Is incest really that bad?

But how could you feel any sexual attraction to your siblings? 🤢

Reply 2

curtains_s

OP

6

Original post by Chopinnocturne31

But how could you feel any sexual attraction to your siblings? 🤢

In the same way you can with anyone else. They don't choose to feel that way. What makes it gross?

Reply 3

Original post by curtains_s

In the same way you can with anyone else. They don't choose to feel that way. What makes it gross?

Literally everything about it makes it gross. So you could feel a sexual attraction to your parents too? 🤢

Reply 4

curtains_s

OP

6

Original post by Chopinnocturne31

Literally everything about it makes it gross. So you could feel a sexual attraction to your parents too? 🤢

Anyone can be attracted to anyone. It's gross if the son/daughter is underage, yeah. And it's not purely sexual. I don't get why people always see incest as just relatives banging. Couples who are in love and happen to be related exist. They can experience true love, too.

People thought the same thing about gay people not too long ago. They thought that gay relationships were gross, but now things are different. What if we are just being as close-minded as them? And what make it gross?

Reply 5

Ok, that’s enough TSR for today 🤢

Reply 6

curtains_s

OP

6

Original post by Chopinnocturne31

Ok, that’s enough TSR for today 🤢

why are you in the debate section if you're not even going to explain your side

Reply 7

Original post by curtains_s

why are you in the debate section if you're not even going to explain your side

I wasn’t. It came up on my feed. If you want me to explain, I just don’t think it’s right for family members to be having sex. Family relationships are designed to be different from sexual relationships. And just because you don’t have to have children naturally, it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t accidentally get pregnant.

Reply 8

Nabu123

11

Which service do we call to help u

Reply 9

Original post by curtains_s

When people in an incestuous relationship make kids, their kids are more likely to suffer from genetic disorders. However, they could just not make kids together. There are sperm donors out there who can help them have healthier children, they could adopt, or they could just not have kids at all.

If they don't make kids together, there isn't really a problem with their relationship. If they are in love, what's wrong with that? Their relationship has no impact on anyone else, as it's nothing to do with them.

The only real issue with incest is that the kids they make could suffer, but there's still a way around that, so what's wrong with incest?

You're approaching this issue with the assumption hat social taboos like this are based on a set of consistent logical and rational principles. In reality they're based on social convention more than anything else.

When people say that incest is wrong, it's probably not because of any particular negative consequences associated with it. The reason it is wrong is because of things like the "yuck factor" and the "emperor's new clothes effect" (i.e. fear of being shamed for expressing a view which is deviant from the norm) due to the fact that it contravenes long established historical tradition. The health risk to offspring probably played a part in the original formation of that historical tradition. But when people cite this today as a reason why incest is wrong, it is actually just being retrofitted to an opinion which has already been formed.

If you remove the ability to have children (as you have in your example), people will still express the view that incest is wrong, but they often won't be able to come up with a coherent, objective reason as to why they think that. In fact research shows that people don't actually know why they believe half the things they believe. People like to consider themselves to be independent, rational thinkers, but in reality their minds form most opinions unconsciously as a social strategy (either to fit in or to stand out, depending on the person and the context). It feels unnatural for a person to acknowledge that their own views are formed that way, given that they're not conscious of it.

Several decades ago, the same arguments presented against childless incest now would have also been presented against homosexual relationships. If you go even further back, the same arguments would have been presented against interracial relationships too. But in both these cases, certain groups of people have worked very hard to change the social convention, remove the taboos and the "yuck factor" and establish an "emperor's new clothes" effect in the opposite direction. For the most part they have been successful, so Western society now considers both of these types of relationships to be acceptable, by and large. Nobody has really done this for incest yet, but you never know how the social tides will turn in the future.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 10

Ascend

13

Original post by tazarooni89

it is actually just being retrofitted to an opinion which has already been formed

Dear chap, for someone so competent in logical reasoning, how do you not see this being the case with your own religious beliefs? :tongue:

Reply 11

Picnic1

19

Incest is seen as an abuse of being in a favourable position. If person x has depended on person y since birth for a roof over their head, food, clothing, even to have their bottom wiped, there's a sense that, even if person y waits until person x is of a legal age, x is still getting a kick out of having sex with someone who they first saw naked as a baby/young girl and whose very identity was moulded by them. It's frowned upon and, whilst many legal things should be frowned upon, it's clear why incest remains frowned upon and illegal. It looks like retrospective grooming.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 12

Original post by Ascend

Dear chap, for someone so competent in logical reasoning, how do you not see this being the case with your own religious beliefs? :tongue:

Indeed I've had to consider the possibility. The problem is, even for those who have a different set of beliefs (including atheism), the same could apply just as easily. We're all human with the same imperfection - that we're influenced by motives besides pure logical fact-finding, many of which we're not even consciously aware of. It's quite obvious that certain environmental conditions correlate with a person turning out to be religious, and other environmental conditions correlate with a person turning out not to be. But the fact remains that some things are true and some things aren't. And in distinguishing between the two, the best anyone can do is their best.

Reply 13

Foxehh

Society as a whole has agreed that its wrong, therefor its wrong. Theres not much more to it than that.

Reply 14

Original post by LovelyMrFox

Society as a whole has agreed that its wrong, therefor its wrong. Theres not much more to it than that.

Do you always agree with what society as a whole says?

Reply 15

Original post by LovelyMrFox

Society as a whole has agreed that its wrong, therefor its wrong. Theres not much more to it than that.

Do you always agree with what society as a whole says?

Reply 16

QE2

Original post by curtains_s

When people in an incestuous relationship make kids, their kids are more likely to suffer from genetic disorders. However, they could just not make kids together. There are sperm donors out there who can help them have healthier children, they could adopt, or they could just not have kids at all.

If they don't make kids together, there isn't really a problem with their relationship. If they are in love, what's wrong with that? Their relationship has no impact on anyone else, as it's nothing to do with them.

The only real issue with incest is that the kids they make could suffer, but there's still a way around that, so what's wrong with incest?

Incest is not really any different to any other type of sex. There are circumstances where it does no harm and there are circumstances where it can cause considerable harm.
As a society we have developed an emotional response to incest that does not necessarily fit the practical reality of it.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 17

QE2

Original post by Chopinnocturne31

But how could you feel any sexual attraction to your siblings? 🤢

Some people do. There is no denying that. And if they do, and any subsequent physical relationship is fully informed, adult, consensual and conception is not possible - what is objectively wrong with it?
Yes, I know that we have a common emotional response to it. Even I find it somewhat distasteful, despite the argument above - but in a hypothetical society where such relationships have always been acceptable, how would you argue for its prohibition?

Reply 18

Foxehh