OMFG... just No... OMG...

[LioraVox]

Wouldn´t that mean that you are ONLY attracted to people you share a blood relation with? And no one else never, it seems highly unlikely to me.

Would it? I don't really know, hence why I asked.

 

[Osmia]

Even though it is off-topic let's play a simulation game. Let's pretend like we, you and I, each get to create a society from the ground up. You can make the rules (or laws), the attitudes, the cultural norms, and so on and so on of the society you are creating. And I can do the same with mine. And the goal is to have a society that can survive the longest and compete against the societies of the other players. How would each of our societies fare?

I don't know what you would choose to do with yours, but I think from the things I have read you say I believe there is a fair chance that you would lean towards a pretty egalitarian society with a lot of social freedom and laxitude. Maybe I am mistaken I don't really know, but in my society what I would do is try to strike a balance between individual freedoms, and social cohesion. It isn't that hard to do if you are willing to sacrifice the privileges of a few in order to guarantee that the society won't break down in the long run. In order to do this we need to try to curb or cull attitudes that are damaging to society and promote those that make society stronger.

And how do we choose which things to promote, which things to allow, and which things to curb? How do we identify the attitudes that are risky or a potential threat to society? Some of them are obvious, you should promote a healthy diet and you cannot allow people to go around killing others, for example because that would make it really hard for people to live together in peace. So that one has to go. But what about attitudes that seem innocuous because they don't hurt other individuals and yet pose a risk to society at large? Are there any attitudes like this and how do we identify them?

I think there is a spectrum, of course, but a good exercise is to take an attitude and ask yourself what would happen if every single person engages on it? so... let's try it with something silly.. what would happen if everyone gets a buzzcut? People would be uglier, but society survives, so getting a buzzcut is something we can allow. What would happen if everyone gives a little bit of what they make to charity? Society would be better, we would have more shelters for the poor, the elderly, and the disadvantaged. So charity is an attitude we should promote. What about being gay? What would happen if every person in society woke up gay one morning? What would happen is nobody would have children and society would collapse in less than a generation. So homosexuality is something to curb. What about incest? What would happen if everyone married their sibling or their parents? That one would also be a shitshow, we would have children but a lot of genetic issues and not too much cooperation between families, so it would take a few generations for complete breakdown, but eventually that is where society would be headed. So incest while slower than homosexuality is a also something we need to curb.

How do we curb these attitudes? The first thing is not to pretend like they are healthy. These aren't healthy attitudes, and precisely because homosexual kids tend to be bullied and homosexual adults can't form families and always have a myriad of mental health problems linked to their sexual orientation, homosexuality is not a desirable trait. Nobody really knows for sure whether or not people are born gay, there isn't a consensus, and in my opinion if people are born gay, not every gay person is born that way. Some people are confused through their adolescence and end up identifying as gay because it is the path they took and it became natural and normal for them. If sexuality is a "fluid" thing, doesn't it make more sense to try and push people to be straight? Why present impressionable kids with the idea that there are 75 different sexual orientations and everything is just equally good when it isn't? Why make them second guess their natural instincts? Why not let them figure shit out on their own? A lot of people get bullied for defying social norms and social cues, it happens to everyone who is different from the mainstream. Are we going to make every kid try 100 pairs of glasses just so that the shortsighted kids won't feel left out? Or tell them that having perfect eye-sight is "just as good" as suffering from eye problems? Makes no sense.

So if I had to create a society of my own I would let everyone choose their own sexuality but the absurd concept of gay marriage would be out of the question and I wouldn't let them adopt children. If they want marriage and children they would need to marry someone from the opposite sex like everyone else. They would be able to live together as a couple, practice their sexuality privately, and be protected from any sort of prosecution or attacks from others, but it would be forbidden to portray homosexuality openly in pop culture, the subject would be explained in stark terms in sex ed classes, and it wouldn't be something to celebrate. Same as incest.

I was with you for the first two paragraphs....

You keep saying that one's sexual orientation is "fluid" and is a choice or an attitude, the implication being that homosexuality can be encouraged or discouraged with social pressures, education, therapy or legal sanctions. You also keep comparing homosexuality to incest or other paraphilias.

One of the more fallacious arguments in your post asks what would happen if everyone was homosexual, as if this thought experiment was even in the realm of possibility. You might as well ask what the world would be like if everyone was seven feet tall. Even if it were possible to "cure teh gay," new gay people continue to be born at a small but relatively constant rate (born of heterosexual parents--I don't think cloning or parthenogenesis are widely practiced yet).

This literature review article says that "No causal theory of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support. The most scientifically plausible causal hypotheses are difficult to test. However, there is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial [e.g., genetic] causes of sexual orientation than social causes."

This short excerpt is well worth reading:

Individuals’ political attitudes about sexual orientation tend to correlate with their views of the causes of sexual orientation. Those who hold positive attitudes (i.e., that there is nothing inherently wrong with nonheterosexuality or its open expression) have tended to believe that sexual orientation is due to nonsocial causes such as genetics. Those who hold negative attitudes (i.e., that nonheterosexuality is undesirable or immoral and that society should restrict its free expression) have tended to believe that homosexuality has social causes, such as early sexual experiences and cultural acceptance of nonheterosexuality. We refer to these as the “nonsocial” and “social” hypotheses, respectively. Both hypotheses require direct scientific support; neither can claim confirmation solely because support for the other is weak. No causal theory of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support. The most scientifically plausible causal hypotheses are difficult to test. However, there is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial causes of sexual orientation than social causes. This evidence includes the cross-culturally robust finding that adult homosexuality is strongly related to childhood gender nonconformity; moderate genetic influences demonstrated in well-sampled twin studies; the cross-culturally robust fraternal-birth-order effect on male sexual orientation; and the finding that when infant boys are surgically and socially “changed” into girls, their eventual sexual orientation is unchanged (i.e., they remain sexually attracted to females). In contrast, evidence for the most commonly hypothesized social causes of homosexuality—sexual recruitment by homosexual adults, patterns of disordered parenting, or the influence of homosexual parents—is generally weak in magnitude and distorted by numerous confounding factors.

 

[Dani Picas]

Would it? I don't really know, hence why I asked.

Sexual orientation is the term used to describe what gender(s) someone is sexually and/or romantically attracted to. - See more at: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sexual-orientation-gender/sexual-orientation


I think no because it isn´t a gender.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

What about being gay? What would happen if every person in society woke up gay one morning? What would happen is nobody would have children and society would collapse in less than a generation. So homosexuality is something to curb.

So you would base a society on the worst case scenario, no matter how laughably improbable it was?

What would happen if every woman woke up one morning and decided she wasn't interested in having children? Something methinks ought be curbed...

 

[IsabellaSnow]

Is it just me or are the continuous posts comparing being gay to commiting incest making anyone else feel a little ill?

Why is this discussion being continuously derailed to push barely concealed homophobia?

There's nothing unhealthy about homosexuality. There's everything healthy about open education about something that is very common. There is nothing healthy about open denial in hopes that a "problem" will just "go away".

As many people have mentioned there are plenty of unhealthy things to do with incest. Which is the subject under discussion.

Being gay is actually very natural.
We live in a society with plenty of children to go around. Being gay means you may have the time to care for families children or adopt. Which is a pretty big deal. From a purely objective view it makes logical sense when there are too many children and not enough willing parents.

I have also read studies where they have discovered evidence that being gay is genetic over conditioned preference. It also very clearly cannot be "cured".

Anyway, it's not really important but I do find the comparison offensive and uneducated. Everyone's entitled to their views but this one seems pretty tired and isn't really that relevant to this discussion as has been pointed out repeatedly.
It's starting to sound like a broken record.

Sorry that wasn't really a relevant post either... Just felt like it needed to be said.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

Is it just me or are the continuous posts comparing being gay to commiting incest making anyone else feel a little ill?

No it's not just you.

I don't feel too ill though. Suppose I've built up an immunity to it.

 

[SexySteph]

These aren't healthy attitudes, and precisely because homosexual kids tend to be bullied and homosexual adults can't form families and always have a myriad of mental health problems linked to their sexual orientation, homosexuality is not a desirable trait.

Homosexual adults can't form families? So people that adopt or are adopted don't have a family? Homosexuals always have a myriad of mental health problems? Let's just assume that statement is true (it's not), could it be that these mental health issues are caused by being told that their sexuality is unhealthy, a detriment to a good society and just plain wrong? That makes more sense than homosexuality and mental health problems just go hand in hand. Perhaps those mental health problems that you speak of could be curbed if we treated it as acceptable and normal. And by your wanting to make it clear that it's not acceptable or normal you're actually helping to create those mental health problems you speak of.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

I don't feel too ill though. Suppose I've built up an immunity to it.

I hope I never grow immune to it.
We have homophobia here of course but I've never seen or heard of those sorts of preachers. I hope it stays that way...

 

[Aella]

I have no problem with any consensual sexual behavior that does not harm anyone else who isn't consenting.

Anal sex? Sure. Fine. Maybe it's a little painful for one of them, but fine.
Gay sex? Sure. Fine. Some people insist it has indirect harm for the society, but I don't really buy into that. That comes out of very specific models of how society works that I don't think are necessarily true. And even if it DID have indirect harm for society, maybe society's the one that needs to change.
Getting fucked by cows? Sure, fine. As long as the cow initiates and isn't in any pain (though let's try to forget that we're going to eat it later).
Incest? Sure, fine. People are worried about genetic problems with kids, but that's not directly related to incest - you can have incest without breeding, or ways to mitigate the risk (use sperm donors instead of your partner).

And the objection of 'power imbalance' seems very similar to the objection of 'but society will be harmed' for homosexuality. "Oh no, it MUST be hurting one of them, there is no possible way that can be healthy for them" is exactly what my mom says about gay couples.

We have no right to tell other people what is or is not healthy for them, if they are consenting and happy about it.

This rule of being ok with "any consensual sexual behavior that does not harm anyone else who isn't consenting." is a pretty solid rule to go by. If people had gone by that rule 100 years ago, they would have probably been ok with things like consensual open relationships. If we'd gone by that rule 10 years ago, society would have been ok with people being gay much faster.

So the fun thing is - what sexual desires and behaviors are we not ok with today, but still fit that rule?

 

[JickyJuly]

And the objection of 'power imbalance' seems very similar to the objection of 'but society will be harmed' for homosexuality. "Oh no, it MUST be hurting one of them, there is no possible way that can be healthy for them" is exactly what my mom says about gay couples.

Agree with your rule. Disagree that questioning consent within incestuous relationships is similar to questioning homosexuality. In order to question consent within homosexuality, the gays were painted as animals incapable of controlling their urges or seriously mentally ill. That's not the case with incest. It's a question of the power balance within an innate relationship that's already formed. Consent should be black and white. It's a yes or no. So, if consent is questionable, it's not consent.

 

[Poker_Babe]

Sorry for the DP, but it was too late to edit my first post. I wanted to add a response to @Kitsune. You mentioned something that is kind of off topic and I know some people feel the same way as you about this and it made me think some things. You said,


And I couldn't help but think of all the kids who have same sex parents who are in the schools where you think their families should not be portrayed as healthy, happy or desirable. I have a 5 year old niece and one of her best friends, May, has two moms. Why shouldn't May's family be portrayed as normal and desirable, just as my niece's family is which has a mom and a dad? If you think May's parents should have their choices respected and protected, which it sounds like you do, then their children should not be made to feel like her and her moms are different or less desirable than anyone else. And what kind of a lesson is it to be teaching kids, that my niece should feel like she is better than May because she's got two moms and my niece has a mom and a dad?

There are also millions of kids who hurt themselves because they are bullied at school for being queer. These kids do not choose to be gay and they do not deserve to be made into outsiders. Schools should simply accept and reflect back to their community that the kids who attend them come from families of all kinds of make up - blended, gay, etc, and kids themselves are going to be gay or straight or whatever. Schools should be teaching kids some book learning, some social and communications skills, maybe even how to be thoughtful and think for themselves, not telling them what is right or wrong with different kinds of families and sexual orientations.

If we don't have any say in a gay couple's decision to get married and have kids, because it's their right to do so if they wish, then how can we then turn around and say that schools should not portray those families as healthy? Why on earth would you want to make these children feel like their families are not healthy or desirable or that they themselves are not healthy or desirable? It just breaks my heart to think that people would put their values above the well being of little kids and teenagers and allow kids to be put in a position where they are made to feel that they and their families are not healthy or equal to others.

I just wanted to say (even though somewhat off the original topic) that kids are still getting bullied for being gay in schools. My oldest daughter just graduated, but when she was in high school she was getting bullied pretty bad. Girls were tripping her in the hall ways, calling her a dumb dyke. It was affecting her so bad that she started cutting herself. It finally stopped after she joined the track team. For some reason the jocks never seem to have a problem with getting bullied. But I remember how much it used to break my heart to see what that did to her. Anyways just thought I'd share that.

 

[Aella]

Agree with your rule. Disagree that questioning consent within incestuous relationships is similar to questioning homosexuality. In order to question consent within homosexuality, the gays were painted as animals incapable of controlling their urges or seriously mentally ill. That's not the case with incest. It's a question of the power balance within an innate relationship that's already formed. Consent should be black and white. It's a yes or no. So, if consent is questionable, it's not consent.

I really like when things are black and white, but unfortunately not many things are.

First I'd like to point out that I wasn't talking about 'consent' in homosexuality, but that the reasons for objections to homosexuality are the same for the reasons for objections to incest - a "principle" (harm, consent, etc.) that sounds very morally sound but can be misleading.

Secondly, let's look at consent, what it is, and why we think it's important.

The point of consent is to spare people pain. We value consent because we've found that "violating consent" frequently causes people trauma, and "honoring consent" is associated with things like respect.

But let's not make the mistake of thinking they are one and the same. Some people have their consent violated and come out of it without feeling hurt. Maybe these people are rare, but the fact they exist shows that consent is just a "RULE" we've invented in order to fulfill the goal of "LESS PAIN."

So when you say "if consent is questionable, it's not consent," what that means gets a bit fuzzier. "If we're not sure about a rule we've instituted to try to reduce pain, it's not that rule"

This seems like it's not honoring the spirit of the rule. I think we should be more concerned about the goal - less pain - than all the rules we've instituted to try to get there, because rules are never 100% perfect. They are never fully white or fully black.

And so in a grey situation like incest, maybe the rules aren't as useful anymore. Maybe we need to ask ourselves about the goal - are these people happy and doing what they want? Yes? Then fine.

If two people being happy and doing what they want without hurting anyone means they have to violate consent to get there, then maybe the rule of 'consent' isn't really a great one.

 

[JickyJuly]

I don't think consent has anything to do with sparing pain. I think it is always about respect. We just tend to buzz on more about it in relation to sex, but consent exists within even our most mundane social activities. I teach my child to ask before hugging someone, to ask before taking food or toys that belong to someone else. Will anyone be damaged by her hugs or having one less cookie? Nope. But, if someone's body isn't yours to touch or someone's cookie isn't yours to eat, getting permission before acting or taking is respecting that we aren't entitled to those things. A sexual relationship without respect and based in entitlement could certainly be painful, but the point of consent is just being a decent non-turd human being.

 

[Aella]

I don't think consent has anything to do with sparing pain. I think it is always about respect. We just tend to buzz on more about it in relation to sex, but consent exists within even our most mundane social activities. I teach my child to ask before hugging someone, to ask before taking food or toys that belong to someone else. Will anyone be damaged by her hugs or having one less cookie? Nope. But, if someone's body isn't yours to touch or someone's cookie isn't yours to eat, getting permission before acting or taking is respecting that we aren't entitled to those things. A sexual relationship without respect and based in entitlement could certainly be painful, but the point of consent is just being a decent non-turd human being.

Yes - but why do we teach respect? I want to know the reasons behind these rules we have. If the answer is "being respected makes us feel good" then the answer is about pain/pleasure, or human wellbeing, or whatever you want to call it. And if the answer isn't about human wellbeing, then I think I might not actually support it.

 

[JickyJuly]

I don't think respect and consent are about feeling good. They're just kind of necessary cornerstones of human interaction. Without them, we wouldn't really have conversations, make purchases, own things, Respect is also a lot easier to nail down than happiness. If we made room for happy relationships where one person's need to consent diminished, how would that work within the legal system? We have a hard time sorting out consent, happiness would be even more difficult. When the relationship ends, should the person lacking consent realize they were not happy, would that make the other party a predator? Does the person with more consent absorb that risk? Seems weird to make anyone legally responsible for the happiness of another. Not to mention the ramifications if the live and let live happiness plan transferred onto other laws as well. Seems like a lot of work when someone could just like, find someone else's son to fuck.

Edit to add: Maybe manners would exist to make people feel good? Some people use manners and respect as inchangables, but they're not really the same.

 

[Mila_]

I was with you for the first two paragraphs....

You keep saying that one's sexual orientation is "fluid" and is a choice or an attitude, the implication being that homosexuality can be encouraged or discouraged with social pressures, education, therapy or legal sanctions. You also keep comparing homosexuality to incest or other paraphilias.

One of the more fallacious arguments in your post asks what would happen if everyone was homosexual, as if this thought experiment was even in the realm of possibility. You might as well ask what the world would be like if everyone was seven feet tall. Even if it were possible to "cure teh gay," new gay people continue to be born at a small but relatively constant rate (born of heterosexual parents--I don't think cloning or parthenogenesis are widely practiced yet).

This literature review article says that "No causal theory of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support. The most scientifically plausible causal hypotheses are difficult to test. However, there is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial [e.g., genetic] causes of sexual orientation than social causes."

This short excerpt is well worth reading:

So you would base a society on the worst case scenario, no matter how laughably improbable it was?

What would happen if every woman woke up one morning and decided she wasn't interested in having children? Something methinks ought be curbed...

To adress something a few of you said, I think maybe I didnt explain the purpose of the "simulation" well enough, so I am going to give a try at explaining it..

Those who are on the side of ever expanding social freedoms such as progressives and libertarians often invoke the principle of harm when explaining why something should or shouldnt be allowed. The problem with that perspective is they only relate "harm" to "aggression" or "violence", meaning: to what one individual person can do to another individual person. According to this view something like physical assault should be banned because you are harming another, robbery and fraud should also be banned, but drug use should be allowed because by injecting heroin into your forearm isnt hurting anyone else, so you should be free to consume anything you want. Why should the State have a say in what happens to your body? Same thing with honosexuality. Since homosexuality doesnt hurt any individual directly, there is no reason to ban it or regulate it. So on and so on.

So I spent the first couple of pages pointing out how contradictory it is for progressives and libertarians to defend homosexuality and not defend incest when incest is also perfectly compatible with the "no harm" worldview. Some people, those who understand their ideology so defend incest for this very reason, others got pissed off at me for requesting people to have some consistency in their posts. But I was trying to explain how homosexuality got involved into this discussion and in what dimension I am comparing the two.

After explaining why it is contradictory from a progressive stance to support homosexuality and reject incest, I decided to explain my point of view: why the "violence" or "harm" perspective is insufficient when deciding what to allow or promote and what to discourage or ban.

So the "simulation" example I gave you was a way to show, or to explain, that while an attitude might not be hurting another individual it can be harming society as a whole. The damage is hidden because it is distributed along all of society so the impact is not so readily seen. Many societies are strong enough to carry the dead weight of a few people engaging in harmful behaviors, but they are always weaker for it and if the attitude spreads to a sufficient number of people it can cause a breakdown. Evidently not every person in society will wake up gay one morning or engage in incest or drug use at the same time, but it is not necessary for everyone to do it in order for it to become a problem.

Another example of this: group tasks in college. There are often papers or projects that you need to do with a group of people. Usually there will be a slacker or two and the rest of the group picks up the slack, so if its a 12 people group the fact that 1 or 2 decided not to show up or do their part is hardly noticeable. What if it was a 5 people group? The 2 slackers would make the 3 working members feel a greater load and possibly earn a lower grade because the quality wasnt as good as it should have been. What if this is a 2 people group? The activity doesnt get done. So, in this case we can all identify that the slackers are harming the rest of the group (it is person vs person type of harm) but it is another way to understand my simulation example. We should be discouraging laziness within the group and encouraging initiative and motivation if we want to succeed.

So, incest, homosexuality, drug use, "childfree" couples are all drags on society. Even though they dont harm another person directly they do harm society as a whole, which is why in my opinion these attitudes should be discouraged and healthy ones should be promoted in education and media.

 

[Diana Blake]

I live in New Mexico and this is...a strange deal to a lot of people here. We're a pretty liberal state with many things but with the strong Catholic population the one thing you don't mess around with here is "Family" with a big capitol F. I think a lot of feathers are ruffled and the few news outlets that are still covering this seem to be doing their darndest to stir everything up and see what floats to the top. You have one side arguing that incest was only outlawed to prevent physical/mental defect and that it should be fine as long as they take measures to avoid pregnancy. You have the another side saying that the balance of power is off and this is his psychological need to have a mother manifesting in unhealthy way. Yet another side says that consent is the end all be all and a fourth is wringing their hands and screaming "What about the other children!?" Whatever your opinions on the matter there are a huge group of people just standing by waiting for things to get "entertaining" in a vicious sort of way. The whole approach by the reporting media seems custom tailored to bring out the worst in people.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

So, incest, homosexuality, drug use, "childfree" couples are all drags on society. Even though they dont harm another person directly they do harm society as a whole, which is why in my opinion these attitudes should be discouraged and healthy ones should be promoted in education and media.

Thought provoking.

I won't address the incest part. While pondering it over the last couple of days, I realized that if I was forced to do it, I would choose my mother over my sister, so I'm taking a break from that whole line of inquiry.

Homosexuality. A lot of people have been harmed directly by people discouraging their sexuality. Saying they harm society because they don't reproduce is flimsy at best.

Drug use. It has been discouraged in education and media.

Childfree couples. Again, not reproducing is a very flimsy way to determine whether or not someone is a drag on society.

 

[Mila_]

Homosexuality. A lot of people have been harmed directly by people discouraging their sexuality. Saying they harm society because they don't reproduce is flimsy at best.
(...)
Childfree couples. Again, not reproducing is a very flimsy way to determine whether or not someone is a drag on society.

Please keep in mind I am not talking about particular cases here or individual people. I am talking in abstract terms and isolating the variable of children: all things being equal a heterosexual family man contributes to the future of society and a childless spinster or a homosexual does not.

Evidently each case is different and if we were looking at individual cases there could be a family man who is also part of organized crime and engages in fraud and racketeering or a spinster who has no kids but volunteers every day to their local orphanage and donates millions to charity. Each case is different and if you are a great person all around you can have a few flaws of character and still be doing good for society. But I am not looking into individual people, I am looking at attitudes and choices in a vacuum to determine which attitudes are worth promoting and which ones are worth dissuading.

The spinster would be an even greater contributor to society if she had children to ensure a future for her people, carry on her legacy and continue to do her good work. The family man would be a better member of society if he didn't engage in crime. It would be weird to conclude that engaging in crime is not so bad because criminals do other things that are good for society sometimes.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

I find the consenting adults argument very difficult to argue against. But, and lots of people have already said this, there are other family members to consider, especially underage children. The very basic rule of when the state can intervene and remove children from a home is based on if a child is being harmed in any way. It would be a big shift in the mindset of the public to come to an understanding that having incestuous relationships on their family was not harmful to any minors in the family unit.

On a completely different note, I was thinking maybe we need things to be taboo or something to be taboo and seems like so little is taboo anymore. I don't know if I really think that personally but just as a way to explain or understand the place of "the taboo" in our world.

I like the scientific argument, that inbreeding is bad for the health of future generations seems like that should be a nice rational explanation but there is a visceral reaction that a lot of people have, which I guess someone was saying that is built into our makeup as a way to prevent inbreeding. So some people override that negative reaction to incest for various reasons. This makes sense to me, but still I want to know why do we need laws to enforce this?

I think you nailed it. Some things need to be Taboo, incest is absolutely one of those things. Polynesian culture is big on taboos when I first moved to Hawaii many of the taboos seemed crazy and some still are clearly just used as a way to keep the peons down e.g. the death penalty for using the royal (Ali) beaches. But as learned more about their culture most of their taboos (e.g. fishing techniques that prevented overfishing) benefitted society as whole.

There have been hundreds maybe thousands of civilizations and across thousands of year, one of the very few things that virtually all societies share is an incest taboo. While what qualifies as incest various widely the parent/children sex taboo is as close to universal as anything that existing in humanity

Why is there a taboo? I think the thread covers many of the reasons, inbreeding, a potential for abuse, impact on the family. But I suspect there are dozens of reasons we haven't thought of because none of is a tribal chief, duke, mayor, police chief or a person with a responsibility to maintain social order.
In order to believe that this incestual relationship is ok, you need to believe that this couple is smarter and wiser than the collective wisdom of billions of people across millenniums and there should never have been an incest taboo. Or you need to believe that the world has changed so much that we should examine that taboo. The couples "because we love each" other just doesn't cut it as reason to change the law

Society establishes laws and taboos, because in the immortal words of Mr. Spock. "Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

In theory, the consensual sex that doesn't hurt anybody should be ok, make sense, in practice it doesn't. Unless you live as a hermit with no internet, you're part of a society and almost all of your actions and inactions have a ripple effect on others. Anybody who's been in a relationship and has cheated on or been cheated by your significant other knows that "consensual sex between two adults" has often caused great harm to others. Generally, "I should be able to do anything I want if doesn't hurt anybody, is an awful criteria for establishing laws, because the criteria "hurt anybody" is almost always defined much too narrowly.

For this couple, at a minimum, the ripple effects will be a tidal wave for her other children. Yesterday, Caleb was my brother or 1/2 brother and today he is my dad, wtf. How will the younger children be treated in school? Legally, Monica estate passes to Caleb instead of being divided among the children. He gets the final say on my Monica's healthcare. In the future, having broken the taboo on child/parent sex, it's not much of the stretch to think that Caleb will decide that its ok to have sex with his "daughter/sisters". If they have children when mom is over 50 and their daughter is hot 15 year old, then incest becomes a game the whole family can play. I could go on talking about the ripple effects of the neighbors.

But if you want to see the devastating effects of impact on society of incest. All you have to do is watch Game of Thrones, the people of Westeros have been traumatized by a massive civil war, in no small part because Jamie and Cersei Lannister couldn't stop fucking each other. Their inbreed offspring were spectacularly bad rulers. Yes, I know its fiction. but the trauma their relationship caused the Lannister family is probably no different than it would cause a family of today.

The couple belongs in jail for the simple reason, they have broken a serious law. One of the ways society, ensure compliance with laws is to punish those who break them. There are lots of reason for this but to deter future law breakers is a perfectly good one.

 

[Ms_Diane]

To adress something a few of you said, I think maybe I didnt explain the purpose of the "simulation" well enough, so I am going to give a try at explaining it..

Those who are on the side of ever expanding social freedoms such as progressives and libertarians often invoke the principle of harm when explaining why something should or shouldnt be allowed. The problem with that perspective is they only relate "harm" to "aggression" or "violence", meaning: to what one individual person can do to another individual person. According to this view something like physical assault should be banned because you are harming another, robbery and fraud should also be banned, but drug use should be allowed because by injecting heroin into your forearm isnt hurting anyone else, so you should be free to consume anything you want. Why should the State have a say in what happens to your body? Same thing with honosexuality. Since homosexuality doesnt hurt any individual directly, there is no reason to ban it or regulate it. So on and so on.

So I spent the first couple of pages pointing out how contradictory it is for progressives and libertarians to defend homosexuality and not defend incest when incest is also perfectly compatible with the "no harm" worldview. Some people, those who understand their ideology so defend incest for this very reason, others got pissed off at me for requesting people to have some consistency in their posts. But I was trying to explain how homosexuality got involved into this discussion and in what dimension I am comparing the two.

After explaining why it is contradictory from a progressive stance to support homosexuality and reject incest, I decided to explain my point of view: why the "violence" or "harm" perspective is insufficient when deciding what to allow or promote and what to discourage or ban.

So the "simulation" example I gave you was a way to show, or to explain, that while an attitude might not be hurting another individual it can be harming society as a whole. The damage is hidden because it is distributed along all of society so the impact is not so readily seen. Many societies are strong enough to carry the dead weight of a few people engaging in harmful behaviors, but they are always weaker for it and if the attitude spreads to a sufficient number of people it can cause a breakdown. Evidently not every person in society will wake up gay one morning or engage in incest or drug use at the same time, but it is not necessary for everyone to do it in order for it to become a problem.

Another example of this: group tasks in college. There are often papers or projects that you need to do with a group of people. Usually there will be a slacker or two and the rest of the group picks up the slack, so if its a 12 people group the fact that 1 or 2 decided not to show up or do their part is hardly noticeable. What if it was a 5 people group? The 2 slackers would make the 3 working members feel a greater load and possibly earn a lower grade because the quality wasnt as good as it should have been. What if this is a 2 people group? The activity doesnt get done. So, in this case we can all identify that the slackers are harming the rest of the group (it is person vs person type of harm) but it is another way to understand my simulation example. We should be discouraging laziness within the group and encouraging initiative and motivation if we want to succeed.

So, incest, homosexuality, drug use, "childfree" couples are all drags on society. Even though they dont harm another person directly they do harm society as a whole, which is why in my opinion these attitudes should be discouraged and healthy ones should be promoted in education and media.

@Kitsune I am going to drop a truth bomb. Being gay does not harm society in any way. It may not be how you would like it to be, but let me put it a way you often like to look at things, with facts. Gay people are a fact. They exist and it is not their fault nor is it a choice. It is a natural way of being, though it may not be a natural way of being for you. Gay people have been around for as long as straight people have been around. Society made some rules a long long time ago that punished people for being gay and made it harder for them to be open about it. This is what you are saying you would like our society to be like when you talk about gay people the way you do. They do no damage to society. "Contributing to society" has nothing to do with it. Harm has nothing to do with it. Just like some people are right handed or do not like the taste of cilantro, some people are gay. Here is some science if you need some help with this concept.

What is much more interesting than arguing about homophobia, is how to decipher the power dynamics in family relationships and how they impact romantic feelings and sexual desires. I think a lot of the psychological science would say that familial relationships do have power inequalities. This is something to consider, however, the presence of power inequality does not necessarily mean two people can't have a healthy relationship, but it might be the most complicated thing about an incestuous relationship. That and peeling back the layers of values, morals and taboo that incest has been shrouded in by society.

 

[Mila_]

@Kitsune I am going to drop a truth bomb. Being gay does not harm society in any way. It may not be how you would like it to be, but let me put it a way you often like to look at things, with facts. Gay people are a fact. They exist and it is not their fault nor is it a choice. It is a natural way of being, though it may not be a natural way of being for you. Gay people have been around for as long as straight people have been around. Society made some rules a long long time ago that punished people for being gay and made it harder for them to be open about it. This is what you are saying you would like our society to be like when you talk about gay people the way you do. They do no damage to society. "Contributing to society" has nothing to do with it. Harm has nothing to do with it. Just like some people are right handed or do not like the taste of cilantro, some people are gay. Here is some science if you need some help with this concept.

What is much more interesting than arguing about homophobia, is how to decipher the power dynamics in family relationships and how they impact romantic feelings and sexual desires. I think a lot of the psychological science would say that familial relationships do have power inequalities. This is something to consider, however, the presence of power inequality does not necessarily mean two people can't have a healthy relationship, but it might be the most complicated thing about an incestuous relationship. That and peeling back the layers of values, morals and taboo that incest has been shrouded in by society.

There is no consensus on the cause of homosexuality. We don't know yet whether you are "born that way" or you acquire it through your relationship with your mother, or if it is an attitude you can acquire later on in life. But I am going to go along with you for the sake of the argument and assume that gay people are born that way in 100% of the cases.

So, assuming that all of what you said is true... does it matter? Does it make a difference? Is something less harmful just because you didn't choose it or you were born that way? This is similar to the argument that weed isn't bad for you because it is "natural" well yeah, so is cyanide.

I am shortsighted, I have 3.75 myopia in one eye and 3.5 in the other. I was born myopic, I didn't choose it. Is it "good" for me being myopic? No. Is it good for society that I am myopic? It would be better for society if I had perfect eyesight. I wouldn't cause a line behind me at the register when I go for fast food and forget to wear my glasses. Being myopic could even be a potential danger for others if I am irresponsible and drive without glasses (I have seen some people do this). We even have laws to reflect this.. you cannot be a pilot if you don't have perfect eyesight and I don't think this is discriminating or horrible, it is sensible and there is a reason for this to be.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

Please keep in mind I am not talking about particular cases here or individual people. I am talking in abstract terms and isolating the variable of children: all things being equal a heterosexual family man contributes to the future of society and a childless spinster or a homosexual does not.

Evidently each case is different and if we were looking at individual cases there could be a family man who is also part of organized crime and engages in fraud and racketeering or a spinster who has no kids but volunteers every day to their local orphanage and donates millions to charity. Each case is different and if you are a great person all around you can have a few flaws of character and still be doing good for society. But I am not looking into individual people, I am looking at attitudes and choices in a vacuum to determine which attitudes are worth promoting and which ones are worth dissuading.

The spinster would be an even greater contributor to society if she had children to ensure a future for her people, carry on her legacy and continue to do her good work. The family man would be a better member of society if he didn't engage in crime. It would be weird to conclude that engaging in crime is not so bad because criminals do other things that are good for society sometimes.

I see. This is all well and good, as long as you believe the encouragement/discouragement based on abstractions that you mentioned should also take place in this vacuum in your mind.

 

[Ms_Diane]

There is no consensus on the cause of homosexuality. We don't know yet whether you are "born that way" or you acquire it through your relationship with your mother, or if it is an attitude you can acquire later on in life. But I am going to go along with you for the sake of the argument and assume that gay people are born that way in 100% of the cases.

So, assuming that all of what you said is true... does it matter? Does it make a difference? Is something less harmful just because you didn't choose it or you were born that way? This is similar to the argument that weed isn't bad for you because it is "natural" well yeah, so is cyanide.

I am shortsighted, I have 3.75 myopia in one eye and 3.5 in the other. I was born myopic, I didn't choose it. Is it "good" for me being myopic? No. Is it good for society that I am myopic? It would be better for society if I had perfect eyesight. I wouldn't cause a line behind me at the register when I go for fast food and forget to wear my glasses. Being myopic could even be a potential danger for others if I am irresponsible and drive without glasses (I have seen some people do this). We even have laws to reflect this.. you cannot be a pilot if you don't have perfect eyesight and I don't think this is discriminating or horrible, it is sensible and there is a reason for this to be.

You seem to be looking at being gay like it is a disability or a defect, like poor eyesight. It is not. It is just different, like having brown hair, for example, and the other examples I used before, which apparently were not clear enough. It is neutral. I am not saying that gay people are ok because they don't hurt anyone. It is not about harm in any way AT ALL. You are the one that keeps bringing up harm. I am trying to explain to you why that has nothing to do with it. Your analogies are redundant and stem from ancient misconceptions that are based on societal constructs and align with your values. I am not arguing that natural = good. I am saying that being straight is not better or worse than being gay and really you should just get over it. Here is some more science.

 

[SexySteph]

So, incest, homosexuality, drug use, "childfree" couples are all drags on society. Even though they dont harm another person directly they do harm society as a whole, which is why in my opinion these attitudes should be discouraged and healthy ones should be promoted in education and media.

In your example you describe how these things would affect society through the "if everyone did it" but if that's the barometer we use then a whole lot of things should be discouraged. If everyone decided to reproduce and have 3 children society wouldn't be able to handle that load forever, so having more than 2 children is just as much of a drag on society as homosexuals and being "child free", so should we perhaps curb that behavior as well? Being a doctor is okay in moderation but if suddenly everyone decided to be a doctor then society would cease to function, who would be our construction workers, engineers, grocers? You see how your way of explaining how homosexuality being detrimental to society is flawed? If everyone in a culture decided to do anything there would probably issues created for that culture. That's really not an effective way to prove that we should try to curb homosexuality in our society.

It's okay that there are homosexuals, bisexuals, etc. In some tribal cultures they were actually considered useful as they didn't leave their family group to join a wife's family group, or procreate themselves, so they would help assist in raising the children in their family of origin.

 

[Mila_]

If everyone decided to reproduce and have 3 children society wouldn't be able to handle that load forever, so having more than 2 children is just as much of a drag on society as homosexuals and being "child free", so should we perhaps curb that behavior as well?

Having 3 or more children is what makes population grow and society thrives because of it. A population pyramid where the base is the widest and it tapers at the top is what we should be aiming for because new generations help pay for the retirement and social benefits of older generations. On top of that a society in expansion produces economic wealth. Look at the positive economic impact the baby boom generation had on their prime and how everyone fears what will happen once they start to retire from the work force. This is actually the excuse the left is using to promote mass immigration into Europe: since the fertility rate is so dismal and we aren't having enough kids, we "need" to use immigrants to sustain society and pay for social benefits. So if everyone had 3 or more kids, society would be more likely to thrive.

Being a doctor is okay in moderation but if suddenly everyone decided to be a doctor then society would cease to function, who would be our construction workers, engineers, grocers? You see how your way of explaining how homosexuality being detrimental to society is flawed? If everyone in a culture decided to do anything there would probably issues created for that culture. That's really not an effective way to prove that we should try to curb homosexuality in our society.

The problems for society with your example would not come about because too many people are doctors. They would come about because they would lack other professions. So the problem isn't being a doctor. The problem is lack of professional diversity so a diverse professional offer is something we definitely should promote. I will use another example to drive the point home. What would happen if every person in society becomes a junkie? What would happen is the total breakdown of society, it would be a public health disaster, nothing would get done, there would be rampant crime, etc. So it should be banned.

 

[SexySteph]

The problems for society with your example would not come about because too many people are doctors. They would come about because they would lack other professions. So the problem isn't being a doctor. The problem is lack of professional diversity so a diverse professional offer is something we definitely should promote.

Well then, in your original example of everyone being homosexual, it seems that homosexuality is not the problem, but instead the problem is the lack of diversity in sexualities. If we simply had some straight people and some gay people, there wouldn't be a problem. So, just like exists currently, we should act like both homosexuality and heterosexuality is normal and okay. Just like in my example of doctors, we just simply need more diversity, right?

Or does the "diversity of X" argument only work in situations that shows that your hypothetical "everyone does it" thought experiment is flawed?

 

[Ms_Diane]

In order to believe that this incestual relationship is ok, you need to believe that this couple is smarter and wiser than the collective wisdom of billions of people across millenniums and there should never have been an incest taboo.

The way put this makes sense to me, as part of why it is hard to wrap my head around incest. I wonder if there are any societies where it is not so taboo. It is certainly interesting to think about why we have taboos in the first place and their role in society.

For this couple, at a minimum, the ripple effects will be a tidal wave for her other children. Yesterday, Caleb was my brother or 1/2 brother and today he is my dad, wtf. How will the younger children be treated in school? Legally, Monica estate passes to Caleb instead of being divided among the children. He gets the final say on my Monica's healthcare. In the future, having broken the taboo on child/parent sex, it's not much of the stretch to think that Caleb will decide that its ok to have sex with his "daughter/sisters". If they have children when mom is over 50 and their daughter is hot 15 year old, then incest becomes a game the whole family can play. I could go on talking about the ripple effects of the neighbors.

But if you want to see the devastating effects of impact on society of incest. All you have to do is watch Game of Thrones, the people of Westeros have been traumatized by a massive civil war, in no small part because Jamie and Cersei Lannister couldn't stop fucking each other. Their inbreed offspring were spectacularly bad rulers. Yes, I know its fiction. but the trauma their relationship caused the Lannister family is probably no different than it would cause a family of today.

The couple belongs in jail for the simple reason, they have broken a serious law. One of the ways society, ensure compliance with laws is to punish those who break them. There are lots of reason for this but to deter future law breakers is a perfectly good one.

I think these ripple effects are based more on the society's reaction to incest being taboo and how that would impact the children. So if society didn't have this taboo then no one would get treated differently at school, and maybe people would look at the, "this is my dad/brother" thing as another kind of blended family. Also, if it wasn't illegal, then perhaps some amendments would be need to help with how estates laws, end of life and health care consent is sorted out if a family had a person in it who was both a dad and a brother or a mother and a sister. That seems like a thing that would help those situations. But estates can be brutal no matter what the laws are. I have been trying to have my father's estate settled since this past November and it's been a nightmare because my dad's widow is being uncooperative. No matter how you slice it (pun intended) it stinks.

One other thing you said, about incest being a "game the whole family can play." I mean, I guess it's something to consider, that multiple relationships within a family might occur if it wasn't illegal, and that certainly sounds messy and has the potential for a lot of heartache, but minors would still be minors. If an adult is into any 15 year old, that's an issue. Maybe having an older age of consent for familial sexual relationships could a way to address how complicated that could get. I dunno, it's quite a lot to chew on!

 

[Mila_]

Well then, in your original example of everyone being homosexual, it seems that homosexuality is not the problem, but instead the problem is the lack of diversity in sexualities. If we simply had some straight people and some gay people, there wouldn't be a problem. So, just like exists currently, we should act like both homosexuality and heterosexuality is normal and okay. Just like in my example of doctors, we just simply need more diversity, right?

Or does the "diversity of X" argument only work in situations that shows that your hypothetical "everyone does it" thought experiment is flawed?

No, the problem in my example is not of diversity, but of the fact that gay people cannot procreate. So diversity has nothing to do with it. If 10% of society is gay, to give a random figure, then that is 10% less couples having kids. Considering a society needs a 2.3 fertility rate in order to break even and not age or shrink (2.3 kids per couple). For each homosexual couple out there having no kids, you need an hetero couple willing to birth 4.6 kids in order to break even. If we add to this the fact that there are other reasons not to procreate other than sexual orientation, for example, millenial women wanting to go childfree or have only 1 kid per couple, you start to see how the trend becomes a problem for society.

The opposite simulation could also be performed in case you still have doubts. What would happen in a society if nobody does a certain thing. What would happen if nobody becomes a doctor? People would die of sickness easily, the life expectancy would drop, diseases would become epidemic, and shit would be pretty bad. So a certain number of doctors is a positive thing to have in your society. Perhaps after the doctor profession is saturated having more doctors would be redundant, especially if it is done in detriment of other professions. But surely, having doctors is a good thing for society. Now what would happen if nobody was gay? Nothing would happen. Perhaps we would have more families rearing children. So that would be a positive thing, but maybe they would choose to go childfree so it is not certain.

 

[LuckySmiles]

I can see this from both sides. I think the disconnect people are having is they are comparing encouragement to intolerance when they should be comparing encouragement to discouragement.

For me it's easiest to think about in terms of raising children. If you had a gay teenage child, you would not, and should not be intolerant of their sexuality. But if you had a younger child doing normal “kid things” that might push norms, you also maybe shouldn't outright encourage them to question their sexuality/gender/etc from an early age.

For example, think of a grown man with sisters who liked to dress him up in girly clothes and makeup when he was very small. The young boy has fun because it IS fun, it's silly and playing dress up and having fun with siblings that may otherwise leave him out of things sometimes. 30 years ago, people would recognize this as “kids being kids.”In today's society it seems there are some, that would see this as questioning your own gender etc. Rather than ignoring it as a silly kid thing. Encouraging it has the potential to do harm as well. That kid could grow up now thinking “maybe I'm really a girl, maybe I was born in the wrong body” instead of a dude whose sisters dressed him up a few times. But maybe he continues with a train of thought if it gets encouraged by people and cultural things around him until he wakes up one day at 45 and realizes “no... I just liked playing dress up and having fun with my sisters.” That would be a very traumatic realization. It's very important to let people make up their own minds on these sort of things than offering too much influence or encouragement. Especially when being gay or transgender, if proven 100% biological, is still a statistical rarity. So encouragement can still lean more towards the norm, while remaining tolerant for all differences.

I think people mistakenly or excessively questioning themselves, is where others concern comes from when talking about "normalizing" certain things in schools, culture, etc.

The comparison in this way is similar to incest, but only slightly. If there is a child saying, “I think I have a crush on my sister/mother/relative..” you would either immediately ignore it. Or have to go further to enforce that it's inappropriate if you had a fear of the adult. You wouldn't and shouldn't want to encourage that kind of behavior. But if you find out a 20 year old is in love with their parent, you can be tolerant of them in the sense that, you do not treat them poorly because of it, without actively encouraging or normalizing the behavior.

That said, I don't think anybody in this thread has been preaching intolerance and it's pretty unfair to spin it that way.