Should incest be legalized, like homosexuality was?
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Remain Calm Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5216Forum Moderators, Constellation
Remain Calm Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5216Forum Moderators, Constellation
Originally this was brought on by me wondering why it was such a popular fetish, and why it was such a big deal to people that fictional characters were related and also in a relationship. The leap of logic in comparing it to yaoi fics or whatever came pretty naturally.
Culturally it's of course seen as immoral, but this kind of attitude shift has to start somewhere, and laws shape cultures pretty strongly. I'm not inclined towards it myself (not that anyone would dare say otherwise, but, y'know... trust me), yet tradition for the sake of tradition is dumb, and this seems like another case of "why does it matter to you who I fuck".
We also see awful things like parental abuse and sibling power games (oh how clinically worded), but these are separate things - abuse will still be abuse, legally.
As for the inbreeding issue, well, it's difficult to say whether the children of such couples would rather not have been born at all... and homosexual couples don't produce any children, so from a coldly clinical perspective they'd do more harm to the population long-term, since there's no possibility at all of a fully healthy child. Generally, I'd assume the theoretical couple here knows what they're doing.
Still, this popped into my mind just today, so I'm sure I've missed some things. Please do tell!
Culturally it's of course seen as immoral, but this kind of attitude shift has to start somewhere, and laws shape cultures pretty strongly. I'm not inclined towards it myself (not that anyone would dare say otherwise, but, y'know... trust me), yet tradition for the sake of tradition is dumb, and this seems like another case of "why does it matter to you who I fuck".
We also see awful things like parental abuse and sibling power games (oh how clinically worded), but these are separate things - abuse will still be abuse, legally.
As for the inbreeding issue, well, it's difficult to say whether the children of such couples would rather not have been born at all... and homosexual couples don't produce any children, so from a coldly clinical perspective they'd do more harm to the population long-term, since there's no possibility at all of a fully healthy child. Generally, I'd assume the theoretical couple here knows what they're doing.
Still, this popped into my mind just today, so I'm sure I've missed some things. Please do tell!
Comments
As per Wikipedia
"As relatives share a proportion of their genes, it is much more likely that related parents will be carriers of an autosomal recessive gene, and therefore their children are at a higher risk of an autosomal recessive disorder.[20] The extent to which the risk increases depends on the degree of genetic relationship between the parents; so the risk is greater in mating relationships where the parents are close relatives, but for relationships between more distant relatives, such as second cousins, the risk is lower (although still greater than the general population"
Dr Mem
Inbreeding, as ryan pointed out causes increased recessive genetic health problems, which can spread to the general populace.
I remember someone in my high school who was Lebanese had parents who were first cousins and everyone picked on him saying he was a spastic inbred etc, yet he was perfectly fine as were his siblings.
Unfortunately it's not quite as simple as there being 1 gene impacting 1 thing.
Genes on DNA effectively code for proteins.
Many useful "things" in the body are made up of multiple proteins.
If one protein out of many is coded wrong, because the DNA nucleotides are in the wrong position/deleted/mutated, it can have terrible consequences.
If a brother and a sister have sexy times, they are more LIKELY to have similar faulty genes, because they came from the same people, or they each have different faulty genes which when combined (sperm meets egg) causes 2 proteins to be coded wrong when making one useful "thing".
Now imagine the son and the daughter of that coming together.
If they gain 2 faulty genes each then they are much more likely to give faulty genes to their children.
Not to mention all the other faulty genes which are getting passed down at the same time.
But okay. So the only real problem here is inbreeding. It can have disastrous consequences and should be avoided at all costs. That said, if the couple decides not to have children and uses contraceptives then I suppose no harm is done?
I'd also like to point out that with population levels growing at their current rate, any couple that does not have children -- be they gay or straight, fertile or infertile -- is doing us a favour in the long run. There is no "harm" in not having children.
"Oh 2 men can get married, what's next? Jim marrying his mom, sister, goat, ... 7 people."
My god people its anal get over it.
However, you should have the right to be incestuous. Firstly, one could use protection and thus avoid congenital genetic disorders (any moreso than normal) altogether. Secondly, what business do you even have in what these people do in their own private lives? The probability of suffering from a recessive disorder is incredibly low anyway - and that even assumes they have kids.
We need to stop policing people's lives where we have no business. Do I like the thought of incest? No. It's sounds sickening to me. But that is me...Just because I have a certain preference does not mean I should be able to outlaw others. "But your child could have...". And? There are numerous individuals with no money, no ambition and who cannot for the life of them help their children and these children turn to drugs, crime etc... yet we let them have sex, so where, as the irritating cliche goes, "Do we draw the line?".
Well perhaps, this time, no lines should be drawn. Just a thought.
there's a darn good reason incest is illegal.
Incest is in no way remotely comparable to homosexuality. Comparing the two is deeply wrong.
--Scythe--
Hello. You completely misinterpreted my comment, branding me a bigot, and I wish to receive an apology.
Homosexuality disgusts me (as a heterosexual) in the same way that my mother and father having sex disgusts me. Do you understand now? Marmite, a food product, also disgusts me (I react with disgust - do you know what this word means?). I think given the context I was clear enough, but if not (and I highly doubt I was not clear enough but rather you jumped to a conclusion) then hopefully this serves to clarify.
You say, "Incest is in no way remotely comparable to homosexuality. Comparing the two is deeply wrong."
However it appears you do not understand how an analogy works. One could argue, using your logic, that men and women are not "remotely comparable". To a degree this seems valid to say, in so far as a man has a penis and a woman, a vagina. However, is there no comparison in terms of anatomy? Not completely; but analogies can be drawn in more areas than they cannot be.
Homosexuality and incest are banned NOT BECAUSE of the scientific argument. Mendelian inheritance has not been known about since it was "rediscovered" in the early 20th century, HUNDREDS OF YEARS after it was banned. Both are banned because put simply: people didn't like the idea. We see this in a plethora of other ideas. People didn't like the idea of letting black people vote. People didn't like the idea of letting women vote. So in so far as to draw analogy as to the REAL reasons why they're banned you must make the admission that the reasoning was that people weren't in favour - there are no rational grounds to ban them based on "I don't like the idea of it".
Now to the scientific argument; as a geneticist I've had to do a lot of pedigree analysis, as you can imagine. Moreover, the increase in probability is relatively low. However, for those of you who understand conditional statistics (and I have seen some people produce some good graphs here so I imagine there should be quite some), this increase (which is quite low) in probability ASSUMES that deleterious recessive alleles are EVEN PRESENT. In other words, if not present, which for the vast, vast majority of the population they are not, then there is NO INCREASE. Hopefully this clears it up for you guys. This paragraph provides a more nuanced approach rather than "bla bla increases let's not even take into consideration various criteria that must be fulfilled first".
In my previous comment I also mentioned something we often ignore - terrible parenting and a terrible environment. We allow heavy drug addicts with no job and educational prospects to have children, which if you read any proper studies ALMOST GUARANTEES (this is not an overstatement) that the child will live a life of a similar value. And guess what? 1 in 100,000 (this is the only speculative figure you will see in my comment) people probably won't even commit incest (which can be between cousins, by the way, not just necessarily son/sister; mum/son etc) whereas do you think it's of a higher or lower absolute value in terms of horrific parenting?
Did you also know most congenital disorders are largely fine to cope with? It's just that you hear about all the atrocious ones because who wants to release an article saying, "boy born with congenital genetic disorder leads normal life anyway because the disorder means he just can't eat x/y/z. Now to Tim with the weather because he heard there may be some clouds out tonight"?
The comparison between homosexuality and incest is merely "I don't like the idea of both AND despite this it should be totally up to the individuals to do it". Bear in mind that "I don't like the idea" is of equivalent to "I don't like the idea of milk and bread". I am not saying it's bad to do it, just that it's not for me. Now please don't call me a bigot for saying I don't like bread and milk together. Thanks.
It might go something like this: "But if we allow incest then everyone will be doing incest!!!!". Or, "Then siblings will have kids then they'll have sex with their children then their children will have sex with each other, then, then!!!".
Listen: we allow stupid people to vote. Intelligence follows a normal distribution (as psychometric tests indicate, though I have my reservations as to their relevance). So we let dumb people vote. We let dumb people vote for morons. Palin was in power, for example, in Alaska. Isn't that incredible to you? Someone that stupid was in power?
Political decisions affect not only the lives of those in that constituency, but also those across the globe. Millions of lives can be affects by, say, an export taxtation increase. People lose their livelihoods, leading to possible depression and suicide. Families are broken up. These things are terrible and the main reason why people do not think about them is because of a psychological fallacy known as the "availability error". I could explain but I'm going off on too much of a tangent.
But did you know that there are men out there who have fathers who died of Huntington's Disease and do not take the genetic tests available to check if they have the mutation? They sometimes go on to have sons who therefore suffer from it. Do we make that illegal? I grant that this is more difficult do to than a blanket ban on incest but please recall the element of "INCEST IS DISGUSTING OMG" having a massive impact on your biases.
I will end on this: despite the fact that a significant portion of the world is very unintelligent I will not contradict their right to vote despite the fact that their voting tendencies have catastrophic consequences for millions and billions of lives (often they don't even know the policies etc). The only argument I saw left was that "incest is selfish for the offspring". But allowing idiots to vote is very selfish to those who actually have a much better idea as to what would be better for most.
If anyone took the time to read this, then thank you for your time and patience...If anyone disagrees with me, feel free to comment, but please give a serious consideration over the topic before you do.
It goes hand in hand with the slippery slope thing. Honestly, the section of the population which requires this is small and likely isolates itself because we're social creatures and we form social order all by ourselves. If government exists at all, it should be to facilitate cohesive interaction between isolated groups.
On a separate note, I forgot to bring up:
There'd be further effects than the immediate ones, of course. Homosexuality becoming more accepted also meant that things like bi-/asexuality, transgender, and what have you also became more normal, which meant a lot more people feeling comfortable with themselves in society.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bigoted?q=bigoted
"adjective
having or revealing an obstinate belief in the superiority of one’s own opinions and a prejudiced intolerance of the opinions of others:"
So in my original post I said that X is my opinion (both are disgusting to me) and Y is theirs (one or the other is fine) and that I stand up for their right to have that opinion and practice its consequences because we all like and dislike different things. This is THE OPPOSITE to bigoted. This is PROGRESSIVE and LIBERAL.
Then the moderator "snipped" the post. Now let's look at that quote again. "a prejudiced intolerance of the opinions of others". Is that not exactly what occurred when my post was snipped?
Just a thought. With power comes responsibility...Use it wisely.
Remember that you've been suffering from exclusion, ridicule, abuse and violence your entire life, simply due to the way you were born. Now, someone on an internet forum says you're disgusting. They also support your right to be disgusting, so that's something, I guess.
--Scythe--
@Scythe
I am just going to be honest about it and say that if someone came away from my comment thinking that they either
1. Didn't read it
2. Lack intelligence
And leave it at that.
Edit: Let me explain. I am mixed race. I have had a lot of racism from white and brown people. If a white person came on here and said they'd HATE to be mixed race (which is a conclusion) and then gave reasons like, "I feel like I'd find it harder to identify with other whites", I would completely see the logic and have no problem. If I was a moron, I would look only at their conclusion, ignore their reason, and start getting insulted.
I think I could sum this up... maybe? Perhaps? At least a little?
Hear me out!
K SO.
Subject 1 // Homosexuality: Those whom believe this hurts our race as a whole, mustn't look at the overpopulation of humanity. People breed like animals, and not all the time it's consensual (that however is another topic I'm not getting in to), if anything it HELPS us, or so I feel; we don't live on any small island you know. Point here is, whether you decide you wish to have a child or not, it won't matter. Because cousin Ed already has had 12 just from one woman. ..Okay maybe that was subtly insulting to the sensitive; clearing that case, yeah I have a lot of southern in my roots, so I'm not attacking those down there, merely the silver-lined stereotypes, it's just what the facts are. Idiocracy is a great movie, by the way. A lot of it is painfully true (at least in present speaking of how humans reproduce en-mass on a low IQ setting, compared to higher IQ families producing less if any at all. Of course these statistics are constantly challenged and some deem them too variable to be an ultimate conclusive point).
Okay okay I get it I'm straying too far, but I like to lock all my windows so people stay on the same page here.
Anyway, Homosexuality is harmless, the only people who get bent out of shape about it are either brought up to think that way, or are holding to some religious ties. (No offense to anyone's religion). It's all boiled down to "Caring about what someone else does in their life, when it brings no harm." - Arguing this point is like saying people whom partake in Hormonal therapy are mass murderers. - Exaggeration, maybe. But it's the same cake; a different slice perhaps. In essence it's a personal thing that hurts no one and shouldn't be put on any 'stand' for subjection.
If anything people just need to stop worrying about others lives and focus on bettering their own and/or the environment around them. There's so much more to worry about in this world than where men and women rub their genitals on a consensual basis.
Subject 2 // Incest: Now a lot of points were brought up about incest, and why/how/whatitdoes. My honest opinion on this is one I find most to agree with; some see it as a fetish, some just enjoy its convenience, others find it disgusting... Okay sure, that's squared away from day 1 on the table.
What I feel however, is similar to how I feel with most people and their fetishes/habits. So long as it doesn't hurt anyone, who gives a rats ass? Granted, if everyone preformed incest and had the bad gene mock-ups, there's 'harm' being done, but only to the offspring. If it's not teasing in school as aforementioned in one post here, it's the potential medical issues of his/her person (which was also pointed out I believe.)
If I knew a brother and sister wanting to have a child, it would be wrong for me to tell them no, to try and stop them. It's their decision, for their lives, not mine. - I would, however, strongly advise they look in to the potential side-effects and understand exactly what they're doing. Just like taking pills; you don't want to swallow one if you're allergic or the side effects are atrocious, right?
Again though, the boiled down point is that it is their lives to live, and people (in my honest opinion) should turn their worries to the more harmful/impactive epidemics with humanity. Like the hungry, victims of sexual abuse (and taking care of those whom preform the abuse. PROPERLY and not just "lol jail for 8 years k you're free bye" call me callous but I have very strong feelings on that; I'll leave them out of this post though.), as well as focusing on economic points and jobs and-...
*Laundry list of things to better focus on that actually matter in life rather than where people rub their genitals*
And that's that. Like, realistically, it doesn't matter. Even if there was some crazy crackdown on specifically homosexuality and incest. People will still do it, people will still be who they are and the world would only get worse because someone's bright idea to constrict another man or woman's personal lives sounded like a 'good idea' to them. Personally I just feel those kinds of people have control issues...
So yeah, if your religion prohibits one or both of the mentioned acts? More power to you if you stick to such beliefs, but I don't recall there being any specific writing stating to take action against those whom don't feel the way you do, lest they were destructive (Like REALLY destructive, not a theorized long-term). Don't bother correcting that though.. if I'm wrong, I'm wrong and I can accept that. I was merely under the impression that most deities/gods followed today were all about being passive/pure and the like, such as Catholic/Christian and such. (Not the commercialized non-sense being spouted today, but that's another topic all together.)
But anyway, final point on this, sticking to the original post?
Regardless if Incest was legalized or not, people will still do what they want to do.
People need to understand that Laws, although they are absolute in most cases, are merely signs.
There is no hand of power controlling your will.
It's why drunk driving is illegal, but people still do it, everywhere; look how harmful that is, compared to brother/sister macking. Heh.
Do I think it would harm humanity if incest was legalized?
No, I don't think it would at all. Not any further than humanity already screws itself anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Population_growth_by_region
Genetics while affecting the individual should be considered at a grander scale. The issues with incest aren't about the increased genetic risk of an individual child or even a family, it is about the overall concentration of like genetic disorders within a population. Overtime it has a compounding effect and the overall population suffers... This leads to an interesting question that I think is a bigger one to ask.
Is it the governments business to protect genetic diversity within it's citizenry? And more importantly is a democratic and free society even capable of accomplishing this?
A few of you have brought up Sickle Cell Anemia, I think a more apt comparison would be Tay Sachs and the Jewish community.
After centuries of aggressively marrying within their Religion, the Jewish population has an abnormally high number of carriers for Tay Sachs. I think it goes without saying that preventing Jewish people from marrying other Jewish people would be abhorrently wrong, but we know that genetically it is within their interest to add diversity. What has happened has been interesting because while marrying within the faith traditions have weakened over time so has another solution, genetic screening of parents and in some cases even embryos.
Science and Ethical Policy don't always align.
I should add that while generically genetic diversity is preferred for a population, assuming a genetic disorder is "unfit" and enacting steps to eliminate it is short sided. This is the scientific problem with Eugenics (the moral and ethical problems abound and I don't feel I need to go into them.) Nature has gotten along fine in building our gene pool so far, I see no reason to intervene. Claiming laws against incest are scientifically founded is intellectually dishonest.
TL:DR
There may be Cultural, political, or economic reasons to outlaw incest. Allowing families to concentrate and control wealth being a pretty good one. But I think using Science betrays a somewhat shallow understanding of genetics.
I would argue the Cultural Taboo would exist regardless of law, and I am more comfortable with the government squarely outside the bedroom.
I can safely say it has little to do with how much you can afford to be educated with. You can pick up a book and learn all there is to learn in our libraries, but it takes a form of intelligence that no one can just hand you on a sheet of paper saying 'you pass' that's innate. Some people have a knack for ingenuity and sharp wit, others possess talents elsewhere. It seems (at least to me) kind of irrelevant. Unless you're trying to say if people have their minds on education they'll think about sex less? - Asia however isn't all grit and grime with living conditions, of course I can't sit here and count slum percentages in comparison to places like the US or Cuba, but their technology however is pretty top tier, and certain cultural art-forms like origami are kind of spitting image of someone with a mind able to grasp things most others cannot; or at least don't tend to (not saying that alone speaks for EVERY individual, but you get stupidity in all reaches).
Now, I'm not saying they're any form of grandmaster race, nor am I quietly belittling other cultures and their art-forms. lolno. Every culture I find has their own unique pinnacles of awe inspiring toys and tactics. But that's just me clearing my name from any potential racism buckets I suppose.
At any rate, sticking to the point you presented on living conditions, I won't deny that there could possibly be a factor in there that pings on increased reproductive tendencies, on what though you'd have to answer yourself because I personally can't pick it out. As for Healthcare... I don't quite see your connection with this either, unless I'm misunderstanding your statement all together? If so I do apologize. But honestly I've seen a lot whom lack healthcare entirely or never bother with it and it never single-handedly increased or decreased reproductive tendencies, unless you're saying with lack of health care comes lack of survivability; in turn lesser population?
Clarify please!
I think you're exactly right, here. For a person, or a community, or a committee to determine fitness is so absurd that the only thing more absurd is that the concept is considered seriously in discussions and policy. No matter if you approach this problem from an individual or cultural standpoint, the best policy is to have no policy at all.
And with more healthcare, more of your children will survive, so you don't need as many to support you.
But probably most important is that with proportionally more higher-paying jobs in the economy, higher education becomes more necessary, so you have to invest much more time and money in each child - it's simply too expensive to have lots of kids.
If you meant the whole IQ from education thing, that's pretty much because IQ mostly indicates pattern recognition skills, and those are much more relevant in hi-tech surroundings, as computers and most sciences are nothing but patterns. So in learning about that sort of thing, you exercise your IQ, so to speak.
Or I guess, IQ correlates with children-per-mother, but it's not the cause.
On November 1st, 1700, an entire dynasty of kings came to a crashing end with the death of Charles II of Spain. Charles had neither a pleasant life nor a successful reign. He was physically disabled, mentally retarded and disfigured. A large tongue made his speech difficult to understand, he was bald by the age of 35, and he died senile and wracked by epileptic seizures. He had two wives but being impotent, he had no children and thus, no heirs. Which is what happens after 16 generations of inbreeding.
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/14/how-inbreeding-killed-off-a-line-of-kings/
http://www.nature.com/news/inbred-royals-show-traces-of-natural-selection-1.12837
And that, as I warned, is what we call the slippery slope. You take a basic point, that incest should be allowed between consenting adults, and then you superimpose the point that by definition it will be done for SIXTEEN GENERATIONS. Of course it won't be.
"BUT BESTPROFILENAME THEY DID IT HERE". Yes! Hundreds of years ago when they wanted to keep the monarchy going! Guess what?! That only happens in primitive cultures in which they have things like the caste system! (certain parts of India for example).
Silly, silly, silly. No nuance.
Two persons of age to have consensual intercourse and potentially breed, would almost certainly be aware of the repercussions. Not to mention what if they're the same gender and are unable to breed? Even if that wasn't the case, are you suggesting neither male nor female were aware they were capable of offspring and didn't exercise any birth control of any form??
Genetics don't factor in - they're just a detractor from the moral issue at hand.
All legality accomplishes is eventual cultural tolerance. Incest, like homosexuality, has been occurring since the beginning of our species, and will continue to, behind closed doors. So if tolerance is the goal, I'm all for it.
This excludes breeding though, which I doubt would be a problem.
The only thing the human race should be intolerant towards is intolerance, Imo.
*get it? ;-)