You’re kind of right - I think society gets worked up about it in the wrong way, relying on shame to prevent incest, rather than logic.
spoiler
The One reason it’s not that common is that siblings smell gross and feel gross to have sex with. Most siblings, if they actually tried to initiate sex, would back down very quickly because of those biological inhibitors.
One reason that incest is wrong is because it usually manifests as abuse. One participant will be older or stronger than the other. As another commenter said, you can never rule that out, and anyone who finds out bout an incestuous relationship will assume it’s abusive
Then the big no-no is inbreeding. You might not produce a child from one instance of intercourse, but it’s unethical because you’d be inflicting a fucked set of genetics onto that hypothetical child.
But as weird as it is to say, nowadays you could theoretically practice safe incestuous sexual activity. But then there’s the remaining problem that “you’ll get attached,” and I do think the threat of permanently changing your relationship with one another, making things awkward, is very real.
Another remaining problem is that I still see it as A) a response to loneliness, where two relatives who haven’t managed to encounter many mates will resort to each other, or B) a sort of sex addiction, arising if two similar aged relatives used it as a form of sexual experimentation
it_depends_man@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There are three reasons against incest:
ZeldaFreak@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Genetics and health issues aren’t a big topic now, because of disabilities caused by genes. If your jurisdiction allows for example people with down syndrome to reproduce, you can’t argue about genetic defects by incest, as they are less likely/server. Here politicians did switch their argumentation towards protecting the family, which makes sense but only when they grew up as family. The problem is when siblings didn’t know each other, when they grew up, later fell in love and only then find out they are blood relatives, they legally can’t reproduce. You can’t argue with protecting the family, because they never where family. They don’t see them as brother and sister.
In Germany there is a group who is fighting to legalize it. About consenting, there is a different law in Germany, which protects that. In Germany for the age of consent, we have 3 categories (14, 16 and 18). The one that matters in this context is everything under 18. If one partner is under 18, you can’t fuck them, if you have a specific relation like teacher, family member, guardian. Also this only applies to consent. Rape is still rape.
But to be fair, a lot changed recently and being against incest “just recently” (still over 10 years) weakened their arguments. They don’t reevaluate everything that gets affected by court decisions or law changes, if now something else got weakened in their arguments. Consenting incest not between guardians, aren’t that many. It needs a group to collect facts and arguments and then need to present them but that doesn’t even guarantee politicians to act
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
They’re adults. That’s all you need to know.
Also, not condoning grooming or whatever.
Signtist@bookwyr.me 2 weeks ago
Sure, people can just be that weird, and maybe most instances are, but any time you’re dealing with a situation where someone is having sex with a person who knew and had influence over them during childhood, it’s difficult to say they didn’t push a little too much to end up at this result.
It’s like a young adult dating an old friend of their parents; most people’s minds immediately go to that one time 10 years ago where they both disappeared for an hour in the middle of a barbecue and got kinda defensive about it afterward…
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
I must reiterate, I am not advocating for incest. When someone says “you can never be really sure that they are freely consenting”, my reaction is astonishment. Who is that person to judge what any of that means?
Red_October@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
You’re really implying a considerable age difference here though, and that’s not really implied in either the original fake story or the hypothetical posed here. It’s not like dating an old friend of their parents, it’s more like dating their childhood best friend.
Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
I want you to ask yourself something.
“What is my point? Why am I arguing in favor of this?”
I don’t know your answer to the question and I assume your current opinion is not one that you thought a lot about. It is just a spontaneous thought.
I think that because I am wondering when I read your comment, why is defending the right to have incest for some “fucking weird” people when you were just made aware of the danger of grooming, especially in that context?
Soulg@ani.social 2 weeks ago
I don’t really agree with him but I do not think they’re arguing in favor of it, just going “meh adults who cares go ahead”. I’m favor who be like, no it’s good actually
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
I was initially responding to
I am in no way arguing for incest. I am not arguing for mistreatment of anyone. Or that it’s appropriate to misconstrue the facts to hide “family secrets”. I am well aware of the dangers of grooming. If you want to go into people’s homes to see if adults are behaving themselves sexually, then you also are deranged.
Agent641@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
What about twins?
yakko@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Twins are creepy when when they’re not fucking each other