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This is one thing that I can saw "ewwww" to under all circumstances.

Third cousin or greater, or no blood relation.

I seroulsy felt dirty after seeing this hot red head at my little cousins birthday party-- there were family friends and neighborhood people there too-- and found out he was my 2nd cousin.

Error of Logic wrote:'Threshold infectees'? There's a disease called Threshold?

prettydragoon wrote:I know of something called 'Threshold sickness' on Cottman IV, but that doesn't make sense in the context.

Threshold was a bloody amazing Sci Fi show that was on Sky One over the late summer/early autumn here in the UK until it got cancelled by the networks (probably because it was too intelligent for most people ) The premise was that an alien probe infects the crew of a ship and it begins to change their DNA to that of an alien-human hybrid as a prelude to - what? Invasion? Saving the Human Race? You didn't truly find out.

Anyway, I digress. The way you could tell an infectee from a human (other than that there was a small chance the DNA couldn't cope and the person's head would promptly a splode) was the DNA strand was a triple helix as opposed to the traditional doublehelix. Ogrek and I figured this would probably make the negative effects of inbreeding practically non-existent; in a cyberpunk campaign we are playing at present we do have a race with the triplehelix in their makeup.

I haven't had access to Sky in ages ... I did catch that sci-fi series from a few years back on the BBC, though; it involved an extra-dimensional species, nicknamed the 'MDs', who attacked lifeforms in this universe. Not to conquer, not to eat ... they were farmers. They gathered humanoids and held them in their dimension so they could gradually drain certain hormones only humanoid brains produce. Warning came from a man who could loosely be called an abductee - he'd actually called for an alien race from this, our universe, after finding one of them who'd crashed on Earth - returned to Earth. The aliens who took him in had already been attacked by the MDs ... and committed mass suicide to avoid becoming their farm cattle. On Earth, when the MDs started making inroads, they changed a woman so her DNA showed both human and MD characteristics; when her change was complete, she'd be the first of the MD sheepdogs, ready to herd the rest of humanity. British military used a tactical nuke on the MDs fortress, which they'd extended into our dimension. Worked a treat - only they had infinite other fortresses lying ready in their dimension to squeeze in. The army made a hard call; the MDs are farmers, not warriors. Make it too much bother for them to use the Earth as a breeding ground and eventually they'd move on. ... So whenever a fortress appeared, they'd nuke it. Any survivors would live hard, but at least they wouldn't live suspended in slime while their hormones were being harvested as fuel. The woman doomed to become the first MD sheepdog intentionally headed to the area where the next nuke would fall, so as to escape the fate the MDs decreed.
Anyone know the name of that series?

if people want to do it and everyone is of age and all that.. go ahead.

Looking at this from an anthropological stand point.

We do not have a genetic dispostion towards finding our immediate blood relations disgusting and unattractive. This is completely a nurture thing. Taught from an early age that "you don't do that with kin" - it is engrained fairly early for most in the Western school of thought.

There are no taboos about sex with 1st cousins, uncles, aunts and even half-siblings in many other countries. Especially in the marriage/dowry dept. If the marriage of your 12yr old daughter to your brother is the most advantageous - well, here's your new bride, Bro!

The rise of disfigurement and insanity in the royal blood of many nations due to incest, trying to keep the blue blood pure, scared the hell out of people. (think Nero) So new rules were enforced to keep mad rulers off of the thrones of Europe - Incest = bad mojo. If the king can't bugger his sis or mum - then neither can the peasantry. The church picked it up and crammed it down everyone's throats until looking at your sis in the bath was considered a sin worthy of having the devil snatch you on the spot.

Personally, with the guidelines set down by Honor I chose two thumbs up. Not that I would do it - I find 99% of my relatives unappetizing. As far as growing up with someone considered family and still not wanting to shag their brains out? My bestfriend from birth, who is still called my cousin (no blood relation) was the one I first experimented with at the age of 7. If we had been actual blood cousins, I don't think that would've stopped us from hours of figuring out how to perform cunniligus on each other.

I think if the attraction is there, many people will do something about it. Whether they get creeped out as Goddessmisca did with her hot redheaded cousin or get down and dirty as quickly as possible. (History points to the latter, not the former.)

I agree, incest actually doesn't lead to much problem-wise until many generations of "pure-blood breeding" have passed. Though, it's likely to cause problems quicker directly between siblings.

Though, my sisters *do* engage in playful banter sometimes, and fake-hump for the fun of it. I wouldn't be surprised if they went lesbian for each other in slightly different circumstances.

aeridus wrote:Though, my sisters *do* engage in playful banter sometimes, and fake-hump for the fun of it. I wouldn't be surprised if they went lesbian for each other in slightly different circumstances.

ugh.... *sigh* I'll be in my bunk.

funny how sometimes, something that might have just been interesting in other circumstances hits you just right. wow.

Yeah... the whole "genetically predisposed to not sister fucking thing is a crock. In fact, there's plenty of interesting counter-evidence. I'm not real convinced by the flawed sample of teh "kibbutz" evidence, either. If raised together was -all- that was going on there, it might be more valid... But as it is, there're just too many other factors.

I'm going for a rummage on sources here, but I remember reading that there may be a pheremonal component as well - that women were more likely to prefer the odours of garments worn by men who did not smell like their brothers, or something. I'm fascinated by the Westermarck effect, myself.

The taboo against inbreeding isd simply one made up by the church/royalty to avoid massive "culls" in the bloodstock. Direct line breeding is done, right up to this day, in all animal stock raising businesses.

I myself have a line bred pair of mice, all from the same original; mother and father, all bred to direct relatives (siblings, parents, or children of their own) deliberately.

For about the first 15 generations of doing this, I got some HORRIBLY deformed monsters and alot of stillborns...in the last 30-35 gewnerations, I've fixed coloration into lines, have some of the healthiest, hardiest, smartest, and longest living mice I've ever raised (one still breedable at 4 years old..mice usualy die in 2-3, and stop breeding after 2)



The problem with human inscest is we WOULDN'T be deliberately line breeding and culling out the weaknesses, and fixing traits, like we do with stock...so the monsters, the stillborns, and so on just aren't worth "allowing" it in our society...so it was made into one of our strongest taboos. Taboos are lifted eventually, in all cases, when the general populace understands why this is ACTUALLY a problem, and starts coping with the issues that caused the taboo to be brought into existance anyhow...I'd expect this particular one to dissappear in Western civilization ihn the next 10-12 generations, assuming average education remains somewhere near where it is.

Honor, once again simply saying "It isn't so because I don't want it to be that way" is not evidence, refutation or debate. You can say "flawed" all you want, but unless you have some specific criticism of that or the many other studies using different methodologies that reached similar conclusions any intellectually honest person will have to call "bullshit" or "wishful thinking".

If raised together <-> close kin avoidance weren't a biological tendency among social mammals including humans you wouldn't see nearly so much of it in humans pretty much everywhere. Inbred royal families are the privileged exception that proves the rule.

tellner, she was agreeing with me. Hit all those who are in agreeance instead of picking out the last person who spoke up, please.

You are incorrect and being culturallycentric. There are plenty of examples over the entire globe - from indigenious tribes to full Empirical civilizations that we have an inclination towards an Oedipus complex.

In the beginning incest was the norm in order to multiply and populate. As nomadic groups who fought to survive daily, they didn't care who it was that impregnated who - as long as children were born and raised to adulthood. Observing primates with genetic codes closest to ours helped us to understand this decades ago. There is no genetic repulsion, simply the ability to have way more choices than the homoerectus and the baboon - with no need to force breed as Uugh so nicely pointed out, civilized humans never got past the first phase of inbreeding and found it repugnant. The deformed were called abominations and unclean - the parents doomed to burn in the fires of hell.

*sigh* why do things like this always point back to the Church?

FYI Anything to do with world theologies is kind of my specialty - a well-fed fascination with the early days of the Church, Judaism and polytheism, turned into a full-blown hobby and then serious research for a couple of thesis papers on my own time. If you want authority quotes, I'll need to find them - but I can give them to you.

I majored in Antropology towards a specialization in Primatology in college before I dropped out, with one semester to go. So I have the studies on primates somewhere around here too.

tellner wrote:Honor, once again simply saying "It isn't so because I don't want it to be that way" is not evidence, refutation or debate. You can say "flawed" all you want, but unless you have some specific criticism of that or the many other studies using different methodologies that reached similar conclusions any intellectually honest person will have to call "bullshit" or "wishful thinking".

If raised together <-> close kin avoidance weren't a biological tendency among social mammals including humans you wouldn't see nearly so much of it in humans pretty much everywhere. Inbred royal families are the privileged exception that proves the rule.

Are you trying to be insulting and full of shit, or is it just coming out that way? If I remember correctly, the last time you used this line you're now imperiously using "once again", the real problem was that you were having an extraordinary level of difficulty grasping a very simple question/concept - i.e: "Does or does not the word 'gun' appear in this sentence." - even though we were in full agreement on every important part of the issue.

First, I didn't say I did or didn't want it to be any particular way... Mostly because I don't.

While I'm not in favor of anything that tends toward hamstringing society with the knife of superstition, this particular issue is... not real prominant on my radar. I couldn't honestly give too much of a shit, outside general curiosity, whether this particular thing is "true" or not. I'm just calling bullshit on a very obviously sloppy bit of anaysis. I'm not here to sell you my point of view. I don't even get a commission if you figure out that it's sloppy science. But I'm still going to point it out.

Second, yes... I'd have a responsibility to list off all kinds of specific criticisms and data if I was trying to convince anyone of anything, but I'm not. I'm just pointing out that it's sloppy bordering on retarded to take a field of data as grossly broad, general, and experimentally uncontrolled as the kibbutz system, either specifically or as a whole, and announce with a divinely enriched sense of authority that this mish-mash of loosely controlled data "proves" some highly theoretical idea.

Are you somehow emotionally invested in this particular theory? Because, of the two presumptive sides in a debate on this subject, it would seem to me that the side decrying familial or consanguinial attraction as an abomination would have the greater tendancy toward wishful thinking. IOW, I can prove that lots and lots of siblings and other children raised in "close" environments experiment with or engage in sexual activity... Ergo, it's obviously natural on some level.


Well... Since we're on the subject, I think (read: this is my own hypothysis, based on study, observation, reflection, and contemplation. I've neither the time nor interest in doing a pile of research to find "proof" right now...) Anyway... I think what may often be mistaken as a tendancy to shun proximity in sexual desire is actually an attraction to that which is different. But there is plenty of evidence in all directions... Attration to sameness, attraction to difference, aversion to sameness, and aversion to difference.

IOW, it's not that raised together - close kin /= sexual attraction is a particularly powerful motivator, it's just that different = sexual attraction is often a more powerful one. 'Red is hotter than orange' doesn't mean 'orange is cold'.

Actually, the Westermarck effect does not say "we have a genetic predisposition to not fuck our relatives", it says "we have a genetic predisposition to not fuck anyone we were around, for an extended period of time, while we, or they, or both of us, were young." (Think toddler age.) It has been suggested that, in fact, one would likely be very attracted to one's sibling if you were raised separately, as they would be very similar to you.

That is what was observed in the kibbutz system, and the Shim-pua system, and "normal" (by society's definition, at least) nuclear families. It just so happens, in the latter case, that they happen to be "our relatives". I'm willing to bet that there's a much higher incidence of "incest" (by legal standards) in families with older step-children than without.

Toawa wrote:Actually, the Westermarck effect does not say "we have a genetic predisposition to not fuck our relatives", it says "we have a genetic predisposition to not fuck anyone we were around, for an extended period of time, while we, or they, or both of us, were young." (Think toddler age.) It has been suggested that, in fact, one would likely be very attracted to one's sibling if you were raised separately, as they would be very similar to you.

That is what was observed in the kibbutz system, and the Shim-pua system, and "normal" (by society's definition, at least) nuclear families. It just so happens, in the latter case, that they happen to be "our relatives". I'm willing to bet that there's a much higher incidence of "incest" (by legal standards) in families with older step-children than without.

I still don't buy it hook, line and sinker. There are waaaaaay too many case files as far back as we have written history of incest in close quarters. There are too many factors and I usually don't believe social theories which came out before the 1970's...I can't remember when Westermarck did his studies. Just like the ideas of how the Minoan Crete civilization worked was completely off-base due to patriarical mindsets - how do we know that the experiments and their results weren't set up to result in specific conclusions according to the beliefs of the scientists and the parents?

When global history points with the big hand of God towards "Though shalt fuck thy relative and mulitply." When the evidence of the rest of the world contradicts the results of a controlled experiment - I'd say the experiment had some factors in the formula wrong - not history.

Call me funny for believing that way - but I think Westermarck was full of bullshite. This is my opinion according to the cultural anthropological studies I've done on taboos and world religion. (Taboos are almost 100% religious based by the by.)

Some of it may have a starting in the scientific/medical realm - such as the effects of inbreeding - but it became a full-on taboo only through the help of religious zealotry.

Indigo Violent wrote: If you have sex with your clone, is it incest or masturbation?

Narcisism?

What if you travel back through time and have sex with your younger self?

kingofthemorlocks wrote:What if you travel back through time and have sex with your younger self?

hmm that could be interesting, to have my own penis in my pussy...

I would SO get all up in my shit!

queenhank wrote:I would SO get all up in my shit!

I concurr

gealachtine wrote:I still don't buy it hook, line and sinker. There are waaaaaay too many case files as far back as we have written history of incest in close quarters. There are too many factors and I usually don't believe social theories which came out before the 1970's...I can't remember when Westermarck did his studies. Just like the ideas of how the Minoan Crete civilization worked was completely off-base due to patriarical mindsets - how do we know that the experiments and their results weren't set up to result in specific conclusions according to the beliefs of the scientists and the parents?

First, I would question the nature of those records. Do they represent a fair cross-section of humanity? I know there was quite a lot of incest in royal lines, ultimately for economic and political reasons, but how common was it, really, amoung the "commoners," who are less likely to have much mention in recorded history?

Secondly, Westermarck wrote about his theory in his 1921 work, A History of Human Marriage, so yes, it was before the 1970's. (BTW, Freud thought he was nuts.)

gealachtine wrote:When global history points with the big hand of God towards "Though shalt fuck thy relative and mulitply." When the evidence of the rest of the world contradicts the results of a controlled experiment - I'd say the experiment had some factors in the formula wrong - not history.

I can't speak for any experiments or observations that Westermarck might have made, as I have had the chance to actually read his book (while it was written in 1921 and is no longer copyrighted, and I could probably find a copy on the net, it's also in Finnish, and I doubt any translations are public domain, and I haven't gone to the library yet.), but there have been observations both on the Israeli Kibbutz system and Taiwanese "minor marriages", both of which were mentioned in this paper (or perhaps the beginnings of a book, by the URL) by Debra Lieberman. Scroll to the bottom for about 40 references on the topic.

gealachtine wrote:Call me funny for believing that way - but I think Westermarck was full of bullshite. This is my opinion according to the cultural anthropological studies I've done on taboos and world religion. (Taboos are almost 100% religious based by the by.)

Some of it may have a starting in the scientific/medical realm - such as the effects of inbreeding - but it became a full-on taboo only through the help of religious zealotry.

I certainly won't argue that its "taboo"-ization wasn't helped along by religion, because I agree that it probably was. But I think a good question is, "Why should that matter?" Just because religion helped develop that taboo does not mean that its existence has no biological, psychological, genetic, or other substance. I'd also like a citation on the "Taboos are almost 100% religious based by the by." There may be a strong correlation, but remember, correlation is not causation.

Moreover, if you believe that Westermarck was motivated by some sort of religious dogma, I would point out his last major work, Christianity and Morals:

Westermack's rational and critical approach to religion was noted by Prometheus, the freethinkers' association founded in 1905 - he served its chairman for some time. In his youth Westermarck had read Mill's essays on religion, which influenced deeply his thinking. He remained an agnostic the rest of his life.

Westermack's final philosophical work, CHRISTIANITY AND MORALS (1939), was born partly as a reaction against views that the "modern world owes its scientific spirit to the extreme importance which Christianity assigned to the possession of truth, of the truth." The credit for progress, according to Westermarck, should be attributed to the Enlightenment.

Edvard (Alexander) Westermarck (1862-1939) from a Finnish site whose name I can't understand.