@ divea/nemsis
read the links I posted, this occurs in about 50% of cases regarding adoptions or forced separations. Although we can’t understand it, the psycologist said the feelings were like infattuation, similar to teenage crushes. The guy in the guardian link threw away his entire life! I think this is quite a powerful effect and that really they need counselling, not condemnation
[quote=“itakitez”]@ divea/nemsis
read the links I posted, this occurs in about 50% of cases regarding adoptions or forced separations. Although we can’t understand it, the psycologist said the feelings were like infattuation, similar to teenage crushes. The guy in the guardian link threw away his entire life! I think this is quite a powerful effect and that really they need counselling, not condemnation[/quote]
Fair enough. And it doesn’t affect me, so I guess I don’t really have a right to judge. Maybe it’s just fear manifest as disgust. You’re right, they need counselling, or to be warned of the phenomenon prior to meeting.
Well, of course, it’s gross. That says nothing about whether it should be legal or frowned upon.
Genetically, I’ve read that relatives as distant as first cousins are distant enough to have a high probability of significant problems. Since first cousins would share less genetic material than a grandparent and grandchild, apparently genetically, it’s not bad. So, I would say it should be legal.
Socially frowned upon? I’ve usually thought incest was bad for social reasons, related to improper use of power structures. Since they didn’t grow up with that relationship, I don’t know if it would apply. If you factor in the “genetic confusion” mentioned maybe so.
I think this is a load of crap, Maoman broke the code with the linguistics bit.
The surrogate was using language indicating she was not from Indiana. The grandmother was said to be FROM Indiana, but did not say her current residence. It seems likely that she gave her child up for adoption in Indiana, and moved to New Zealand(location guessed based on the name of the magazine interviewing her).
Sure, I wouldn’t shag my Grannies (they’re both dead) and when they were alive I had serious political issues with them, thus rendering them sexually unattractive to me. I still find this repulsion fascinating, though. We have been fornicating with our sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers since we crawled out of the primordial sludge. It’s just a recent MORE that we shouldn’t anymore. That and the recessive gene thing that we only recently learned about. I’m interested to know where this nauseated reaction comes from. Is it because the wife is old and wrinkly? Sorry, I don’t get it.
Not everything is about the body or even wrinkles. It’s not about sex either. A grand mother having a romance with her own grandson is pukable. In this case, she gave up her daughter and now she is ruining his life.
ANy reasonable grandmother on meeting up with her grand child, will behold him as her precious. Dote on him and be a mother that she was never to her own daughter…making him her mate is only demeaning the relationship.
You know, humans have been killing animals since forever and yet torturing of little cats burns a fury in us, whilst we continue eating chickens and cows and fish that aren’t killed in the most humane of ways. Yet is universally accepted, understood and considered mental to torture little creatures. Cats die every now and then, what we find disgusting is the guy’s mind and motivation to do it.
Similarly, wrinkled grandma’s and wrinkled grandpa’s have been doing it with young uns forever…and yet it is universally accepted, understood and considered mental to fornicate with your own kin. It’s a gut feeling and most people reject that relationship because of the way they view their own parents/grandparents and children.
Then there are people who would bang anything that lives. Or everything that lives.
[quote]itakitez wrote:
@ divea/nemsis
read the links I posted, this occurs in about 50% of cases regarding adoptions or forced separations. Although we can’t understand it, the psycologist said the feelings were like infattuation, similar to teenage crushes. The guy in the guardian link threw away his entire life! I think this is quite a powerful effect and that really they need counselling, not condemnation
Fair enough. And it doesn’t affect me, so I guess I don’t really have a right to judge. Maybe it’s just fear manifest as disgust. You’re right, they need counselling, or to be warned of the phenomenon prior to meeting.[/quote]
I’ve been through this phenonomen in action, and the emotions that are brought about are extremely intense. If you think about it, you spend years fanatasing about that other person, and when you finally get to see them, they look like you, they have at least some of the traits you imagined, they haven’t done anything to let you down or disappoint over the years that other family members may have done (because you haven’t been there to witness them)… it’s like a giant crush and a rollercoaster ride of excitement. The newly-found person can do no wrong. Without a strong family or community network to take you through it, you could easily fall into some kind of relationship with the other person, or at least alienate your family you have had over the years. On the flip side, any later disappointments are like a death you grieve over, and without adequate support you could easily fall into deep depression.
It is really like being in a story, and without people around you to give you a reality check/compassion/emotional support, you could easily fall into all kinds of “crazy” situations.
Older people can and do enjoy sex. There is no reason they shouldn’t.
Incestuous “feelings” are not really even the issue. Many people have incestuous feelings. Many people act on them. The problem is that so many people emerge scarred for life from the experience. That is a demostratable fact. If you don’t believe it you can consult the literature. In this case (“if” it is true, which I doubt that it is) you not only have people involved in a psychologically devasating relationship but doing it openly and having it recorded on the internet. Even discussing having a child brought into the relationship. It’s on a level of perversity that no sane person would even consider.
If any of this is true one of the key issues is that these two choose to act openly with regard to this. By doing so they are engaing in a blatantly “sadistic”’ act toward their other family members. Either that or they are too insane to understand the anguish they inflict. It’s really hard to imagine that anybody could be quite that devoid of human sentiment.
Sigmund Frued I think knew a bit about psychology. Here is what he had to say on the subject of incest.
“Behind the laws that structure human society is the horror of incest, and behind that horror are the desire for incest and the murderous desire to act on that desire.”
That seems a bit over the top but just a bit. Again "if’ this is true that young man is destined to a future of violence, even if he does get the best help in the world, which I hope he does, if not for his own sake then for the sake of anybody who will ever have anything to do with him. He is already extremely dangerous IMHO.
Yeah, but why, bob? Because “society” tells them to.
Yeah, but why, bob? Because “society” tells them to.[/quote]
Partly, but not wholly. Not by a long shot.
I don’t know about society pushing the emotional scarring… perhaps it’s trying to figure out your place in the family. For instance, looking at the child of this incestuous relationship between the grandma and grandson, assuming it’s a girl…
To the incestuous man, she is his daughter, his great-grand daughter and his aunt (his mother’s sister). To the incestuous woman, she is her daughter and her great-grand daughter. To his mother and her daughter, the girl is her half-sister and her granddaughter.
She might address her “father” as her nephew Daddy Gramps. Her grandmother would be Granny Mom. And of course family reunions would be really small. Hell, you could have four full generations of family sitting on a loveseat.
Yeah, but why, bob? Because “society” tells them to.[/quote]
Partly, but not wholly. Not by a long shot.[/quote]
Because they realize it’s fucked up! They are probably excited and all at the beginning, but later realize it’s not all that magical, and then come the real problems: guilt, peer pressure, family, and so on. They also probably have no-one to really talk about what they’re going through as no-one wants to hear about that.
We have a horror of incest not because our society made up some stupid rule and is forcing it on us. We have a horror of incest because for millenia human and prehuman societies have experimented with all sorts of behavior. The ones that freely allowed incest didn’t do as well as the ones that felt that horror - because of the genetic problems that can ensue, the societies that viewed incest as a horror tended to have healthier babies, the socieities that thought incest was OK tended to have sickly babies. Over millenia, people with an instinctive horror of incest were more likely to have healthy children, and their genes were more likely to survive.
Well put.
I sincerely meant “well put” in that you provide a nice explanation for the disgust at incest. A succinct reason.
But I’d like to add - before I am misunderstood - that I do also believe we should always allow ourselves to move beyond the boundaries set by evolution. For example, homosexuality is not natural in an evolutionary sense, as it doesn’t propagate the species. And yet, it would be difficult to find valid reasons for it being “evil”.
We have always lived beyond the purely physical need to spread our genes. Sex might exist to further the species but has always been about pleasure as well. Unless one believes that sex is only acceptable if you are trying to breed, one has to accept that less conventional sexual pairings (even if not part of one’s own repertoire) might be healthy.
So I think your reasoning is sound, but also believe that with the use of a prophylactic (unless your religion disallows) there isn’t that much wrong with having intercourse with someone in your family (as long as both of you are up for it).
For me, something can only be immoral if it’s going to hurt some living being. It is conceivable that two people in a family could have a healthy sexual relationship. It’s often gonna be fucked up 'cos family’s have their own sicknesses - but it needn’t be. So we shouldn’t judge too quickly.
Unnatural doesn’t always mean bad. Flush toilets aren’t natural, but I prefer them to shitting in the woods.
I always thought, Incest was the Best.
There are some evolutionary biologists, though, who theorize that homosexuality is advantageous. On an individual basis, no, but on a societal level. Groups that had some homosexual members survived better than groups with no homosexual members - maybe because there were fewer children per adult, so each child could be taken care of better, maybe because homosexuality correlates with some other good quality that will help the group.
All societies have homosexual members, so rather than thinking of it as not natural, some people try to discover how it could have helped early societies.
I wasn’t, however, suggesting making it a hobby.
[quote=“bababa”]
There are some evolutionary biologists, though, who theorize that homosexuality is advantageous.[/quote]
Cite please. I am interested in how they come to this conclusion.