• MrSulu@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    1 day ago

    They went straight to sex. He still wants to have sex with his sister. I’d suggest that his own post pulls the rug from under his legal action.

  • RalfWausE@feddit.org
    4·
    2 days ago

    What does it say about me if I don’t get the drama around the whole incest thing? As long as all involved parties are consenting… who gives a shit?

    On the other hand it would really upset me and let me question my parenting if I found out that my son voluntarily sends genetics material to some questionable company…

    • leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      41·
      2 days ago

      There are two main issues with incest: 1) offspring, which should be avoided unless you check the embryos for issues and discard any that would have health problems due to inbreeding, and 2) the possible existence of power dynamics that might make consent too questionable to be acceptable.

      Two sufficiently mature (I think this excludes about 90% of the population, but that’s probably my cynicism talking) adults, who have the means to live independently (so no dangerous power dynamics), and at least one of which is naturally or artificially sterile (or who physically can’t have children for other reasons, for instance due to having incompatible genitals), sure, go ahead, have fun.

      Otherwise, there’s too much risk of harming one or both of the participants, or their potential offspring.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 days ago

        The odds of even siblings having a child with issues are apparently pretty low still, but the issue comes from having several generations of it if it gets normalized. Like the Hapsburgs weren’t even marrying siblings, but did the cousin and second cousin marriages often enough that they ended up with a lot of inbred family members and those distinctive chins and noses.

        So rather than needing to look at everyone’s family history to determine whether or not there’s been too much incest that the risk of inbred issues in the offspring is too high, it’s just generally looked down upon, which means the times it happens completely by accident (like two orphan siblings that never met or secret half-sibling affair children), it’s not as big of a deal because the odds of issues are still pretty low.

    • FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world
      5·
      2 days ago

      You’re kind of right - I think society gets worked up about it in the wrong way, relying on shame to prevent incest, rather than logic.

      spoiler

      The One reason it’s not that common is that siblings smell gross and feel gross to have sex with. Most siblings, if they actually tried to initiate sex, would back down very quickly because of those biological inhibitors.

      One reason that incest is wrong is because it usually manifests as abuse. One participant will be older or stronger than the other. As another commenter said, you can never rule that out, and anyone who finds out bout an incestuous relationship will assume it’s abusive

      Then the big no-no is inbreeding. You might not produce a child from one instance of intercourse, but it’s unethical because you’d be inflicting a fucked set of genetics onto that hypothetical child.

      But as weird as it is to say, nowadays you could theoretically practice safe incestuous sexual activity. But then there’s the remaining problem that “you’ll get attached,” and I do think the threat of permanently changing your relationship with one another, making things awkward, is very real.

      Another remaining problem is that I still see it as A) a response to loneliness, where two relatives who haven’t managed to encounter many mates will resort to each other, and B) a sort of sex addiction, arising if two similar aged relatives used it as a form of sexual experimentation.

      • qyron@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        2 days ago

        About that smell comment.

        There are several registered cases of genetically related people that, unknowing they are related, develop attraction and engage in sexual activity. Some cases even mention the couple being more attracted to each other due to scent.

        There’s a small article in Wikipedia here.

        Now, for an anecdote: I knew a couple that was genetically related and they only discovered they were siblings because they tried to reconstruct their family tree through official records and things came out off.

        They already had two perfectly healthy children when I met them. They kept their blood connection as private as possible but they intended to tell their offspring the whole story when they could understand all of it and its implications.

        Now about the incest taboo: I find no issue in consenting adults engaging in sexual activity. Normalizing it, I find deeply troublesome. It would completely inbalance relatioships between family members and wreak havoc in the gene pool.

    • it_depends_man@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 days ago

      There are three reasons against incest:

      • culture
      • genetics
      • it is impossible to rule out power dynamics and grooming. If they were freely consenting adults it wouldn’t be bad from this point alone, but you can never be sure that they are actually freely consenting.
      • ZeldaFreak@lemmy.world
        01·
        2 days ago

        Genetics and health issues aren’t a big topic now, because of disabilities caused by genes. If your jurisdiction allows for example people with down syndrome to reproduce, you can’t argue about genetic defects by incest, as they are less likely/server. Here politicians did switch their argumentation towards protecting the family, which makes sense but only when they grew up as family. The problem is when siblings didn’t know each other, when they grew up, later fell in love and only then find out they are blood relatives, they legally can’t reproduce. You can’t argue with protecting the family, because they never where family. They don’t see them as brother and sister.

        In Germany there is a group who is fighting to legalize it. About consenting, there is a different law in Germany, which protects that. In Germany for the age of consent, we have 3 categories (14, 16 and 18). The one that matters in this context is everything under 18. If one partner is under 18, you can’t fuck them, if you have a specific relation like teacher, family member, guardian. Also this only applies to consent. Rape is still rape.

        But to be fair, a lot changed recently and being against incest “just recently” (still over 10 years) weakened their arguments. They don’t reevaluate everything that gets affected by court decisions or law changes, if now something else got weakened in their arguments. Consenting incest not between guardians, aren’t that many. It needs a group to collect facts and arguments and then need to present them but that doesn’t even guarantee politicians to act

      • unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        0·
        2 days ago

        you can never be sure that they are actually freely consenting.

        They’re adults. That’s all you need to know.

        Also, not condoning grooming or whatever systematic abuse. Not saying it isn’t horrific, or that victims shouldn’t speak - sometimes people are just that fucking weird

        • Signtist@bookwyr.meEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          Sure, people can just be that weird, and maybe most instances are, but any time you’re dealing with a situation where someone is having sex with a person who knew and had influence over them during childhood, it’s difficult to say they didn’t push a little too much to end up at this result.

          It’s like a young adult dating an old friend of their parents; most people’s minds immediately go to that one time 10 years ago where they both disappeared for an hour in the middle of a barbecue and got kinda defensive about it afterward…

    • save_the_humans@leminal.spaceEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      I think the issue is offspring has an increased likelihood of genetic defects. So its kind of probably always been taboo. Like since humanity’s inception.

      • green_copper@kbin.earth
        1·
        2 days ago

        So its kind of probably always been taboo. Like since humanity’s inception.

        Medieval royalty enters the chat.