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Consent, Incest and the Moral Argument


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https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/wjeq44/why-cant-i-consent-to-sex-with-my-brother-on-genetic-sexual-attraction?utm_source=vicefbus

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Even some outside the online community have argued that incest should not be forbidden by the state. Thomas Søbirk Petersen, for instance, is a Danish professor of criminal justice ethics who has publicly advocated for the legalization of sibling incest. "If we accept that sex between consenting and rational adults is morally acceptable, then we should also accept sex between consenting and rational adults that happen to be siblings," Petersen tells Broadly over email.

It seems that popular culture is now taking us to a new frontier of human rights.  From the article "The right to be with whomever you choose as long as all are consenting adults should be a basic human right:

My interest in this topic is purely academic, in that it represents another issue for which the moral argument will (and in my opinion should) trump the legal one.

The question I have is "can we discuss such an incendiary topic in such a way to affirm that public engagement still works ?".  Even if we have only a moral argument, will we be satisfied with the results of the discussion ?  Go to the comments to see how it all went down on Vice.

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When I read your post, without reading the article, (no time) I had to admit, what the hell do I care?  There are genetic reasons to prevent offspring, I think, but other than that, as long as my siblings keep a respectable distance, I don't care.  It might gross me out, but lots of stuff does.  The law shouldn't be based on my queasiness.

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8 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

The law shouldn't be based on my queasiness.

So you have defacto answered my question about engagement by stating your principles, values and opinions succinctly.  Even if people have a moral aversion, or revulsion, they should be able to say so and state their values/beliefs and be done with it.  I'm ok with that.  

There are other examples of things being illegal due to community standards, that might not pass a legal challenge.  Nudity comes to mind.  If people don't like nudity en masse, then the rights of those who want to be nude can't/shouldn't be accommodated.  And this is why gay marriage sat around for decades waiting for court approval.
 

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I have no moral issue with consensual incest among adults, and my 'ick' factor is limited to parent/child couplings.   The issue I have is with babies and with power dynamics within families, both of which the article touched on briefly.   Given the inherent human-ness of so many people, if incest was not discouraged legally and socially, would more genetically damaged babies be a result?   Also, how does one determine when incest is truly consensual and not a result of dysfunctional family dynamics?   Meeting a sibling or half sibling with whom you have not grown up is one thing, but I think incest is more common than people realize among family members who live together.

Not sure why, but I found it intriguing that the person featured in the article was attracted to her sibling because of his physical, mental and emotional similarity to herself, and he seemed to reciprocate for the same reasons.   

 

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Just to be clear here so as to avoid any accusation of potential thread drift, is the premise of this thread to discuss the legal vs moral aspects of incest, or is it about some self-righteous progressive posting a contentious article about incest for some personal social experiment to see how far the conversation will degenerate?  Your OP and subsequent responses seem to lean toward the latter, however I just want to be sure.  Does this not come very close to trolling?

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18 minutes ago, Spiderfish said:

1. Just to be clear here so as to avoid any accusation of potential thread drift, is the premise of this thread to discuss the legal vs moral aspects of incest, or is it about some self-righteous progressive posting a contentious article about incest for some personal social experiment to see how far the conversation will degenerate? 

2. Your OP and subsequent responses seem to lean toward the latter, however I just want to be sure.  Does this not come very close to trolling?

1. To discuss the aspects related to public dialogue.  

2. Not seeing how this could in any way be considered trolling.  If someone finds it difficult to respond to the OP without puking all over the thread, then they should probably not respond.

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Thanks for the clarification.

From the evidence I've seen, public dialogue will generally always degenerate into a cesspool of self-centered rants and insults.  It's the result of a couple of decades of people dieting on cultural delicacies such as Snooky and Jaywow, the Kardashians, and countless other mindless, brain melting shows, in addition to our education system instilling in all kids that they are the most important person in existence and that the world revolves around them.  People seem to only be capable of seeing things from their own perspective and are less and less tolerant of perspectives which differ from theirs.  We have developed into a society of narcissists,  it has essentially killed the chance of any meaningful insightful dialogue, and has permanently strained the fabric of what holds us together as a society.

I think that conducting this little experiment on a political forum may skew your findings somewhat, as many are here (not all mind you) in an attempt to cut through the garbage and try and engage in meaningful dialogue.  The sample here may not by typical of what you will find in the comment section of a Vice article.

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I see no societal reasons to support laws against incest. ANY laws against incest. I accept the need to protect underage people, particularly from those who have power or influence over them, but beyond that this is simply legislating private morality. If a couple of adults want to have sex why should that be the state's problem? Yes if they tried to have kids the possibility of birth defects is increased but not as much as if a drug abuser or alcoholic does and we don't ban alcoholics or drug abusers from having sex or having children.

A lot of people find the idea disgusting. Well okay. Don't do it. I find a lot of stuff people do to be disgusting but the government doesn't criminalize it.

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As much as I think that siblings  or relatives having a sexual relationship is unsavory, to each his own, let them go at it. My only concern is when such sexual activity results in an offspring. One aunt of mine married her first cousin. They had four children. One was born with a hole in his heart where he lived a life dependent on medical care and all four had a variety of mental health problems. They lived a very difficult life, one committed suicide; I'm not attributing the suicide to genetics but it makes you wonder. This does not appear to be a widespread problem so let's leave it alone. We have bigger fish to fry.

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I don't think first cousins present any enormous genetic issues. It's not even illegal to marry in most of the world. Most of the European royals married their cousins. You just have to make sure the bloodlines don't become too repetitively intermingled.

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This subject was a natural and logical conclusion years ago from the debate over same sex marriage.

Logically, the state should not prohibit sexual relations by consenting adults regardless of familial relationship(s).

 

 

Edited by bush_cheney2004
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In fact it is not logical to presuppose laws base purely on what people want (consent) are logical.  People consent to many things. Whether they have the capacity to fully understand the consequences of the decision attached to the consent is another story. In the matter Bush has posed, consent and desire  are blurred into one meaning.

What we agree to based on the desires of two consenting adults could be based on emotions and primal sexual feelings that a logical society may have to limit or prohibit.

Let's start with the genetic reasons the law representing society may have to consider and impose to safeguard all of society.

It is scientifically proven fact that the offspring of biologically related parents have higher rates of congenital birth defects and that means mother son, father daughter, sister-brother, first cousins, Even second cousins and nieces and nephews.

All such offspring have been shown to have higher congenital birth defects or serious illnesses related to being to closely related.

This is because such procreation  increases the proportion of zygotes that are homozygous for deleterious recessive alleles that produce such disorders.

UUnrelated marriage partners rarely will both be heterozygous carriers and we have genetic counselling these days.

Because Ccose relatives due to genetic similiarity will share a  large fraction of their alleles the likelihood of  deleterious allele will be passed on in the child and therefore the diseases associated with this.

In layman's terms, close genetic relations procreation will cause an increase in spontaneous abortions , perinatal deaths, and postnatal offspring with birth defects and added medical costs to the inbreeding family and society, Furthr  any  assumption close relatives having sex won't  ever reproduce is illogical.

It is also illogical to assume any close relative can form free consent to have sex with one another. From a psychiatric and psychological perspective, family relationships between brother and sister, parent and child, cousins, and for that matter these same relationships without biological formality but through adoption necessarily confuse the lines of sexual trust between family members. Without basic trust and physical  boundaries set within a family with all its members, , there is no free consent, but confused messages. Incest violates a basic taboo of where sexual feelings is inappropriate.

The arguments as to what is psychologically or psychiatrically deficient and harmful about incest are obvious and they are based on examining the consequences of such relationships.

Having spent 30 years with children of incest attacks the consequences to them, for the rest of their lives I know as could any teacher, social worker, nurse, doctor, police officer, rape crisis counsellor tell you, devastating. They damage the very spirit and soul of people causing problems from such damage to escalate in terms of personal cost to the victim and costs to society to accommodate the behaviour flowing from this damage.

I would also content that trguments that consent between adults precludes legal regulation ignore the physical and psychological consequences attached to this behaviour and how that negatively impacts not just on the consensual parties but society as a whole.

As for first cousin marriages-there is ample evidence in Muslim societies as to the increased  rates of  certain genetic diseases in Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, etc., caused by in-breeding because first cousin marriages are acceptable in these Muslim societies. Its actually the same kind of medical issues seen with ultra orthodox Jews or Amish or other religiously fundamental societies  that become too close knit- diseases where one's face is severely deformed, limbs are deformed, hearts, livers, kidneys and other vital organs are born with structural defects are all evident.

Then there are the neurological diseases that lead to the spine and nerve system breaking down and the creation of dementia, mental retardation,  or extreme psychiatric manifestations such as hallucination, personality disorder, violent behaviour., paranoia, lack of short or long term memory.

In fact as we speak of the many Syrian refugees now here, many have latent genetic illnesses from first cousin marriages such as Guillen-Barre syndrome that will only show up in their late  20's as their spinal cords deteriorate.

Deliberately engaging in close  genetically related  procreation when we have the knowledge to understand it creates suffering and disease which could be avoided is not logical.

Also I don't need a religion or feigned moral debate to have come to the understanding phacking my sister is not going to cut it just because we say so. If I have to morally debate why incest is wrong for me that is just a bull shit  pseuto intellectualization or denial process of what incest is and trying to pass it off as if it can be discussed in simple antiseptic free will terms. Sorry but I live in the here and now where incest is ugly.

Surely none of us needs a Bible to reach us if we choose to be parents we have  a sacred trust to cherish and raise our  kids  or other kids even once they reach 18,  this does not mean we use our trust relationship to then  use the familiarity that came from that to now have  sex.  

How does one as a responsible adult switch off the parental and trust role and turn on the sexual role without exploiting the former?

As for consent between adults who determines if it did not come about as an illusion caused by one of the parties using a familiar relationship to coerce the other into thinking she/he did  so freely?

What is the test? Or is someone telling me, we don't test this?

If people need to be explained by incest is a sexual primal urge a society must as a whole learn to repress for that society to then be able to evolve civilly, then I would say its a bit late in the game to convince them as adults.

If someone think its morally hip to write off phacking one's cousin as just one of those things in life,  you clearly would not be interested in science or psychology-you've already decided for social, cultural and/or religious reasons its acceptable. I myself would not waste any time with you. Its the object of your sexual desires I would spend time with if I thought they wanted help.

I am no moral crusader or preacher. I just help people avoid hurting themselves if and only if they ask for help. Morality is a premature consideration in a clinic when you have 5 minutes to talk down a suicide or try get someone from cutting themselves in a frenzy.

In my world you don't have time to debate things. You live in the moment and in that moment you do what has to be done to put a flame out. You have no time to debate the origins or nuances of the reasons to light the match that caused the flame. 

Edited by Rue
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The problem with your argument, Rue, is its entirely based on reproduction. What if they have sex and take precautions and have no intention of ever having kids? Plus, we do nothing to disqualify drug addicts or alcoholics from having kids, never mind sex, regardless of the probability of birth defects or issues with their offspring. There are also people with severe genetic diseases who have as high as a 50% chance of passing that on to offspring. We don't in any way bar them from having kids either.

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Actually I argued Its not just reproduction that is an issue its also the crossing lines of trust where no sex relationship should exist whether its an adopted or blood relative. 

Actually we do have genetic counselling now to prevent things such as Tay Sachs, Hemophilia, sickle cell anemia and down's syndrome or smoking or dinking while pregnant.

Type into google or yahoo, why incest causes psychological damage and read the articles. There are no shortage of them. No this is not just a genetics issue.

That said no one will arrest you in Canada for being a horrible and incompetent parent either. Doesn't mean such people should have kids. From a practical perspective there is a limit to what the law can prohibit then it is up to us as individuals.

I do not see how one turns of their parental or sibling role and switch to equal lover role. I don't believe that is possible. I  believe incest is about power imbalance because of the parental or sibling role that then uses that power to bring the other side into a sexual relation by violence, coercion or manipulation.

I don't believe there's free consent.

There are  stories of step children marrying or siblings who had no idea they were related marrying. There are variables yes but its about power,and distortion of emotion caused by confusing types of intimacy.

Every society that has allowed incest has deteriorated and imploded.

Now interestingly in the South Pacific Islands and Hawaii royalty married each other. First cousin royalty marriages are well known. So are the deformities and mental illness from such relationships.

Now you really think incest sex is not going to lead to reproduction? Really? You think people willing to phack their sister care about safe sex or the consequences of what they are doing?

 

Edited by Rue
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