Dr. J and Mr. H composed a survey to see what people considered “mainstream” sexual behaviors/activities (meaning things they participate in on a regular basis) and what they considered “kinky” (meaning “too kinky for me, but if other people are into it, that’s their prerogative”) and “taboo” (this should be illegal). I was filling it out (and noticing that I consider almost everything “mainstream.” Shocking, I know) and stopped suddenly when I got to “incest.” My first instinct was to click “taboo.” I mean, it’s ingrained in us from an early age that there is an incest taboo. Incest is wrong and gross and icky and illegal. Obviously, there’s a reason for this taboo. Breeding among close blood relatives increases the chances of abnormalities and defects among offspring. However, should incest really be illegal and completely taboo?
I agree that it’s wrong when it occurs from adult to underage child. That is not just incest, that’s pedophilia. And that is wrong no matter what, because a child cannot consent to the things that are going on or happening to them. But relations among two adult relatives? Two consenting adult relatives? Two adult siblings? A mother and her adult son? Uncle and his adult niece? Two first cousins over the age of 18? If these people want to be intimate with each other and/or develop relationships, who are we to tell them they can’t? They’re adults that are entering into their decisions with the ability to consent to the acts that they are participating in.
Whether or not it’s something that you would ever do yourself is irrelevant. You don’t have to want to do something yourself in order for it to be okay for other people to do it. Anal sex is an activity that many people do not participate in, but the majority of people seem to think it’s okay if others want to do it. Many heterosexual people are totally accepting of homosexuals, even though they themselves would never want to fuck someone of the same sex. You may have no desire to fuck your mother, brother, uncle, or cousin, but who are you to tell someone else that they can’t?
I remember reading somewhere about the Westermarck Effect, which occurs when children between about the ages of 1 and 6 are raised together. They become sexually aversive to each other. So the “ick” factor that is ingrained in us towards our siblings/family members has more to do with being raised together rather than some genetic component to the aversion (though there is a slight genetic component to it related to pheromones, but it’s not nearly as strong as the Westermarck Effect). Which explains why siblings/relatives separated at birth can fall in love or be sexually attracted to each other. If we are separated from biological family members during that pivotal time, that taboo is never ingrained in us. It it apparently quite common for sexual attraction to develop between biological relatives that meet later in life.
To me, the big issue with whether sexual activities should be illegal comes down to consent. Pedophilia should be illegal because children cannot consent. Bestiality should be illegal because we cannot be sure that an animal is a consenting partner. Rape should be illegal because the victim has not consented to the sexual activity. Incest between two adult relatives? They can consent to the activities that they engage in and therefore it’s not up to me, or anyone else for that matter, to tell them that they can’t do it.
I'm Britni, a snarky bitch and generally awesome person. I write about sex, love, and bullshit. If sex-positivity, discussions about BDSM and kink, queer issues, and topics that are completely inappropriate by society's standards make you uncomfortable, then this blog is not for you.
Good Vibes 
7 Comments
Well, I have a great many thoughts on this topic.
My mother as a zoologist studied incest in monkeys and found out that "nature" had organized quite a lot of barriers to prevent marmoset monkeys from ever committing incest-smell, taste, a way of stamping an entire family with a scent that makes them immediately identifiable-but that if you separated a family member from the group for a year, these markers would disappear and the tabou would be removed.
Interestingly, the only primates who commit incest knowingly are chimpanzees (who also commit rape as a social punishment and beat up members of their group, and thus are considered to be closest to us).
If you look at royal families in the past, when intermarriages were the norm, you can see why inbreeding and incest are a bad choice. On a non-biological level, I make a clear difference between cousins, siblings and parent-child interactions. Parent-child interactions are just wrong in my eyes, because a child's relationship to its parents'sexuality is extremely complex and even if this child is adult, some lines have to remain uncrossed, for social and psychological reasons. I'll stop rambling now!
There are various rational justifications for incest laws.
Option A: Incest is not a truly victimless crime because the children that result are typically genetically mutilated. You're harming your children and putting an extra burden on the state if the government is forced to care for your offspring.
The trouble with any genetic justification for incest laws is consistency. If we prosecute an uncle-niece pairing because of the genetic risk, shouldn't we prosecute women who smoke and binge drink during their prengancy? Shouldn't we make it illegal for people with certain genetic disorders, such as Huntington's Disease, to have children at all? If one party is sterile, shouldn't it then be legal? If genetic risk is the only justification, then shouldn't it just be vag that's illegal? These aren't rhetorical questions.
Option B: The possibility of a healthy relationship is miniscule versus the damage legalization would do to efforts to prosecute incestuous sexual abuse/assault. You work with women abusive relationships, I'm sure you can imagine how hard it would be for an 18 year old senior in high school to bring rape charges against her father. What do you do when he says "I didn't put any pressure on her, she just wanted to suck my dick"?
I'm glad I don't fancy my brother he he. Uggh.
I remember seeing these documentaries about bestiality – some people actually fall in love with animals. There was this guy who loved his horse and wanted to -or already had- married it. The horse seemed happy enough. I gave it some thought, and in the end figured out that I thought bestiality was ok as long as there was a mutual consent. But obviously, how can we tell, and is it really mutual if the person owns the animal and the animal just obeys to whatever it is asked to do because that is what it has been taught.. whaaahh.. I also remember reading in girl's magazines about girls who wondered if it was ok for them to put food-stuff on their cunt and have their dog lick it off. The answer was always a big "NO". I personally don't see any harm in doing it- not that I see the attraction in doing it either
The BBC did a show about incest featuring different couples that was super interesting. I do think first family relations should be child-free, but beyond that I don’t really care. We don’t monitor other genetic abnormalities and stop people from having relations because of them so I’m not sure that’s a valid reason in and of itself to demonize incest. I can’t be the only one who thinks the first-cousin disgust vs. the second-cousin acceptance is a bit hypocritical.
Oh and Chris, I’m pretty sure men who rape women everywhere claim it was consensual. That’s pretty much the first line out of the rapist handbook.
On another note, age play makes me uncomfortable because there’s a creepy pedophilia feeling I get from it. But that’s just me.
very thought-provoking.
Sa, its interesting to know that nature seems to support the phenomenon.
Chris, I don't see your point regarding the rape case. All rape cases come down to he said/she said regardless of who is involved. And whether its consensual or not, there is always going to be one party cliaming it was a consensual act.
Alana, I see your point regarding age play, but for me, its involving (again) two consenting adults and therefore is in no way pedophilia. And it doesn't mean the "adult" in the exchange actually *wants* to fuck a child. Its more the taboo and wrongness of the interaction that's hot than the thought of fucking a kid.
Great thought provoking post about how we decide what is and is not taboo. Everyone has their personal kink, but that doesn't mean everything outside of it is taboo per say.
Reminds me a bit of the anthropology class discussion I had in college where a group of students could not get over their own personal objects to a behavior in this other culture. To them it was wrong, and someone needed to, in essence, fix it. We spent a lot of time discussing why it's wrong – like you did – who does it hurt, when would that create a dangerous situation, is it simply not a personal preference, etc. It was a good demonstration of how people cannot always separate right and wrong from their personal preferences.