Incest is a "fundamental right" says German Ethics Council

[Hans Gruber]

(Interestingly, human psychology can be fooled: full siblings that weren’t reared together experience no disgust. Adopted children that were reared together experience disgust. Our psychology can’t “smell out” genes, it just remembers who we were reared with. I find these things really interesting.)

This doesn’t make any of these views ethically correct. (That would be the naturalistic fallacy.)

I'm not sure that's always true-I'd sleep with my step sister in a heartbeat.

[rozemarijn]

In Belgium incest is no criminal offence, you cannot marry but you would not get in jail for it.

I think, except for age and permission matters, the less criminalization of privacy matters the better.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Incest that doesn't produce children is not morally wrong*. Disgusting to most people, yes, but I don't think our laws should be based on taste.

*Obviously accidents happen, and making it legal could increase the numbers of deformed children born.

[Sci-2]

The problem with incest is that it encourages predatory relationships wherein an older sibling can condition a younger sibling.

Polygamy has a similar problem with retrograde cultural notions guiding the male-female ratio.

The argument against homosexuality is based on nothing but superstitious buffoonery, whereas there are legitimate reasons to be hesitant about the above.

[messem]

And you don't think such relationships being illegal have played a role in this?

Of course not. It's the same reason why legalizing homosexuality hasn't created a gay generation. People are just not into it.

Incest is legal in France since 300 years. Have you ever heard of great brother-sister french fuck fest? Me neither.

[Seli]

Incest that doesn't produce children is not morally wrong*. Disgusting to most people, yes, but I don't think our laws should be based on taste.

*Obviously accidents happen, and making it legal could increase the numbers of deformed children born.

Since we don't legislate other risk factors for birth defects and genetic diseases this way... nope we should not discriminate on that ground.

[Happy Ent]

I'm not sure that's always true-I'd sleep with my step sister in a heartbeat.

Of course it’s not always true, just like all men aren’t grossed out by homosexuality.

[maarsen]

Incest is not so much a taboo across cultures but a way for a culture to preserve itself. Consider cross-cousins and parallel cousins. Some societies would have no issues at all and would think it rather strange for cross-cousins to be banned from boinking each other, while being aghast if parallel cousins did the same. Until the advent of gene theory, incest depended on how close the relationship is culturally, not in reality. If you believe that all of a child's inheritance came from the pater, pater's family was off limits, while mater's blood relatives were fair game.

Inheritance is the key here as marrying close relatives was and is a way to keep accumulated wealth in the family. There was a reason many wealthy families still have a tendency to have cousins marry each other. . However, societies that do not have an efficient way of distributing wealth end up being dysfunctional and do not last in the long term. Incest concentrates wealth, which causes cultures to fail, and thus incest becomes taboo. Survival of the fittest strikes again.

[theprincethatwasntpromised]

Anyone that's OK with incest, is probably a product of incest

[messem]

Anyone that's OK with incest, is probably a product of incest

By that logic: Anyone who is OK with homosexuality sucks dicks.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The universal incest taboo is mother and son. Father-daughter and brother-sister have existed in some odd situations.

That said, the major reason against incest isn't an issue of deformed children. It's that the family relationship makes proving consent a fraught process, because of an innate power differential (most incest cases are not adult brother-sister, they're normally intergenerational and loaded with coercive behaviour).

Mind you, if you want an illustration of the deformity side of things, there's this poor guy, whose genome was more homozygous than if his parents had been brother and sister:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain

"The physician who practiced his autopsy stated that his body "did not contain a single drop of blood; his heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water."

[Talleyrand]

Germany you kinky bastard

[Horza]

Don't do it, it will allow you to unite holdings that otherwise would fall out of family ownership but the risk of saddling your dynasty with a -8 to all attributes heir is too great.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Worked pretty well for the Habsburgs.

[Horza]

Well, up to a point.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Every family has its black sheep.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Every family has its black sheep.

Not every family has its black testicle though.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Not every family has its black testicle though.

:lol:

[Born Yesterday]

Marginally related, but there's an Italian proverb/saying that goes "With your second (female) cousin, it's acceptable. With your first cousin, it's obligatory!"

[Greywolf2375]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-ethics-council-calls-for-incest-between-siblings-to-be-legalised-by-government-9753506.html

Yowza. gonna see more joffreys being born methinks

Poor parenting is a different thread.