Incest vs homosexuality
One argument that gets made against homosexuality is that there isn’t any meaningful difference between homosexuality and incest such that we are justified in condemning one activity while tolerating the other. That same argument also gets made by people that want incest to be legalized and de-stigmatized. I would like to challenge someone to argue against this assertion. The first difference that people are likely to point out is that incest causes inbreeding and inbreeding causes genetic disorders. I think this argument against incest is analogous to arguing against homosexuality by pointing out that most people in developed countries that have AIDS are homosexual men. For one, homosexuality seems to be a far greater contributor of AIDS transmission than incest is a contributor to genetic disorder rates. In addition, it seems that giving someone AIDS is normally considered to be worse than creating a child with a genetic disorder. So, it’s hard to see how homosexuality fares much better than incest here.
Another difference that people might consider is that incest is more likely to occur between adults and children whereas homosexuality typically occurs between consenting adults. I don't think that claim is correct though. There are lots of men who molest little boys and LGBT advocates normally think it’s outrageous to conflate normal homosexuality with that sort of thing. So, why is conflating 2 adult siblings having a sexual relationship with a father molesting his daughter any better or more reasonable? Another difference that might be considered is that homosexuality is much more common than incest and thus there greater downsides to condemning it. It may be argued that both homosexuality and incest are bad for society, but due to the large number of homosexuals, it is preferable for society to have a more positive opinion of it. I think this line of argument has a lot of unusual implications. For one, it would imply that we should condemn homosexuality if it was as rare as incest. It would also imply that if we ever develop super advanced gene editing technology that we should use this technology to eliminate homosexuality.
Overall, I don’t see why we should treat incest any different than we treat homosexuality. I’m sure a lot of you would disagree and I’m wondering if someone can provide some sort of defense for treating homosexuality differently from incest.
Another difference that people might consider is that incest is more likely to occur between adults and children whereas homosexuality typically occurs between consenting adults. I don't think that claim is correct though. There are lots of men who molest little boys and LGBT advocates normally think it’s outrageous to conflate normal homosexuality with that sort of thing. So, why is conflating 2 adult siblings having a sexual relationship with a father molesting his daughter any better or more reasonable? Another difference that might be considered is that homosexuality is much more common than incest and thus there greater downsides to condemning it. It may be argued that both homosexuality and incest are bad for society, but due to the large number of homosexuals, it is preferable for society to have a more positive opinion of it. I think this line of argument has a lot of unusual implications. For one, it would imply that we should condemn homosexuality if it was as rare as incest. It would also imply that if we ever develop super advanced gene editing technology that we should use this technology to eliminate homosexuality.
Overall, I don’t see why we should treat incest any different than we treat homosexuality. I’m sure a lot of you would disagree and I’m wondering if someone can provide some sort of defense for treating homosexuality differently from incest.
Comments (122)
If you should arrive home drunk and randy and you and sis start up a flirty little back and forth that ends up with you whaling away atop her, no judgment from me. It's gonna be weird looking across the table eating your Cheerios the next morning, but maybe it was worth it.
What people where?
They should be treated differently because fools will mistake an aversion to a thing as proof it is the same as another thing. And it isn't.
Yep, I would say incest laws are pretty redundant if someone is only concerned with underage cases. I don’t understand why we wouldn’t just charge someone that molests his daughter with child molestation(or maybe something like “aggravated child molestation” if you want the punishment to be more severe for incest cases).
"In all but two states (and the special case of Ohio, which "targets only parental figures"),[1] incest is criminalized between consenting adults. In New Jersey and Rhode Island, incest between consenting adults (16 or over for Rhode Island, 18 or over for New Jersey) is not a criminal offense, though marriage is not allowed in either state."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_incest_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In%20New%20Jersey%20and%20Rhode,not%20allowed%20in%20either%20state.&text=Cases%20of%20parent%2Dadult%20child,usually%20uncovered%20by%20another%20parent.
But look at the varying definitions by state and the varying degrees of punishment or criminality attached. It is not just about genetics (many states include stepchildren or adoptions in the category), it is about family relationships and betrayal of trust or duty.
Do you have the actual statistics?
What is the frequency of a miscarriage of a pregnancy conceived in an incestuous relationship, in comparison to a non-incestuous one?
If many pregnancies conceived in an incestuous relationship naturally end in miscarriage (due to greater probability of genetic defects), this can make incest look rarer than it actually is.
It seems to be mainly due to respecting the legal history of how an issue has been treated so far in a particular jurisdiction.
Quoting god must be atheist
Bear in mind that new laws tend to be passed as needed, prompted by actual cases and the political momentum for it at the time, not somehow in the abstract in advance. It can so happen that if there are no visible cases of an issue in a country, the country may have few or loose laws about it. This is how there exist legal loopholes. When people try to exploit them (or have successfully exploited them), then, ideally, the government will take steps to remedy the issue and pass new laws that will close the loophole.
Incest-Beauty Paradox
A man wants his daughter to be beautiful.
Beauty is what sexually arouses a man.
Ergo,
A man wants his daughter to be sexually attractive.
A man doesn't want to have sex with his daughter.
What could possibly go wrong?
I think that's an interesting point that also raises the question of "inbreeding" that is often cited as a reason for objecting to incest.
But suppose a person may decide to marry or enter into sexual relations with a close relative that is unlikely to result in children being born, for example, if both partners are of the same sex, beyond a certain age, or otherwise unable or indeed unwilling to conceive or procreate.
Should incest and/or marriage be allowed or disallowed in such cases?
Are you implying that Ivanka knows something that we don't? :smile:
Does homosexuality lead to offspring with genetic disorders, high infant mortality, children with broken immune systems, and weak hearts? If not, then the two are not comparable. Homosexuals do not have to worry about the suffering of their future offspring directly caused by their homosexuality, nor do they or society have to pay the medical fees for mitigating that specific suffering. Incest has been taboo since prehistory, likely not because of an anti-liberal agenda, but because it leads to unhealthy babies.
Quoting TheMadFool
Beauty relies on facial symmetry.
Incest causes high probability of facial assymetry.
The offspring of the man with his daughter is his daughter.
Ergo the man should not mate with his daughter.
If a high-profile couple demands it and succeeds, it could possibly become a legal precedent.
But once the unhealthy babies are not an issue, the actual question is, Why rely on legal tradition, why adhere to it?
Why are babies not an issue? I guess if you're sterile/barren, but otherwise the probability of pregnancy is always 0 < p < 1.
In reference to this:
Quoting Apollodorus
Suppose close blood relatives are concerned enough about producing defective offspring, so they make a point of not procreating. Why shouldn't they be allowed to marry?
Checking on the web, the incidence numbers for incidence of incest are all over the place. This is from the "Atlantic."
One in three-to-four girls, and one in five-to-seven boys are sexually abused before they turn 18, an overwhelming incidence of which happens within the family.
If that's true, does it change your questions?
How? If they're having sex, they're not making a point of not procreating. If they're not having sex, it isn't incest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States
See the link in my post above. This kind of rationale is used in the cousin marriage laws in some states.
How? If they are homosexual and having sex, they are making a point of not procreating. If they are heterosexual and having sex, and are taking steps to prevent a pregnancy and plan for an abortion should a pregnancy occur, then they are making a point of not procreating.
If they are homosexual close blood relatives having sex, is it incest?
Whatever the genetic or anthropological reasons for incest taboo, this is the one that matters to me.
If you mean using contraception, then no. There's no contraception that leads to no procreation, only less procreation.
Quoting baker
The example I gave was sterility, but this compounding of things we historically thought icky is much better. No harm, no foul if it's a case-by-case ethic.
The counter-argument would be that an ethic that allowed for same-sex or other non-reproductive incest would be discriminatory, in which case one still has to choose between personal liberty and not hitting the genetic self-destruct button. Personally I'm fine with non-reproductive incest, which is why I had a vasectomy*.
* Absolutely not true, DO NOT QUOTE THIS! :rofl:
A better question imo is: do we have the right to prohibit incest to avoid infant suffering and genome degradation? If so, do we have a right to take babies off smokers and ban gingers from reproducing?
Could you explain "matters"? And do you mean you support or oppose the taboo?
To boil it down to fit the context of this discussion, to me it represents the most important difference between the acceptability of incest as opposed to that of homosexuality.
*lol*
"Hormonal contraceptives are safe and effective." Don't you know you're suposed to chant that mantra?
By all means, it's the woman who should risk her health and life with hormonal contraceptives and abortions. Because you're so wonderful, so worth dying for.
Way to give "inbred" a whole new meaning!
Then we're at a much more fundamental question: Do we have the right to prohibit anything?
It may be a struggle to find the data, but I would assume there to be more genetic disorders from non-related couples actively trying for a baby, compared to an equal sample of related couples using protection against pregnancy. If true, unless one is an antinatalist, this would defeat the principle objection against incest?
But not 100% effective.
Quoting baker
Wow! You really proceed with maximal unjustifiable assumptions, don't you. And you just got through saying hormonal contraceptives are safe.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
But those are not directly caused by the peculiar sex act taking place. Genetic disorders resultant from incest are caused specifically by incest, not luck of the draw.
Short answer, no!
Long answer, oh fucking no!
:lol:
You speak from facts (I hope)! I speak from hopes! Apples and oranges! Good point though!
I don't know about prehistoric times. I also don't know how you get your information from 5000-plus years ago when there were no recordings of social customs.
All I know is that ancient Egyptians believed in the matrilineal inheritance of divinity of pharaohs. Therefore -- this is a recorded fact -- most pharaohs married (legally, while they may have had countless concubines) their sisters, aunts or mothers, in the hopes to produce a male offspring that was legally and by religion acceptable to be the next pharaoh.
Ancient Egypt lasted about 5000 years. That's not bad for an empire commanded by successive generations of children born to incestuous marriages.
Oh. So you're the one developing the negative side effects of hormonal contraceptives and having abortions? Good to hear.
The short answer would have sufficed. But I guess two answers are better than none. And so long as Ivanka doesn't know more than we do, everything is alright :wink:
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying, but do you mean those trying for a baby get special treatment as genetic disorders are a consequence but not a direct consequence? Would this be a deontological case?
From the bottom of my heart, I hope that your daughter-cum-granddaughter is not a total munter.
I hope and pray! The only problem is I'll have to arrange for a gun very soon! :lol:
There's nothing special about it, it's a general rule: that which you didn't cause is not your fault. If your child has a genetic deficiency due to a fluke mutation, no one is to blame. If they have it due to inbreeding, the inbreds are the cause.
Quoting god must be atheist
It's an inference from the fact that incest is the most widespread taboo in the world. The alternative reading would be a great, near-simultaneous but actually uncoordinated change of heart across the entire globe.
Women over 40 stand an increased chance of having children with birth defects. Does this mean that we should prevent women over 40 from having children? What about women with AIDS, or some genetic defect that could be passed down to the child?
None of this even matters anyway as having children isn't necessary component of having a relationship and getting married. Nothing says that married couples must have children. An incestuous couple could adopt, just like gay parents. And since the basic argument for gay marriage was that consensual adults that love each other should be able to marry, that argument would include incestuous couples.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I don't see how the incestuous couple using protection against pregnancy would be the cause of a child with a genetic disorder, but a non-incestuous couple actively trying to have a child are not the the cause of a child with a genetic disorder.
No, I would make a more rationalist(rather than empirical) sort of argument for why I think incest between 2 consenting adults is more rare than homosexuality between 2 consenting adults. The argument is that it seems really far fetched and extremely unlikely that 2 people from the same family have incestuous tendencies and they also both mutually agree that they are compatible with one another enough to have sex or a full blown relationship. By contrast, a homosexual can choose to be with all the vast numbers of other homosexuals in order to practice his homosexuality and to be considered homosexual. In addition, I would say that almost everyone that is open to having an incestuous relationship doesn’t feel that this is the only kind of relationship that would make them happy. They would probably mostly be cool about living in an anti-incest society. By contrast, homosexuals often need to practice homosexuality to be happy.
There another argument I could make here. Given that homosexuality has become legalized and more de-stigmatized and incest is still usually illegal and highly stigmatized, wouldn’t it makes sense to think that it’s because homosexuals are probably more common and thus more politically powerful?
I think most fathers don’t necessarily like to think of their daughters as sexual beings to begin with. Regardless, I think you can desire someone to be sexually attractive to certain people while also not being sexually attracted to that same person. For example, I hope that my brother remains sexually attractive to his wife but I’m not sexually attracted to him.
Being over 40 isn't an act. Incest is.
You're saying you cannot tell the difference between a deliberate act and happenstance?
Homosexuals have contributed to higher rate of AIDS in our society though. I have heard that roughly 80% of people in the US that have AIDS are homosexual men. That also causes a lot of suffering and a lot of medical bills for society to pay. I also have heard that incest only creates a modest increase of risk having genetic disorders, high infant mortality, children with broken immune systems, and weak hearts. So, I think from a purely consequentialist perspective, incest probably actually fares better than male homosexuality.
The incestuous person engaging in heterosexual sex (and who is aware of the dangers of incestuous procreation) is in this sense the same as the person who knows they have a hereditary disease that they are likely to pass on to their offspring.
I don’t see why it would, child molestation is really common and I don’t see why we need to look at incest as the problem. I think it’s like pointing out that lots of boys get molested by grown men and then making that part of homosexuality statistics. Though, I’m not sure if you were trying to use statistics to argue against incest since I’m not sure exactly what your comment is saying.
Yes, that seems to be true. My understanding is that incest only creates a modest increase of risk for an offspring to have genetic disorders. Actually, I think older couples that want to have kids are just as likely to have kids with genetic disorders. People who have genetic disorders and carry genetic disorders are like wayyy more likely to have a child with a genetic disorder. So, I do think it’s a pretty weak argument against incest myself.
Again, we'd need to consider the miscarriage rate and the abortion rate, as compared to those rates in the normal population. I imagine they are both higher in the incestuous population.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I don't see how the former is any more deliberate than the latter.
A socio-economic argument against incest is that if everything "stays within the family", the family will have less influence over other people in the community, thus weakening socio-economic cohesion, which in turn makes everyone more vulnerable.
Marriage for business and political purposes makes it harder for people to back down from their business and political commitments.
I don’t think those are overly high either. I think older couples that try to have children also have really high miscarriage rates but I don’t think you would use that as an argument against them having children. People that have genetic disorders or carry genetic disorders probably have much higher rates of genetic disorders, miscarriages, and abortions than incestuous couple do. In addition, incestuous couples often choose to use contraception and not have children so shouldn’t we also consider the indirectness of the relationship between incest and bad pregnancies?
Yes, I understand!
Let's get this discussion back on track shall we?
You want prove that there's no difference between homosexuality and incest and that if one is immoral, so is the other.
A coupla points
1. Not everybody thinks/believes that incest is bad. In fact there are cultures which promote relationships between relatives that border on incest. These are so because of certain nonbiological benefits - property is retained within the family, maintaing a bloodline as paractised by royalty, etc.
Thus, homosexuality, even if it amounts to incest, isn't bad.
2. Indeed as you said, homosexuality and incest seem to be the same thing but to come to this conclusion requires convoluted reasoning.
Homosexuality is in one sense taking a member of the same sex out of the gene pool - if you're a gay woman, you remove a woman and if you're a gay man, you retire a man from the eligible-for-marriage category of people.
Incest amounts to the same thing. If a person is having an incestuous relationship then this amounts to deleting their names from matrimonial websites. Consanguinous partners are unavaiable for a genetically healthy pairing with their opposite sexes.
What say you?
Then again, Game of Thrones made it hot.
I don’t think it’s common for any family to have any involvement or influence in the community in this modern age to begin with. I can’t remember the last time any member of my family had any serious involvement with the community. So, I don’t see how this would make much of a difference to the lives of most people. I think most people interact with the community to put food on their table more so than anything involving romantic relationships. I guess I should also point out that seems highly unlikely that incest would ever be so widespread in any society that it would have this sort of big macro effect.
And homosexuality wouldn’t? I wonder how many family relationships got ruined because someone came out as gay and their family didn’t like it.
My view is actually that both are not immoral. I don’t understand why we hate incest if we acknowledge that homosexuality is ok
I think that could be true, but merely for the fact that incest is prohibited. Fucking your sister will probably lead to gain others family members rejection, and thus destabilize the family. Even without others family members noticing it, just for the incestuous couple to know they are doing something which is prohibited would create in them some disturbance at least.
The key statement to decide is whether incest would cause family destabilization in the context of a society which does not condemn it.
That said, I think your argument is the main implicit argument behind the law besides the weaker genetic argument.
I think there is a collective fear to incest and that fear resides in the idea that incest leads to desarticulation or perversion of the family as an institution, which in turn is, for the eyes of the conservative mind the base of society.
So in that conservative collective imaginary, incest, in the case of spreading out, could destabilize a society.
Depends what you mean. If you mean that someone who knew they were HIV and therefore had a strong chance of harming another but had sex with them anyway, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a liberal who would disagree. If you mean that, since HIV was particularly rife among the gay community that they would, by my reasoning, be somehow retrospectively culpable, then you have not payed attention to my reasoning.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
I can't help you with that.
Quoting baker
It's about reasonable expectation. Having a child at all does not lead to a reasonable expectation that the child will have genetic defects. Having a child with your own sibling or parent or offspring does.
I think incest would only threaten some families too. It seems that incest will always be extremely rare so I don’t see how it could threaten the concept of family for a whole society. I actually think that incest could actually strengthen family bonds in some open minded and tolerant families. For example, imagine that a guy marries his first cousin. In the past, the 2 nuclear families would only see each other once every few years on the holidays. Assuming that all the family members are tolerant of the union, they would now have more frequent holidays and parties together as both nuclear families want to spend time with their corresponding children(who are both married to one another which just makes family gatherings really convenient). It’s also really convenient to have your in laws to also be your uncle and aunt as this allows you to minimize the amount of time needed to spend time with all your family members and it may give you more time for other stuff. So, it actually seems like a superior arrangement if everyone could just get over the yuck factor(which also used to widespread for gay relationships). It’s also worth noting that incest used to be more acceptable in the past and I don’t think it really caused too many problems for society despite the fact that they even lacked contraception.
No, I was wondering why you think the risk of bad pregnancies posed by incest is a major concern and a reason to condemn incest while also not thinking that the increased transmission of HIV by homosexual men doesn’t also give us reason to condemn male homosexuality. After all, incestuous couple can use contraception and minimize or even virtually eliminate the risk of them having children. So, why would those incestuous couples be worse than say homosexual men that are HIV negative having casual sex with a condom on? I don’t see why they are any worse people and that’s why I’m not against incest.
Except that it's not. There are bigger taboos: child molestation, rape, murder, overthrowing the government, picking your toes during dinner. The biggest taboo, of course, is not defending your mother's honour if you're a guy. She's sacrosanct. But there, still is Oedipus.
Incest is not the most widespread taboo in the world.
:chin: So, you're turning the tables on homophobes. Their argument is that homosexuality is bad because it's like incest and incest is bad. Your argument is incest isn't bad because it's like homosexuality and homosexuality is not bad!
There are two arguments:
A. The argument from incest against homosexuality. (homphobia)
1. If incest is bad then homosexuality is bad.
2. Incest is bad
Ergo,
3. Homosexuality is bad
B. The argument from homosexuality for incest. (your argument)
4. If homosexuality is not bad then incest is not bad
5. Homosexuality is not bad
Hence,
6. Incest is not bad
Note: Statements 1 and 4 are logically equivalent.
The pro-gay camp rejects premise 1 in argument A. That amounts to saying that premise 4 in argument B is dubious. The bottom line -> you can't make the argument B if argument A is not accepted on the grounds that premise 1 is false.
That seems, alarmingly, to be the second option, although despite being asked you refused to clarify. Not comparable on any level for reasons that are abundantly clear by reading what I wrote, not what you wished I wrote.
You know 'widespread' doesn't mean 'in my country' though, right? There are lots of countries where incest is more taboo than paedophilia, rape, revolution, etc. America had a revolution. France had a revolution. As far as I know they didn't start railing their siblings.
Lame come-back, as usual. Having sex after 40 is an act, like having sex with your cousin is an act. :roll:
Like I said, having children is irrelevant to this topic. Just as gay and heterosexual couples aren't expected or forced to have children, neither should incestuous couples. Like gay couples, incestuous couples could adopt or find a surrogate.
Except I can cite examples of what is seriously frowned upon and what is not. You just speak in generalities and claim facts without showing them or accounting for them, but which (if they were true) support your opinion. Well, they don't, until you actually show some evidence.
In America, you get the chair for killing someone. But you go scott free if you have a sexual relationship with your sibling, if you both consent and are of age of majority.
I would say this attitude (not the literal equality of severity of punishment) goes for most of the planet.
I wonder where and how you gather your statistics. At this point I am thinking you, Kenosha Kid, gather statistics from imagining what is the most convenient fantasy to support your theory and you insist that your facts are true, without showing any evidence.
No, the entire world does not feel that way. It is reflected in our laws and customs that the world does not feel that way.
Maybe you just need to see that.
Having sex is an act that is not under dispute. Having sex with your own close relative is a particular sex act that can lead to offspring with e.g. learning difficulties (your parents can attest). Having sex after 40 is just having sex. That is, if you're 43, you cannot choose to have sex as a 33 yr old instead, whereas you can choose to have sex with someone who isn't a close relative. Too difficult for you?
Quoting god must be atheist
Not really. Research will elaborate, just look up incest laws and rape laws by country. I haven't done a count, but given the number of countries that decriminalised incest in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the growing number of countries that have criminalised spousal rape in the 20th and 21st centuries, right now or in the near future, it might be that incest is actually more accepted than rape (go you). Of course, there's the prior millennia to take into account too.
So now that you agree with me, I'm wrong?
No no, now that you're right I disagree with you. I still haven't actually tallied them up, but even so the point was that incest has been more taboo since records began. It might be that right now or in the near future it isn't, but that doesn't change the past.
Interestingly, in the context of the OP, same-sex incest is legal in Germany. They're still worried about genetics it seems...
Incest might be rare in part because it is seen as a taboo. Do you know how popular incest porn is?
Probably incest is a taboo at least in part because it can really mess up family dynamics. Imagine a friend tells another friend they love them romantically or erotically, but the love is not reciprocated. Already an awkward situation that can sometimes end friendships right then. Now imagine this happening between siblings, who may live in the same house, who share the same parents, and cannot nearly as easily separate in their relationship. Very awkward.
I can't see you make an argument to show that recorded history now is less indicative in this set of ethical questions than the recorded history of say, 500 years ago. Because you need to prove, if it turns out that murder and rape and blasphemy was less of a taboo than incest in recorded history from 200 years ago and before, than in the more recent times, that the societal value system of that era is more indicative than the value system of our present era, of what the value system must have been in prehistoric times. I am curious how you will do that.
I don’t recall you asking me to clarify anything. What question did you ask earlier?
I think incest porn is only popular because it’s taboo. In fact, almost all porn seems to have taboo themes. For example, if you search the word “wife” on a porn site, you will find videos of wifes having sex with everyone but their hubbies.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I haven’t thought about that. I think that’s actually a pretty good argument against incest that doesn’t also apply to homosexuality.
Homosexuality appears to be independent of family dysfunction, and in most cases does not involve a closely related relative. There are numerous lifestyle options for a homosexual outside of the natal family, ranging from celibacy to rampant promiscuity; cross-dressing to conservative business attire; Marriage and adoption are now options. (A lot of early gay liberationists were quite glad to dispense with marriage and children The assimilationists smuggled it back in.)
Even though it seems like it sometimes, we don't live in an "Anything Goes" culture. While homosexuality may be just fine in many heterosexual circles, Man-Boy Love, and the North American Man-Boy Love Association are decidedly NOT just fine.
While a case might be made that incestuous relationships or man-boy sexual relationships are not inherently harmful, there is very strong opposition to both. My guess is that there is no natural taboo against either one, but there definitely is a cultural barrier, and it is enforced.
As billions of normal people have demonstrated, a perfectly normal heterosexual relationship between two consenting adults can be awful, never mind a sexual relationship imposed by a parent on a child, or imposed by an older male on a young male.
A big difference is that incest can span all sexual preferences while homosexuality cannot. This is because incest isn’t a mere proclivity. It operates at a different level, like bestiality or masochism, at best a kink, at worst an abomination or abuse.
Eh?
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Great. You know you can follow the posts back by clicking the name of the person in the quote?
I am not responsible for your immediately forgetting what you had said in a one previous post. I am not going to tell you what you have written and opined, just so that you understand what I am responding to and why my response makes sense if you consider first what YOU had said.
This is very frustrating for me. If I can't rely on you to remember what you have said and thus make sense of my response, whom can I rely on to make your memory jogged?
If you're gay are you choosing to not have sex with the opposite sex? Is it a choice that determines what you are sexually attracted to, or what your sexual orientation is?
And like I keep pointing out-all of this is irrelevant when married couples are not forced to have babies. Having babies and being married are mutually exclusive. So why can't incestuous couples marry and adopt?
Homosexual relationships were once taboo, and are still taboo in many countries, so pulling out the taboo card is disingenuous.
KK is a waste of time. Mr. Kid isnt intellectually honest and reading their posts insults one's intelligence.
Quoting Harry Hindu
:rofl:
Quoting god must be atheist
Not suggesting that, I'm trying to figure out these two histories you're talking about. Explain.
One wise person told me never to chalk up to malice what you can explain with ... well, with stupidity. I don't think Kenosha Kid is stupid... far from it, but his mind has become muddled. Maybe not, but his writing style and his getting lost in the explanation of his own point indicate that he maybe was very strong intellectually in the past, but he is no longer. I don't know him, I only go by what I see reading his posts. I may be off the mark totally, but I did notice that he can't express what he thinks, because most likely what he thinks leaves his mind before he can succeed in writing it down. Or else he remembers he used to think something, but that thing is gone now. As simple as that.
Sorry to see that, maybe he will get better. I wish him good luck with his health.
I don't mean to be mean. I sincerely think what I wrote here, without any intention to hurt or to offend.
Then there's nothing I can do with that since I don't understand wtf you're talking about anymore. If you can't explain it either, then we're in the same boat.
My latter point was simply that you may (soon) be right that incest is currently/will be less taboo than rape. Nonetheless up until recently that wasn't the case. There's nothing difficult to grasp about this.
Quoting god must be atheist
Ummm... Thanks, I guess. This is my fault for engaging, I guess.
Out of the 3, I think the only meaningful difference is that it occurs between close family members as this can create awkward situations that I think are more difficult to avoid than say having sexual tension with your coworkers(I think quitting your job is much easier than avoiding your family usually). I’m not sure why the age difference would matter(unless someone is underage or something) and I’m not sure why it would be bad for it to be between persons of opposite sex.
What’s the difference between a kink and a sexual orientation though? I’m pretty sure that, historically, homosexuality was viewed as a perversion just as incest or bestiality are viewed today.
That is a critical consideration. Underaged children are vulnerable to exploitation by adults because they a) aren't strong enough to defend themselves; b) have no context to understand sex with an adult; c) are too small to physically participate in penetrative sex safely. Children have sexuality and sexual urges which are far less developed than an adult's. Plus, sexuality apart, their brains are not fully developed yet either. Those are the standard reasons why adults and children should not have sex.
Are there imaginable situations where a child and adult might have a mutually satisfactory sexual experience? Probably. This might be the case for incest, homosexuality, or unrelated heterosexual adult/child interactions. However, the likelihood that these sorts of interactions will not end well is much higher than these interactions being fondly remembered by everyone concerned.
Human beings are very likely to put their own personal and private wants and needs before anyone / everyone else's needs. That's just the way we are, UNLESS we have internalized social controls, and even then... This isn't just a problem of sexual behavior; it's a problem with a lot of our behavior, across the board. People who irrationally and resolutely refuse to be vaccinated against Covid 19 are a good example.
The upshot of the report was that children reached sexual maturity with a very good understanding of what to expect from sex, how to engage in good sex, and what other potential sexual partners had to offer in terms of companionship, and so forth.
Sounds like a utopia. This society was abnormal -- maybe a happy one, but very unusual in its sexual norms. Some young children manage a fair amount of sexual experimentation even in our schizoid society. It was probably easier for gay boys to do this than for heterosexual youth. It wasn't utopian, of course. If an adult caught one in the middle of this activity, it could result in a hysterical episode (on the part of the adult). I'm 75. I have no idea what children are up to these days.
Proving my point, I see.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting Kenosha Kid
:rofl:
Last I checked, nepotism is still going strong.
Then this here is a clue to some underlying assumptions for why people marry: I think strategic alliances to improve one's socio-economic standing have been the main motivator for marriage throughout history, and still are nowadays, once people mature a bit.
It would have a considerable effect for those involved. Historically, this is one of the reasons why some for of incest was practiced by royal families. For those families, it was important to stay in power and to increase their power, and marriage was a strategic tool for this. As needed: sometimes, to keep the power all in the family, a marriage between close relatives; other times, marrying outside the family for political and economic gains.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
No, but those rates being higher would be something to consider when trying to estimate the frequency of incest. If no children are born from a relationship, then it can be harder to prove a relationship exists at all; assuming that incestuous couples are more likely to try to hide their relationship.
The question is whether it should be taken for granted that people know or believe this, or that they should.
A while back, in Germany, a brother and a sister who grew up separately in foster homes, found eachother after many years, got romantically involved, and produced, IIRC, two children at the time, and promised to have more. None of their children that far seemed genetically defective.
Even in an incestuous relationship, it's possible to have luck in the genetic lottery. So in the face of that, it can be hard to believe in the principle that incestuous couples are more likely to produce genetically defective offspring.
Do we??
It seems to me that very few people actually support homosexuals and think they are normal human beings. It seems to me that most people think homosexuals are bad, wrong, immoral, but they just don't say that in public because thy don't want trouble. Just because homosexuals might not be stoned to death in a particular community anymore doesn't mean that the community supports them.
If so, one only has to read the book of Genesis to realize that if humamity started off with one man (Adam) and one woman (Eve), incest was/is inevitable.
Suppose now that homosexuality is less/equally sinful than/as incest. If so, homosexuality should be permisssible.
The only way the Abrahamic triad can object to homosexuality is if it's worse than incest. Is it? I'd like to hear from you.
Incest-Homosexuality Study
Department of Ethics
Question 1. Suppose you're a straight person held at gunpoint. Your captor gives you two choices. Either sleep with someone who's the same sex as you (homosexuality) or sleep with your child (incest). (Ignore the possibility that your child is the same sex as you in which case you would be an incestuous homosexual). What would you choose?
a) Have sex with someone who's the same sex as you (homosexuality)
b) Have sex with your child (incest)
In short, which is the lesser evil, homosexuality or incest?
I pointed this out to a Catholic once, and she was deeply offended and called me immature and disrespectful. There appears to be an unwritten agreement that the biblical account is not to be taken literally.
Because one couple didn't? This is doing statistics wrong.
The idea that the biblica sacra is to be interpreted metaphorically was at the back of my mind but that point of view does more damage to the Abrahamic triad than my accusations of incest, no? Much of the evidence for God, miracles to be precise, wouldn't amount to much if it were all symbolism.
There's the issue of abuse of minors, that's obviously horrific. So we'd have to put that aside to. So incest would be ok IF precaution is taken to avoid making a baby and IF there is no child abuse going on.
I don't have any studies or anything, but I'd suspect that sexual desire of a family member would usually begin early in life. I remember reading The Incest Diary, by a daughter who was abused by her father. It was very strange to read.
Sex began early, but I don't recall her calling it rape (or abuse, I don't recall the terminology she used) until later on, which makes sense. Many victims don't know what rape or abuse is until they're older.
I'm just having a hard time understanding incest, must be biological.
You seem to think that incest is bad in the same sort of way that having lots of credit card debt is bad. But, I think most people think incest is bad in the same way they think that pedophilia is bad. They seem to think that it’s like full blown evil. I don’t disagree with you that incest might be prudentially unwise for a myriad of reasons and under a myriad of circumstances. I just don’t think it’s evil or anything like that. That’s kinda along the lines that I was comparing incest to homosexuality.
I’m pretty sure the Bible does have some bad things to say about incest though. I think it probably contradicts itself on this issue.
Quoting TheMadFool
I think we would need to know whether or not your child desires to have sex with you compared to how much the same sex stranger desires to have sex with you. Do you have to rape them or do they give reluctant consent or are they thrilled to have sex with you? If it’s rape or reluctant consent, then I think you are better off having sex with the same sex stranger because I think it’s better to harm a stranger than it is to harm your own child and if it’s enthusiastic consent then I don’t think it matters much either way. Though, I’m also assuming that you don’t want me taking into account factors like the risk of pregnancy and STDs or the age of the child or the same sex stranger for the purposes of this hypothetical.
You mean to say homosexuality = incest. That's why you "...I don't think it matters much either way..."
So, if a man who has sex with his son (homosexuality + incest) = the same man having sex with his daughter (incest).
In other words, homosexuality + incest = incest. Speaking for myself, that doesn't make sense.
Not really, I’m saying that homosexuality and incest are morally equivalent unless certain practical considerations such as the risk of pregnancy are mentioned. Saying that something is equivalent isn’t the same as saying something is identical. For example, 10 dimes are monetarily equivalent to a dollar bill but they are obviously not the same thing as a dollar bill. I don’t think it matters who you have sex with unless someone can mention some kind of a practical reason for why you maybe shouldn’t have sex with a particular person.
You said
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Can you state the circumstances in which your statement (above) is true?
I ask because my last post (to which you replied) is about how incest = homosexuality but in the context in which your statement (quoted above) is true.
Public opinion about a topic isn't based on statistics, but on what comes through as the most vocal.
And in the end, public opinion matters. That's why they burn witches.
But that's because you don't have the Holy Spirit inside you and you don't understand things properly!$#632""!!!
Taboos tend to have to do with things that people are assumed to want to do, but which collective social wisdom says it would be better not to do it.
So from this perspective, it is a sssumed that as a given, people want to have sex with some of their close blood relatives, and that this desire must be kept in check, via a taboo.
Similarly the way small children need to be taught not to put just anything into their mouths, even though they want to.
Or, more generally, it is a sssumed that as a given, people want to have sex, and that this desire must be kept in check, via a taboo, and that people must be taught who is a suitable prospective sex partner, and who isn't. This suitability is understood in terms of biology/physiology as well as in socio-economic terms.
Likely! Very likely!
[quote=Arthur Schopenhauer]Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.[/quote]
Ok, so the crazy person points a gun to your head and says you need to have sex with a stranger of the same sex or your child. You are infertile and you have all been tested for STDs and nobody has STDs. Your child is 30 years old and has expressed her desire to have sex with you long before this incident. She seems to be horny at the moment. You know that your child has had casual sex with plenty of her friends and it has never caused any drama or strain in her friendships. So, she appears to have a proven record of avoiding creating social problems out of sex. The stranger of the opposite sex also says he wants to have sex with you and he seems very horny to you. So, you don’t seem to have any reason to doubt the sincerity of his word. Under this scenario, I don’t think it morally matters who you choose to have sex with. I think it would just be a matter of your personal preferences. For example, you might feel less discomfort about having sex with one person over another. Maybe you’re the type of person that couldn’t help but have the sex impact your relationship with your daughter so you might choose the stranger just because of that. I just don’t think that incest is inherently bad in any way.
I have no issues with that. However, your OP is about justifying incest using homosexuality by claiming the two are equivalent and if one is permissible, there are no grounds on which to object to the other. This argument is unsound because homosexuality isn't equivalent to incest.
The best (anal)ogy I can muster is theft. A court of law doesn't make a distinction between stealing from family and stealing from strangers - to Justitia they're both theft. However, if you dig a little deeper, pilfering from family is in addition to theft a kind of betrayal. A similar line of reasoning seems applicable to homosexual incest, this then demonstrating the two (homosexuality and incest) are distinct entities.
I think you've rather confused yourself there, as this is not relevant to your previous reply. The statistical likelihood of degeneration through inbreeding is obviously a statistical matter, and is not a function of popular opinion.
*sigh*
The popular perception of incest is what this thread is about.
Popular perception is not based on statistics.
*sigh*
I was responding to this:
Quoting baker
This is not a statement about popular opinion. I know you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you should at least be able to follow your own contribution to a conversation.
*sigh*
What a right-winger. Always blame the other person. Always place the whole responsibility for the quality of the communication on the other person. Just vote for Trump, honey.
I actually changed my mind about the truthfulness of my OP after having a conversation with darthbaracuda. I think he/she pointed out a meaningful practical difference between incest and homosexuality. Just out of curiosity, what downside do you think comes with incest that you think would tip the scales to make incest worse than homosexuality?
I can't quite put a finger on it but the closest moral transgression incest commits that makes it worse than homosexuality is betrayal!
Incest can produce a deformed baby. Therefore it is unethical. Also incest tends to contradict our natural feelings. Meaning we tend not to desire it. We have a built in mechanism to guide us against it.
Any coupling between unrelated partners can produce a deformed baby. Does that make all sex unethical?
What evidence do you have that we have "natural feelings" against incest? What is this "built in mechanism" which helps us avoid it?
I'm not in favor of incest, and I don't know anyone who is in favor. However, it isn't clear to me what it is that keeps us from having sex with related partners. If you met a sibling you had never previous known or known about, what would prevent you from finding this unknown relative attractive?
Incest can produce genetic problems at a much greater level then normal sex.
What percentage of the population desires to sex their siblings? Not many.