Trying to argue with Uncle Jim (massive length)

[smileyeagle1021]

This entire time reading about Uncle Jim, the only thought that is running through my mind is Grandma's sage advice "never argue with an idiot, they will lower you to their level and then beat you with experience." It may be better to, and I hate to say it, ignore him and let him have his ignorant beliefs... he's never changing them so why bother going to the effort of debating them.

[HYHYBT]

That argument starts off badly enough, but at least at the beginning looks like it might possibly be worthwhile. Except that you know him. You don't have to guess that he'll go down the road to throwing in every bad stereotype of an argument (NAMBLA? Really?) all at once mixed together. You don't have to assume he'll resort to name-calling, including terms that shouldn't be considered insults at all. You know him already. And since it's Facebook, you don't really even have the worry of refuting nonsense for the sake of undecided onlookers. So why even engage? How do you manage to put up with people like that?

[Kheldarson]

Fortunately, we only actually see him like once or twice a year IRL. He lives in Michigan and very, very rarely visits us. So we mostly only see him when he comes in on holidays to visit my Papa (my dad's dad).

And, honestly, on engaging him? I'm finally at a point in my life where I'm considered "adult" enough to even actually engage him. I suppose that should've told me something to begin with...

[HYHYBT]

Got it. I have Michigan relatives who, though a bit different and not religious, I likewise see only once a year... and carefully keep my mouth shut on anything touching politics of any sort. Fortunately, they don't do Facebook. They're good enough otherwise (even if that's a large "otherwise" to cut out).

[wolfie]

My 2 cents worth on a couple issues that were brought up: polygamy and incest.

Allowing gay marriage would actually make it EASIER to clamp down on polygamy. If gay marriage is banned, the law can assume that in a polygamous marriage, any sex will be between a M-F pair. If gay marriage is legal, since the state isn't (or at least shouldn't) looking into the bedroom, it needs to assume that sex will occur between all possible pairings in a polygamous marriage. Given that the communities that actively push polygamy (strange that they only push polygyny, and not all other forms of polygamy) are fairly small, after a generation or two it would be hard to find multiple women who are closely enough related for it to be considered incest if they were to become involved in a lesbian relationship (if uncle/niece or aunt/nephew are prohibited, then aunt/niece and uncle/nephew should be prohibited as well).

As for the "true consent not possible with an incestuous relationship", there are 2 issues involved with incest: increased chance of birth defects from both partners getting the same copy of a recessive "bad news" gene from a common ancestor, and the fact that it's overlaying a sexual relationship on top of a family relationship that can carry a structural power imbalance. These 2 issues can be separated: here are examples from pop culture.

Luke and Leia (Star Wars). Brother and sister, separated as infants, and reunited as adults. The biological issue would arise here, but there is NO pre-existing social relationship. A consensual relationship would be possible, since they're equivalent to 2 random people meeting as adults.

Bobby and Cindy (Brady Bunch). Biologically unrelated, but raised from fairly early childhood as brother and sister. I'd consider this a higher "squick" factor than Luke and Leia. Also, I wouldn't have problems with Greg and Marcia, since they were in their late teens (almost ready to "leave the nest") when the family was blended. They wouldn't be much different from a couple whose introduction was due to one of their families moving, and them meeting at school.

[SongsOfDragons]

As far as I was able to understand it, there's something called the Westermarck Effect that makes people shy away from desiring people they were brought up close to.

I tried explaining this to a friend about how she was cooing over a 'really cute twincest fic' she'd read was more or less illogical because the twins had been brought up together from birth...after she'd successfully demonstrated the effect after I asked her why her own brother wasn't partner material and she couldn't fully explain why the idea grossed her out. But then again she's a bit of a pillock when it comes to the never-existing-fanfic-relationships that she loves so much. >.<

[TheHuckster]

Bobby and Cindy (Brady Bunch). Biologically unrelated, but raised from fairly early childhood as brother and sister. I'd consider this a higher "squick" factor than Luke and Leia. Also, I wouldn't have problems with Greg and Marcia, since they were in their late teens (almost ready to "leave the nest") when the family was blended. They wouldn't be much different from a couple whose introduction was due to one of their families moving, and them meeting at school.

You're missing a key piece of the problem, though. Sexual relationships and their emotional connections often make a breakup difficult to mend via friendship, especially if one hurts the other in the process of the breakup. In most relationships they simply don't see eachother ever again, and each partner is able to move on. However, in the case of a step-sibling, the family connection makes that nearly impossible without one or the other breaking apart from the family, which would usually be an awful thing to happen.

For that reason, I would never consider such a relationship a good idea. It's difficult enough for some people to see their ex-spouse during weddings and funerals. I'd imagine seeing your ex-lover as a step-sibling who has at least one parent in common to be possibly even worse for each person, especially if the breakup was not amicable.

[smileyeagle1021]

As far as I was able to understand it, there's something called the Westermarck Effect that makes people shy away from desiring people they were brought up close to.

And it's not just family members. I have a lot of long time friends that I have absolutely zero attraction to, none whatsoever. We have no relationship, but I am completely turned off by the thought of them being naked. Yet, at least one of them has a cousin with very similar traits that I find very attractive. It does not matter that what I find attractive in him is the same features my friend has, they are two completely different people damnit

[Kheldarson]

As far as I was able to understand it, there's something called the Westermarck Effect that makes people shy away from desiring people they were brought up close to.

I tried explaining this to a friend about how she was cooing over a 'really cute twincest fic' she'd read was more or less illogical because the twins had been brought up together from birth...after she'd successfully demonstrated the effect after I asked her why her own brother wasn't partner material and she couldn't fully explain why the idea grossed her out. But then again she's a bit of a pillock when it comes to the never-existing-fanfic-relationships that she loves so much. >.<

1) Don't mess with the ship! *snuggles her MacManus brothers fanfics*

2) There are cases that show that twins do find each other attractive in that way owing to the closeness of their bond to one another.