Incest has become mainstream.

[MindsMirror]

We know cousins that are happily married. We've gotten numerous e-mails from readers that claim to be in various relationships. Since the number of e-mails is around 0.001% of the views on stories, that makes the statistics too low to be meaningful, just like the all of the anecdotal examples given throughout this thread.

As 8letters mentioned, it is difficult to get people to discuss something they are doing, if they are subject to imprisonment. There are states (NJ and RI) and countries in the EU where adult consensual incest is not prosecuted.

The availability of genetic testing is actually widespread throughout India, China, Europe, Japan, US, Canada, UK and Australia (most of the world's population). Holding up bad outcomes for the low percentage of people that might want offspring and wouldn't do testing is a red haring, because similar arguments are not valid for much riskier couplings.

Ensuring all adults have rights actually increases the strength of everyone's rights. Consenting adults should be free from governmental interference.

 

[CyranoJ]

We know cousins that are happily married.

[etc.]

Yeah. Let's try a little exercise here.

I want you to try to imagine your reaction if a non-con writer came in here and claimed to have anecdotal e-mails from people who -- not as fantasy, mind you, but as actual practice -- had confessed to said writer that they were into being forced and really wanted it deep down.

I want you to try to imagine that writer coming in here, having taken those claims more or less at face value -- or at least very clearly wanting to do so -- and trying to intimate, however casually, that all the research that's been done with rape survivors is really just unfairly excluding these people because they'd feel ashamed about coming forward.

Now, if that sounds creepy, and it should: that's exactly how creepy you sound.

Attempts to pretend that "adult consensual incest" is all about completely uncomplicated "consent" and you're just about "equality" are disingenuous to the point of grotesquerie. It will still be so no matter how many times and no matter how lugubriously you repeat the tactic.

Just. Stop.

 

[MindsMirror]

And yet we persist.

 

[8letters]

Yeah. Let's try a little exercise here.

I want you to try to imagine your reaction if a non-con writer came in here and claimed to have anecdotal e-mails from people who -- not as fantasy, mind you, but as actual practice -- had confessed to said writer that they were into being forced and really wanted it deep down.

I want you to try to imagine that writer coming in here, having taken those claims more or less at face value -- or at least very clearly wanting to do so -- and trying to intimate, however casually, that all the research that's been done with rape survivors is really just unfairly excluding these people because they'd feel ashamed about coming forward.

Now, if that sounds creepy, and it should: that's exactly how creepy you sound.

Attempts to pretend that "adult consensual incest" is all about completely uncomplicated "consent" and you're just about "equality" are disingenuous to the point of grotesquerie. It will still be so no matter how many times and no matter how lugubriously you repeat the tactic.

Just. Stop.

That's not at all similar. MM is saying that they personally know cousins that are happily married. There have been studies at the rate of consanguineous marriages in various parts of the world. In the US, an estimated 0.2 percent of marriages are between individuals who are second cousins or closer — that means there are about 250,000 people in America in those relationships (link). In Canada per a 1959 survey, the number was 1.5% (link). A 1950/51 survey in London found 0.4% of marriages were between first cousins (link).

Relationships that involve non-consensual sex are bad, whether they are between unrelated people or family members. No one here is arguing differently. You are equating incest relationships with non-consensual sex. That's wrong. Football players are infamous for having non-consensual sex. There's a lawsuit that out there that alleges that Baylor football players committed 52 rapes in four years (link). Five of them were gang rapes and two of those five involved at least 10 players. Does that mean that all relationships between football players and their fellow students are non-consensual? Should we outlaw football players having sex?

Cousins court and marry all over the world just like unrelated couples. MM is saying that adult siblings should be able to do what cousins do.

 

[Hypoxia]

Two cousins having sex can destroy a family but cousins happily marry all the time.

Two anybodies fucking can destroy a family. Cousin marriage has been and is common in some societies, including Anglo-American over the past couple of centuries. Cousin and avuncular (uncle-niece or more rarely aunt-nephew) marriage is required in some societies. Sibling incest has been required in some subcultures, usually amongst elites to maintain control of power and wealth within a clan. Outsiders are always risky.

Again, what's considered incest varies widely. Humans are funny like that.

 

[CyranoJ]

That's not at all similar.

Only if you're thoroughly in denial that the power dynamics involved in close familial relationship incest (parental or sibling) problematize consent (just for starters).

MM is saying that they personally know cousins that are happily married.

No. That is not all they are saying. They are saying "We've gotten numerous e-mails from readers that claim to be in various relationships"* and trying to imply that this anecdotal evidence represents suppressed proof of healthy, fantasy-friendly incest that is somehow not reflected in actual incest survivors' accounts and research because of stigma.

This is a fairly typical (and greasy) manoeuvre of pro-incest campaigners on this board. It is deceptive. And they are trying to pretend that "consensual adult incest" is an unproblematic question of "equality" and that is deceptive.

(* And I mean come on, in what they're trying to suggest with "various relationships" here we all know perfectly well they're not limiting themselves to cousin marriage or second cousin marriage or long-lost adoptive siblings who happen to discover a yen for incest as two wealthy, well-adjusted octogenarians. Hopefully we can avoid at least some of the cliches of incest-campaigner weaselling and disingenuousness on this outing.)

 

[MindsMirror]

No. That is not all they are saying. They are saying "We've gotten numerous e-mails from readers that claim to be in various relationships"* and trying to imply that this anecdotal evidence represents suppressed proof of healthy, fantasy-friendly incest that is somehow not reflected in actual incest survivors' accounts and research because of stigma.

NO, that's not what we said at all...

We know cousins that are happily married. We've gotten numerous e-mails from readers that claim to be in various relationships. Since the number of e-mails is around 0.001% of the views on stories, that makes the statistics too low to be meaningful, just like the all of the anecdotal examples given throughout this thread.

You can keep repeating incest is rape all you like, it doesn't make it true. We don't write about rape or non-consent, period.

 

[LewBrishess]

Only if you're thoroughly in denial that the power dynamics involved in close familial relationship incest (parental or sibling) problematize consent (just for starters).

Power dynamics can certainly be involved where parent-offspring relationships are concerned, but that isn't a guarantee—or even an indication—that they must be involved. And there need not be any power dynamics between siblings of approximately equal ages.

I can think of only one thing that's invariably true of human beings, and that's that people who argue that other things are "invariably" true of human beings are themselves people who've made up their minds and will go to any lengths to rationalize their beliefs—frequently by introducing alternative facts like the one cited above.

 

[CyranoJ]

NO, that's not what we said at all...

No, you didn't come out and say it. You just subtly intimated it, as I said quite plainly in my initial response. That you gave yourself a little plausible "well, who can really know anything" deniability doesn't change what you're doing.

You can keep repeating incest is rape all you like

I will state facts as many times as I like, thank you for your kind permission. And it is a fact that your continued attempts to ignore or downplay the problems inherent in incest and consent are pushing a fallacy. People who actually work with incest and rape survivors aren't pulling that impression out of their arses, it's actually based on research that is more than merely anecdotal, unlike our inboxes.

Now, if you really don't know that and my use of the word "deceptive" is unwarranted, I'll retract that and suggest that perhaps some curiosity is warranted instead. Aside from the value of the article itself, there is also a fair amount of further information that can be accessed from that link in my post from 10:41 of yesterday, again just for starters.

 

[CyranoJ]

Power dynamics can certainly be involved where parent-offspring relationships are concerned, but that isn't a guarantee—or even an indication—that they must be involved.

It is actually pretty close to a guarantee that they are involved. Power dynamics are more or less built in to parent-offspring dynamics. But basically any close-family incest involves the weaponization of powerful psychological dynamics -- sibling or parental -- for sexual gratification. That's part of what makes the fantasy exciting, it's part of what makes it Taboo.

 

[MindsMirror]

Our opinion is that adults should be allowed to do what they want together and that includes marrying.

 

[CyranoJ]

Our opinion is that adults should be allowed to do what they want together and that includes marrying.

... aaand you're back to the disingenuous one-size-fits-all boilerplate again. And it's still bullshit, and I'm really not inclined to let you off the hook for doing that. You are not campaigning for morally neutral, unproblematic marriage equality and consent if you are an advocate for real-life incest. You don't get to pretend that you are.

 

[MindsMirror]

... aaand you're back to the disingenuous one-size-fits-all boilerplate again. And it's still bullshit, and I'm really not inclined to let you off the hook for doing that. You are not campaigning for morally neutral, unproblematic marriage equality and consent if you are an advocate for real-life incest. You don't get to pretend that you are.

Now who's peddling the same tired anti marriage equality arguments of the past. Equal is equal and doesn't lessen anyone else's rights.

 

[CyranoJ]

Now who's peddling the same tired marriage equality arguments of the past.

Yeah, it doesn't work to hitch the incest wagon to same-sex marriage no matter what Keith Pullman tells you, because nobody who actually understands consent is fooled*. Incest inherently raises issues with consent that same-sex marriage does not; dancing around that and trying to persuade people that opposing real-life sexual abuse is the equivalent of homophobia is transparently untenable and I'm not inclined to let you off the hook for this bit of bullshit either.

(Honestly I'm tempted to just follow Hands' example, but I have to admit to a morbid fascination at how deep you're going to dig into the cliches at this point. You really would be better off doing this shit on the GB or Fetish, though.)

(* Incidentally, you really ought to read that link I provided you earlier. It would have saved you some time on this little gambit and maybe taught you a little about why Pullman-esque arguments set off alarm bells just generally.)

 

[Handley_Page]

Our opinion is that adults should be allowed to do what they want together and that includes marrying.

That might work if both parties were 'sterile'.
Otherwise any offspring would be in danger.

 

[8letters]

Only if you're thoroughly in denial that the power dynamics involved in close familial relationship incest (parental or sibling) problematize consent (just for starters).
:
(* And I mean come on, in what they're trying to suggest with "various relationships" here we all know perfectly well they're not limiting themselves to cousin marriage or second cousin marriage or long-lost adoptive siblings who happen to discover a yen for incest as two wealthy, well-adjusted octogenarians. Hopefully we can avoid at least some of the cliches of incest-campaigner weaselling and disingenuousness on this outing.)

Are you railing about just parental or sibling incest? Because there are lots of other incest relationships beyond those.

Are you okay with any of the following relationships, assuming both are financially-independent adults:
* Second cousins?
* First cousins?
* Step siblings if they take place outside the household?
* Half siblings if they take place outside the household?
* Aunts and nephews?
* Uncles and nieces?

I will state facts as many times as I like, thank you for your kind permission. And it is a fact that your continued attempts to ignore or downplay the problems inherent in incest and consent are pushing a fallacy. People who actually work with incest and rape survivors aren't pulling that impression out of their arses, it's actually based on research that is more than merely anecdotal, unlike our inboxes.

I'm looking for some facts from you, period. I gave you some facts backed up by links. You ignored that.

It is actually pretty close to a guarantee that they are involved. Power dynamics are more or less built in to parent-offspring dynamics. But basically any close-family incest involves the weaponization of powerful psychological dynamics -- sibling or parental -- for sexual gratification. That's part of what makes the fantasy exciting, it's part of what makes it Taboo.

Weaponization of powerful psychological dynamics is not what make incest stories exciting to me. What makes them exciting to them is the taboo aspect of them - the MC is sexually interested in his/her family member but knows it's wrong to be sexually interested in that person.

Yeah, it doesn't work to hitch the incest wagon to same-sex marriage no matter what Keith Pullman tells you, because nobody who actually understands consent is fooled*. Incest inherently raises issues with consent that same-sex marriage does not;

Again, depends on how you define incest. I define incest as sexual relationships between two family members. Marriage between first cousins is incest. Marriage between first cousins does not inherently raise consent issues.

However, there are lots of other relationships that inherently raise issues with consent. Where do you stand on:
* Teacher-student relationships?
* Boss-subordinate relationships?
* Coach-player relationships?
* Relationships were there's a vast disparity in wealth and income potential?

Incidentally, you really ought to read that link I provided you earlier. It would have saved you some time on this little gambit and maybe taught you a little about why Pullman-esque arguments set off alarm bells just generally.)

I read it. It was uninformative. It was mainly making fun of Pullman. It didn't try to wrestle with the issue of incestuous consensual relationships in any significant way.

Sexual abuse is bad. Most sexual abuse happens before the age of 18. Most of that sexual abuse occurs at home. Nobody here is defending sexual abuse. But a large number of incest relationships are not sexually abusive.

 

[MindsMirror]

That might work if both parties were 'sterile'.
Otherwise any offspring would be in danger.

No such requirements exist for more certain bad outcomes:
* autism
* congenitally blind / deaf
* sickle cell anemia
...

 

[CarlusMagnus]

No such requirements exist for more certain bad outcomes:
* autism
* congenitally blind / deaf
* sickle cell anemia
...

Don't forget other, possibly even more probable and more devastating, genetically carried afflictions like

* Diabetes
* Cystic Fibrosis
* Hæmophilia

and quite a few others.

 

[CyranoJ]

Are you railing about just parental or sibling incest? Because there are lots of other incest relationships beyond those.

If you've followed the thread, I'm actually "railing about" inability and unwillingness to distinguish fantasy from reality. I give zero fucks what you fantasize about and I'm not attacking anyone for having a kink, so if you think that's what I'm doing you can stand down. I just don't have patience for people pontificating about how incest should be legal because it's just like gay marriage.

Having said that, in reply to your question: you will notice that in the post you're replying to, I in fact said:

(* And I mean come on, in what they're trying to suggest with "various relationships" here we all know perfectly well they're not limiting themselves to cousin marriage or second cousin marriage or long-lost adoptive siblings who happen to discover a yen for incest as two wealthy, well-adjusted octogenarians. Hopefully we can avoid at least some of the cliches of incest-campaigner weaselling and disingenuousness on this outing.)

Which I assumed that made it fairly clear that I didn't find your links relevant to the point, which I made equally clear was about close-family incest (parents or gandparents, aunts or uncles, siblings or nephews or nieces, if further clarification's needed). Which should further make clear that I'm assuming we're all aware that the I/T category is not teeming with financially-independent middle-aged long-lost second-cousin stories, and that we all know why that is, and therefore I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on whether I think something is incest because it might fit into the Australian aboriginal idea of moiety or something. It's really the kind of thing which in this context I'm usually inclined to treat as a form of sea-lioning.

assuming both are financially-independent adults

Wow, now they both have to be financially-independent, too?

As close-family incest goes I do think the basic problem of consent has to do with exploiting the psychological power of family roles and the expected levels of trust and safety that go along with them, so age or whether it occurs inside or outside the household or after a long separation or in the context of supposed financial independence doesn't actually change that.

Weaponization of powerful psychological dynamics is not what make incest stories exciting to me. What makes them exciting to them is the taboo aspect of them - the MC is sexually interested in his/her family member but knows it's wrong to be sexually interested in that person.

I don't particularly need you to agree with me, but this reply is just a blank refusal to unpack. What is the taboo aspect of them? Why is it wrong? It's not just because society-says-so, or if it is it's often going to be about rejecting society's reason for saying-so. My point about psychological dynamics is an explanation, which I think holds up fairly well, of one of the most fundamental reasons why.

However, there are lots of other relationships that inherently raise issues with consent.

Yes! Indeed! Very astute of you. And yes, professor-student and boss-subordinate and coach-player and sugar-daddy relationships also tend in real life to code as anywhere from icky to outright sexual abuse depending on the particulars, for many of the same reasons.

Incest, owing to the family-role dynamics, is like the multi-megatonne nuclear warhead version of that, which is why I don't see advocates of real-life incest as all that different from advocates of real-life rape. To wit:

I read it. It was uninformative. It was mainly making fun of Pullman.

Really. That's what you got from it. "Making fun" of Pullman.

I'll come back to that.

I find your dismissiveness odd since I saw that article go into a considerable amount of fairly nuanced detail about why, say, assuming "genetic sexual attraction" is a thing is problematic, and the relevance of terms like "grooming," and provided sources with actual psychoanalytic expertise and so on. All of which seem to me to be pretty relevant to "the issue of incestuous consensual relationships" (granted she doesn't address third cousins once removed who met on an airship and can photosynthesize, but then it's not a doctoral thesis ). So maybe sometime I'll ask you for more detail about this flat statement that "it was uninformative."

But "making fun of Pullman." This is the first quote of Pullman's that she cites in the article:

“Okay, if a jury in a court of law said it was consensual and convicted him of incest rather than assault/rape, why does the news article call it rape? Is this a bias against Genetic Sexual Attraction? As it turns out, if I’m reading it right, it looks like they believe it was an ongoing, consensual relationship that involved one incident of rape.”

And this is the second:

“There are 16-year-old boys who dream of this sort of thing, but that shouldn’t matter. … I don’t generally argue for changes to age of consent laws because the line has to be drawn somewhere. However, I don’t think they should always be applied. Just as I do with cheating and GSA, I give special consideration here. … Ten years down the line, they could be a happy a couple, for all we know now.”

Now, it doesn't look to me like she's "making fun" of anything. It looks like she's providing examples -- and quite telling ones -- of the ways in which Pullman's supposed commitment to "adult" "consensuality" can sometimes look suspiciously like lip-service. That's not "making fun" of him, it's analyizing and challenging his claims to credibility as a "marriage equality" advocate: a form of activism which in the wider world is not in fact accustomed to brushing off just "one incident of rape," treating underage sex lightly or downplaying other issues of consent, grooming and power dynamics that can surround sexual relationships generally and incestuous ones in particular.

There's good reason for her scepticism, in other words. Advocates of real-life "adult consensual incest" often stridently require their interlocutors to rule out the possibility that they could be in any way talking about childhood sexual abuse, but Pullman -- the most famous or infamous of these -- has trouble keeping his own story straight on that front, let alone accounting for why the vast bulk of real-life incest as recorded in survivors' testimony does in fact start with childhood abuse. This sort of thing, and the habit of working mightily to distract from it, is one of those odd habits of IRL incest campaigners that Aldo Raines would call "suspicious."

 

[MindsMirror]

More evidence that incest has gone mainstream. Taboo Season 1 on Amazon.

 

[Hypoxia]

Murder is mainstream. Rape is mainstream. Treason is mainstream. Demonic possession, projectile vomiting, stupidity, and bad clothes and accents are mainstream. Doesn't mean society approves -- except for stupidity, accents, and fashion choices.

Let's roll some of these together. A murderous incestuous traitorous rapist with halitosis and inner demons rampages across the countryside shouting vile slogans and shooting stray dogs. Her brother tries to calm her down with oral sex. How does she respond?

 

[CarlusMagnus]

…Pullman…has trouble…accounting for why the vast bulk of real-life incest as recorded in survivors' testimony does in fact start with childhood abuse.

"Vast bulk"? Aren't you trying to support the thesis that incest is invariably harmful?

But, never mind. To answer your question, perhaps it's because the "vast bulk" of those who gave testimony considered themselves "survivors". That's a structural source of bias that renders your conclusions invalid. A conclusion this evidence supports is this: Incest is harmful to the vast bulk of those whom it harms. (Not a particularly strong conclusion, though. And not news to many people.)

The same criticism probably also applies to "research" into incestuous relationships. Where did the sample come from? How was it chosen to prevent similar bias? (We can't tell; noone has cited any, though there've been claims to the effect that it exists.)

Nor does the argument based on the damage those who've treated incest "survivors" see in their patients hold any water—for the same reason. Drawing conclusions about a general population from patients—patients, moreover, of one particular kind—is an exercise in futility. And, as LouBrishess put it, rationalization.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

More evidence that incest has gone mainstream. Taboo Season 1 on Amazon.

Incest is mainstream.

There are never laws that prohibit activities that people—including mainstream people—don't indulge in.

 

[CyranoJ]

"Vast bulk"? Aren't you trying to support the thesis that incest is invariably harmful? . . . perhaps it's because the "vast bulk" of those who gave testimony considered themselves "survivors". That's a structural source of bias that renders your conclusions invalid.

Yeah, it turns out people who've been subjected to assault or abuse of any kind generally consider themselves "survivors." Attempting to dismiss that as a "structural source of bias" is of course really nothing more than a low and grimy exercise in victim blaming, of exactly the same sort that gets used against rape victims to dismiss conclusions about the harmfulness (or even existence, sometimes) of rape.

Nor does the argument based on the damage those who've treated incest "survivors" see in their patients hold any water

... because they must totally be missing out on all that sweet, healthy incest that is by purest coincidence virtually never in evidence in documented cases of actual incest (for some reason that we're supposed to irrationally conclude is a conspiracy of silence)! Yeah, seen that two-step before too, thanks for playing.

Looks like we are going to hit all the cliches in this thread, huh? I'm halfway tempted to make a bingo card for this shit.

(Oh, and statistical data on incest is not that hard to come by. Of course you won't like it on account of it starts from the assumptions the evidence actually supports wherein it's mostly child abuse, but hey. Lead a horse to water.)

 

[CarlusMagnus]

…people who've been subjected to assault or abuse of any kind generally consider themselves "survivors."…

Now let's see… They're "survivors" because they're victims of a crime. But the deed in question is criminal because people who engage in it are "survivors".

You have a little problem with circularity there.

And, naturally, we get the specter of "blaming the victim". Which is standard from people who're rationalizing beliefs that they can't justify any other way.

…they must totally be missing out on all that sweet, healthy incest…

That's a good, logical argument, too.

It's about on a par with your others, though. And just as empty.