etc. for certain traits. How do you think they get those traits to continue to show up they mate siblings or child and parent that are both expressing the desired trait. I am an only child so it's a non issue for me on a sibling but *shrug*

[Seth Marati]

I think, by now, everyone in the world has heard the catchy (read: disgustingly juvenile) little rhyme I'm not going to repeat.

If I have, it's not something I have committed to memory.

While incest isn't something I'd personally advocate, I basically agree with the notion that two consenting adults should be allowed to do to each other pretty much whatever the hell they want. In the case of incest, however, the issue of reproduction keeps me from being in full support of its legality. One thing our world doesn't need is more genetically warped individuals making trouble for people at large - we already complain enough about those people who are "wastes of genetic material and biomass". But I don't see how we can prohibit such reproduction without prohibiting the act that leads to it. We've already established that a woman can't be coerced into aborting the pregnancy, and I strongly doubt we'd be able to take the newborn once it's out of the mother's body and dispose of it. I think I remember you (Honor) saying incest ought to be legal as long as the people involved were willing to cull. But what if they weren't willing? Is it then made illegal? And if so, how do we enforce that? The act won't be made illegal until we have a conception on our hands, which we'd then have to deal with somehow.

That being said, I have to question whether the government even has a place in regulating things like this. Laws that prohibit two people from breeding with each other are reminiscent of government-backed eugenics programs, and, without wanting to invoke Godwin's Law, I think we have an idea of how wrongly something like that can turn out. This is to say nothing of the other reasons that might be leveled against incest, then debunked for similar reasons; usually it relates to consent, and the question of whether consent can be formed in a relationship where there are subtle power relationships influencing one party or the other. But there can be found all sorts of "power play" relationships that aren't illegal in our society. If a dependent, weak-willed person is in a relationship where their individuality is suppressed and they're consistently pressured into sex, we may have a problem with that (and rightly so), but it's not against the law. And that's the real distinction here: separating that from which we personally disapprove from that which actually has reason to be made illegal (and by stating that, I've come full circle with the issue at hand; that's what was posed to us in the first place, wasn't it?).

I don't know. I'm going to hang back from this and observe/partake in the discussion before I vote.

[ManaUser]

Put me down for non-procreative sex with any relative... WAIT that doesn't sound right.

I have to admit I do have the "feeling" that it would be wrong. But I don't think that's a valid reason to tell someone else what they can't do. It just means it would be wrong for me.

On the birth defect issue, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but lesotheron's figures are for cousins specifically, aren't they? My understanding was that the risk would go up significantly with closer relations.

I wasn't able to quickly find stats on that, but I'm guessing (probably quite wrongly) that the increased risk would be around four times as great for siblings or parent and child, because they're four times as consanguineous. That's a total of 13.5%. If they have two kids, the chance that at least one has a birth defect is over 25%. That doesn't look so insignificant anymore.

But, honestly, I'm a little uneasy about even that as a basis for law. It brings up all kinds of nasty ethical questions.

[Edit] I wanted to respond to this:

But I don't see how we can prohibit such reproduction without prohibiting the act that leads to it.

That doesn't seem so hard. Just make it illegal unless some highly effective form of birth control is being used. I wouldn't even say it has to be 100%. In practice, the simplest way to write that law would be to have an approved list birth control methods and medical conditions that qualify and then tack "or any other situation making pregnancy impossible" onto that.

[Fnyunj]

While I like to believe that I believe in "Safe, Sane, Consensual" . . . -

. . . just. . . EW!

How about "Liberte, Egalite, Sodame. . .?"

[WangyJohn]

I think, by now, everyone in the world has heard the catchy (read: disgustingly juvenile) little rhyme I'm not going to repeat.

You oversetimate the reach of anglo-american culture, because I have no idea what you're talking about...

Anyway, the idea does squick me out, but two consenting adult? Sure, but I don't think inbreeding should be allowed.

[Honor]

I think, by now, everyone in the world has heard the catchy (read: disgustingly juvenile) little rhyme I'm not going to repeat.

You oversetimate the reach of anglo-american culture, because I have no idea what you're talking about...

Oh, you're on the internets... It isn't just American anymore. I bet if I were to repeat it, you'd both have to roll your eyes and say "Oh. That."

[MistressMaggie]

I think, by now, everyone in the world has heard the catchy (read: disgustingly juvenile) little rhyme I'm not going to repeat.

You oversetimate the reach of anglo-american culture, because I have no idea what you're talking about...

Oh, you're on the internets... It isn't just American anymore. I bet if I were to repeat it, you'd both have to roll your eyes and say "Oh. That."

I also have no idea what you're referring to....

[Squidflakes]

Incest is best, put your <sister|family> to the test.

[Kittyboymuffin]

Hmmm ... subjectively, I think it would be weird, but hey, I'm not one to talk.

Objectively, I think I can see past both (a) my occasional vague fetish for incest between fictional characters (mmm, naked lesbian twins </INJOKE>), and (b) the culterally-instated sense of "ew" that I get whenever I let my mind dwell specifically on the idea of sex with my sister or one of my parents, and say that consenting adults are consenting adults, and they should probably be allowed to have whatever kind of sex they want as long as they don't hurt anyone who doesn't want to be hurt (which includes potential offspring). I think I'm going to try to find the birth defect rate for sibling-incest before deciding between "non-reproductive sex between any adults OK" and "reproductive sex OK", though ... although, since you've already got one-in-20 odds (when it's normally one-in-forty), I'm leaning towards the former.

[MistressMaggie]

I hate polls because the options never include my opinion. I see no real problem with cousins and relations like that, but I think that siblings and parents are another matter, not for any moral reason, but for the genetic reasons. Do the genetic problems that incest causes carry on into future generations? I wouldn't want to have a child down the line and have them be ill because of some nasty recessive gene that surfaced because their father's parents were siblings or something.

This post is probably a little scattered, but there are fireworks or something going on somewhere and I don't know where or why...

[Boring 7]

I did not choose one because it makes me feel dead inside when I think about it!!! >.<

Oh, right.

Having analyzed it, aside from the ick, all that remains is the health. I believe that sexual relationships that formed from parent-child relationships or sibling/sibling relationships are usually (usually, not always) psychologically unhealthy.

As long as you overcome that and do not have freaky third-eye incest babies I do not care.

[Xero]

incest is best put your family to the test and soon you'll find out they're better than the rest

incest is best put your sister to the test soon you'll find out shes better than the rest

incest: the game the whole family can play

incest: keep it in the family!

included FTW

[ManaUser]

I hate polls because the options never include my opinion. I see no real problem with cousins and relations like that, but I think that siblings and parents are another matter, not for any moral reason, but for the genetic reasons.

That's pretty much my take as well. But I picked option 4 none-the-less because I don't consider cousins-sex incest, and genetic issues obviously don't come up as long as no children are produced.

Do the genetic problems that incest causes carry on into future generations? I wouldn't want to have a child down the line and have them be ill because of some nasty recessive gene that surfaced because their father's parents were siblings or something.

No, that shouldn't happen. It's not like inbreeding exactly "damages" the offspring's genes or anything, it just increases the chance that they get two copies of a given gene... including genes it's bad to have two copies of. Harmful recessive genes, in other words.

Let's say I have a rare recessive gene that causes... tails. I don't know about it, because I only have one copy. My sister would have a 50% chance of also having one copy. So assuming she does, if we had a kid, a son lets say, he'd have a 25% chance of getting two copies, and a tail. Obviously he would then be at increased risk of having a kid with a tail, since his kid would for sure have at least one copy of the gene. Even then, it would be unlikely since it could only happen if his mate also had at least one copy (and we said it was a rare gene, remember). It's equally likely that our son would have no copies of the gene, in which case his kids would be free of tails for sure. Most likely (50%), our son will have one copy, the same as me and my sister and, like us, would be very unlikely to have a kid with a tail, provided he marries outside the family, of course.

[Honor]

I hate polls because the options never include my opinion. I see no real problem with cousins and relations like that, but I think that siblings and parents are another matter, not for any moral reason, but for the genetic reasons.

That's pretty much my take as well.

It's not without irony that this is my position as well... As in "personality" type tests, I can usually think of another answer I like better than the ones offered.

But, trying to include all possible options in a poll... It's a fool's errand.

I didn't include lesser degrees of relationship, because I don't consider them to be a real issue... As, I think, is the position with most laws.

[Indigo Violent]

Incest - ew, gross, not my problem if somebody wants to fuck their relatives so badly that they're willing to run the risk of social condemnation and children with birth defects. I really don't think that making incest legal would lead to wide-scale family reunion-orgies, since most people also feel that incest is icky.

[Kittyboymuffin]

True, but that's a social, cultural construct as much as it is legal. If it was illegal, but people didn't mind as much, it'd be a different matter.

Then there's the "fictional context versus actual reality" ... I mean, an H-manga with incest (and in english so I'd actually know) would be hawt, but the idea of RL incest is ... weird to me. Not that this actually has much bearing in the discussion ...