"consenting adults" taken one step further or just too far?

[PepperElf]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6424337.stm


I stumbled on this one day and found it interesting.

With this day and age of people promoting romance between consenting adults it does not surprise me that some countries have taken this one step further... or perhaps one step too far?


In France incest hasn't been against the law for about 200 years, but marriage is out of the question.

In Holland (Netherlands) it's still illegal but they don't prosecute siblings.

And in Sweden you an get married even if you share a parent.



I wonder what's next.

[Boozy]

I would say that what two mentally capable and consenting adults choose to do in the bedroom is none of the government's damned business.

We can't pass laws based on the "squick" factor. There has to be a valid reason to deny someone a freedom.

[blas87]

Incest is disgusting, and anyone who takes their moral high ground and points out that royalty did it for hundreds of years or how that after so many relations, it's not that close and that "gross".........yeah, that just went out my ear because it's still gross.

Millions of people in the world. Many you can find and meet with a click of the mouse. And some choose to bump uglies with cousins. Gross.

[Rapscallion]

I don't particularly mind brother and sister being closer than society traditionally and legally says they should be, but the whole point about sex is making babies. Last I heard, the risk of genetic defects was much higher with sibling parents.

If they don't breed, I have no issue with the relationship. If they do, it affects another person's life.

Rapscallion

[Lace Neil Singer]

^ This, pretty much. It's pretty cruel to force another person into the relationship against their will; and that is what an incestous couple are doing if they have kids.

What annoys me is when people who are brother and sister, or father and daughter, say about their relationship, "You can't help it when you fall in love". Riiight. So everyone should just give in to their urges? You might not be able to help falling in love, but you can help having sex, or becoming pregnant. By that logic, a pedophile should get off, cuz he can't help falling in love with a six year old. Just be honest and say you chose to do it, rather than make vacuous statements that seem to imply you were a victim of circumstance.

[bara]

There is a definite 'shudder' factor here. But... if they are consenting adults I dont see how its my business. I agree that they shouldnt have kids.

I would have an issue if the relationship began before everyone involved is a legal adult though.

[siead_lietrathua]

my brother is married to our (3 or 4th) cousin. their kids dont have any flippers or fins
but they didnt know they were related until they had been dating a few months and he went to a big function of her families and recognized her great-uncle as our grandmas cousin or some obscure thing like that.
i think they met through dirt-biking friends.

[DrFaroohk]

Speaking of which - why don't you ever see super-babies out of incestuous relationships? It's always something like both parents area carrier for the deadly skin-rot disease, so the baby will have the skin-rot disease. You never hear about how like both parents were tennis pros, so the baby is super awesome at tennis now.

[HYHYBT]

Aw, let them. I'm not entirely sure on marriage (if they've known each other all along) simply because the purpose of marriage is to establish kinship, and they have that already. But there are so few people who would *want* to go this route that banning it serves more to strengthen resolve for banning other unions than it has any practical effect. And the genetic problems generally don't come into it first generation.

[SkullKing]

I agree, it may be gross, but is their business.


The state shouldn´t interfere.

[telecom_goddess]

wow...on the one hand I find it really disgusting to turn to one's sibling or especially ones' parent or child for a relationship....

On the other hand I think it's stupid to waste jail space for this kind of "crime".

Gotta love human nature.

[Gravekeeper]

Scientifically speaking, despite the stereotype, the risk of birth defects of children between cousins is barely negligible ( Children of first cousins have something like a 2% higher chance of defects over non-related couples. ). It takes a few generations of keeping everything in one family for defects to emerge. If someone marries a cousin here and there its not a problem genetically speaking. Its if you marry a first cousin after both you and their parents being cousins and both sets of grandparents on each side being cousins that you end up on a river with a banjo.

The stigma against cousins is pretty much exclusive to western countries ( no one else has a problem with them ) and might be a result of bearing witness to European royalty's track record. >.>

As for siblings, that is indeed much more dangerous if children are involved. But again it will come back around to genetic diversity. If mom and dad were in the same general gene pool you're going to have a severe risk of defects. If mom and dad were from opposite sides of the planet the risk will go down significantly, though you're still taking a huge gamble of course.

[Andara Bledin]

Incest is disgusting...

Replace incest with homosexuality. That's the thought process of the majority of anti-GLBT holdouts.

We can't pass laws based on the "squick" factor. There has to be a valid reason to deny someone a freedom.

Precisely.

Considering that we have people procreating who are given a 50% chance of passing on some nasty genetic conditions (eg: fibromyalgia), and it takes generations to give us the problems most often associated with interbreeding, I just don't see the issue.

^-.-^

[Sleepwalker]

This ^. We don't restrict people who we KNOW are going to pass horrifyingly lethal birth defects on, to restrict incestuous couples for that reason is a paper thin cover for squick. That said, I'd like very very strict age requirements around incest. It is far too easy to coerce a minor living in your home- anyone in a position of power, be they related or no, should have the book thrown at them.

[anakhouri]

Note: it usually takes several generations of inbreeding for serious defects to present themselves. My husband's specialty is inbreeding as creating mice with serious defects is part of his job.