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

[Amanita]

We used to have a tomcat who as soon as he hit cat-puberty, went off and tried to pork both of the working female cats in the house. One was his littermate, the other was his mom. :eek
Neither of those matings resulted in living kittens- momma cat miscarried, and littermate gave birth to a kitten, but it only lived a few hours, if that. And yes, we got male kitty fixed.

As for the guy who killed and ate somebody who allegedly consented, I am glad he got the book thrown at him. As others have said, one has to wonder at the mental competence of the person who agreed to be killed. Had he been drugged or brainwashed/indoctrinated prior to that video being made? Was he depressed or suffering from mental illness of some other sort? And there's also the question of the cannibal- this was something he had fantasized about from the time he was kid. Now that he's gone and done it once, can he be trusted never to do it again? Are his urges well and truly sated, or is he going to start craving again? And can he be trusted not to escalate, or to keep his craving under control? I wouldn't bet on it. Fetishes and urges like this are rarely a "one shot and done" deal- once you've had a taste, you eventually are going to want it again, as a rule.

[Peppergirl]

Weird.

How would you get any sexual gratification out of something if you're dead? It's not like you're around to reminisce about it and get off on it again. Makes no sense to me.

Don't get me wrong - I'm as squicked out as the rest of you about it, but additionally, I can't wrap my brain around that part.

[BlaqueKatt]

I'm all for consenting adults to marry. Incestuous relationships and/or marriages are not only disgusting but the fact that there's high possibilities of diluting the gene pool. No fucking way.

um ELE reduced the human population to between 3,000 and 10,000 at one point, we are all no further apart than 50th cousins...

The possibility of greater birth defects is the reason why this is not allowed. There is also a seemingly natural aversion and revulsion in having sex with close relatives. It does happen, but rarely consensually.

already covered as untrue, and only in the US is it considered wrong.

Among mice, a female will go through puberty faster if she's in the presence of an adult male than if she isn't, unless she is also in the presence of an adult female. As a result of this, once she's left the nest, "shacking up" will get her ready to have babies sooner (helps survival of the species), but it decreases the possibility of her leaving the nest already pregnant by her father (at-risk due to giving birth before she finds a place with food and shelter to raise a family, therefore harming her chances of survival and passing on her genes) because her mother is still in the nest.

that has less to do with "incest" and more to do with survival of the species. Her ability to reproduce isn't necessary to the survival of the species as there is another adult female available. In the absence of another adult female to procreate and further the species, her reproductive ability is needed, so she matures quicker. That and mice are not communally social creatures in the wild, in many species the males does not co-habitate with the gravid female.

Hamsters usually leave the nest in sibling breeding pairs, and if the adult male is no longer around one male will stay with it's mother.

[Panacea]

*Considers thread topic.*
*Looks at his Location tag.*
*Again considers thread topic.*

...I should probably just walk away from this one.

So should the folks from Georgia since that's where Deliverance is set . . . .

Bernd Brandes was a consenting adult who chose to be murdered and eaten. The man who did this, Armin Meiwes, was charged with murder. Should he not have been, given that he and his "victim" were consenting adults who were both jointly responsible for the events that took place?

Mr. Brandes could not give consent due to his underlying mental state. A person who is suicidal is in no shape to consent to something like that.

(Note: This is a discussion point; I thought that this needed exploring, seeing as almost everyone agrees with the OP. But rather than post a hysterical rebuttal, I thought it a good idea to post something that can actually be discussed. ^^)

Here's my problem with incest. It's one thing if the parties are already adults. But incest often occurs with one party being younger than the age of consent. In that case the issue is abuse because of the power relationship involved with the older relative vs the younger.

Even when the child reaches adulthood, I would be very concerned about ongoing, underlying power relationships that turn consent into abuse. I find it hard to believe that power relationship can be removed in issues of a parent with a child.

Cousin "incest" is primarily a social taboo, and I see little issue with it unless there has been a history of close marriage relationships.

For me it wasn´t murder, it was assisted suicide.

If that should be illegal or not is whole other question

It should be illegal. The perpetrator is taking advantage of the state of mind of the victim, who is thus unable to form true consent.

It's also baffling. At some point, he stops being able to get off on it. It's not a sensible fetish.

Only for the eaten. The eaters get another bite at the apple.

[QUOTE=Andara Bledin;105567]The whole Meiwes/Brandes thing had little to nothing to do with sex for either participant. Meiwes had a fantasy about eating someone since he was a child; if sex entered into it, it was an addendum and not an integral part of the fantasy. Brandes was self-destructive and possibly suffering depression as well after his girlfriend dumped him for being bisexual (they don't spell that out, but I can't think of any other reason they would break up after he revealed he liked guys as well as girls). Again, sex is not a motivation. In neither case were they acting out any form of fetish.[\QUOTE]

Agreed. Mr. Meiwes was a serial killer in the making. Instead of stalking his victims, he came up with a novel way to get his victims to come to him.

Glad Germany put him away for good.

[Andara Bledin]

Here's my problem with incest. It's one thing if the parties are already adults. But incest often occurs with one party being younger than the age of consent. In that case the issue is abuse because of the power relationship involved with the older relative vs the younger.

So, your problem with incest has nothing to do with it being incest. Got it.

^-.-^

[Sleepwalker]

Incest in practice vs incest in theory. What happens when a father starting raping his daughter when she was 12, but the relationship is still there at 22?

[KabeRinnaul]

Did you know that in West Virginia, even though it's legal for cousins to marry, it's strongly discouraged? "Heck, Bubba, she's barely kinfolk - it's almost like gettin' hitched to a stranger."

Small point of order in my eternal quest to put down WV inbreeding jokes, it's actually not.

(And never mind that one man is my 7th-Great-Grandfather once and 8th-Great-Grandfather three times, but that's around the time of the Revolutionary War, so it's not like there was a WV at the time.)

[HYHYBT]

Here's my problem with incest. It's one thing if the parties are already adults. But incest often occurs with one party being younger than the age of consent. In that case the issue is abuse because of the power relationship involved with the older relative vs the younger.

That's going to be specific to intergenerational incest, unless siblings are unusually far apart. And even if they don't actually commit incest until the younger is adult, the incestuous-type relationship may well have been (read: almost certainly has been) going on much longer. That they waited to consummate doesn't make things right.

[blas87]

I noticed another member referenced cats.

One of my uncles has a farm, and it's always been a family joke about their "Deliverance" cats, because there's never any "fresh blood" so to speak, and they keep reproducing with their family members.

Granted, one could say it's irresponsible pet ownership to have more than a few cats and never have them fixed, but it's just normal stuff on a farm to have a lot of cats.

There are generally kittens around, but it's rare if all of them live, and it's even more rare that they don't end up at the very least doofy looking, or killed by the adult male cats.

And that uncle couldn't figure out why we never chose to take any of their cats home with us, rather, we got them from my other uncle a few miles down the road who has far less cats where they don't let the males inside and whatever kittens they can't give away, they give to the animal shelter.

[Mytical]

Sleepwalker..ok in that situation what if it was not relation? Would it make it any better? At all? Sure there are hundreds of situations where it would not be ok. There are thousands of situations where it is not ok regardless of if incest is involved or not. There are a lot of sick people out in the world.

We are talking consenting adults, who have always been consenting (and by this we mean able to BE consenting). Take the incest out of the equation..if it is not ok without incest, it is not ok with it.

[Canarr]

That's going to be specific to intergenerational incest, unless siblings are unusually far apart. And even if they don't actually commit incest until the younger is adult, the incestuous-type relationship may well have been (read: almost certainly has been) going on much longer. That they waited to consummate doesn't make things right.

The same problem might easily apply with siblings, even if both were below the age of consent. 4-6 years of age difference between siblings isn't a rare thing; so if one were 17 and the other were 13, there'd certainly be a difference in power with regards to a relationship - as well as maturity, understanding of the issues at hand... at such a young age, it would be easy to mistake brotherly or sisterly love for something else, if the older sibling were to suggest such a thing.

[Andara Bledin]

But the issues raised have nothing to do with incest and everything to do with power dynamics. You could find the same sort of situation in a summer camp and it would be wrong for the same exact reasons, none of which have anything to do with the blood relation or lack thereof of the individuals involved.

So far, the only argument with its own merit has been, "ew, it's gross."

^-.-^

[Canarr]

I disagree. Summer camp is weeks; a household lasts for years. That's a major difference.

Fact of the matter is: puberty sucks. You're thrown onto a shitty, hormonal rollercoaster, and half the time you don't know up from down. I remember being a teenage male: constantly horny, and equally constantly unsure how to go about satisfying said horniness.

Now, had I been living in a hypothetical world where sex between siblings carried no social stigma - a world that might be possible in a couple of decades if incest were no longer against the law - and had I been living together with a younger sister, I wouldn't vouch for my younger self's control.

Meaning: I believe that incest, at least between siblings and parents/children, should remain outlawed, just to instill in the older half of the incestuous couple the belief that acting on such feelings is *wrong*. And yes, it *is* wrong - not necessarily because of the blood relation, but because of the power difference that will *always* be there, and *always* favor the older partner. You can never be certain whether or not there is true consent in such a relationship, or whether the younger one just doesn't have a clue what's going on.

[the_std]

Meaning: I believe that incest, at least between siblings and parents/children, should remain outlawed, just to instill in the older half of the incestuous couple the belief that acting on such feelings is *wrong*. And yes, it *is* wrong - not necessarily because of the blood relation, but because of the power difference that will *always* be there, and *always* favor the older partner. You can never be certain whether or not there is true consent in such a relationship, or whether the younger one just doesn't have a clue what's going on.

My problem with this approach is that you're trying to instill morality with the law. Morals can exist completely and totally outside a framework of legal ramifications. I have a very hard time believing that, if we legalized incest in the near future (let's say the next hundred years), suddenly society would find sibling/sibling incest peachy keen. There are so many other factors at work with incest that close together. It simply doesn't happen nearly as often as other, more "acceptable" forms of incest (usually cousin/cousin or further distance from that).

I believe that the legal contingency for a power-based incestual relationship, like the sibling/sibling one you've mentioned, is well covered by statutory rape laws. If a relationship occurs outside of the age covered by rape laws, they become consenting adults and the law allows them to do as they please with their partners. Yes, the power ratio is off, but you simply cannot outlaw every scenario where a long-term power-imbalanced relationship occurs - an older family friend with a younger child, perhaps, or a professor with a student. Things like that will continue to happen no matter what the law defines, and I don't believe that it should be illegal.

[HYHYBT]

Even at that, that's an argument against incest defined by functional relationship, not by blood. Two people raised as brother and sister are likely to have that sort of problem; biological siblings who never meet until adulthood are not.