Mother and son in New Mexico face jail time for incestuous relationship

[Thumpalumpacus]

Can you support this with hard data in the form of numbers? If you're going to say "far more likely", I'd like to see percentages, myself.

I was scanning some studies and for it to be a real problem you need a sizable population to be engaged in inbreeding, not just individuals. It could be a justification of that law, it's not hard to imagine a religious community that maintains inbreeding as a practice, considering all the small Christian (and other) cults that have had strange sexual practices in the US. A group of 100 starts inbreeding legally on a religious basis, and you are going to have children with defects. Without an inbreeding law, such communities would be legal. I don't think the legality of inbreeding real has much of an effect on people who want to fuck their siblings, parents or children on an individual level anyway.

No doubt -- laws aren't preventative, they're punitive. And I think you and I would agree that even if such a law did prevent these things, it still isn't the government's place to regulate this sort of thing; as others have pointed out, the gov't doesn't regulate other unions likely to produce birth defects.

But -- when I see the term "far more likely", I like to calibrate that judgement for myself. I know the logo behind the argument, but I want to see data that supports it.

[paulpablo]

It's wrong because you're never supposed to have sex with your own children no matter what age they are.

You're supposed to raise them in a loving but none sexual way even when it's no longer a matter of it being paedophilia.

This is just my own moral outlook, I'm not arguing any legal consistencies.

I see it as a breech of trust and failed parenting on the biological parents behalf.

I get that. But it is still just the "eww" argument, restated in dignified language.

I don't see how my argument only amounts to reactionary disgust.

I was talking about family values between parents and the people they gave birth to, disgust has nothing to do with it.

For all I know this woman could have been really good looking and the sex could have looked like something from a great porn film, not disgusting at all, but despite this I think that it's more than likely this kind of sexual relationship is a result of failed parenting somewhere along the line.

[Losty]

My view regarding incest is, I don't care about it as long as its between adults and they don't have kids.

'Cause yuk and ew is not an argument. It's a reaction. And we don't run society on those.

It's wrong because you're never supposed to have sex with your own children no matter what age they are.

You're supposed to raise them in a loving but none sexual way even when it's no longer a matter of it being paedophilia.

This is just my own moral outlook, I'm not arguing any legal consistencies.

I see it as a breech of trust and failed parenting on the biological parents behalf.

In this specific case the woman gave her son up for adoption. She didn't raise him nor did he know her as a mother.

[abaris]

In this specific case the woman gave her son up for adoption. She didn't raise him nor did he know her as a mother.

Reality meeting fiction. Pretty much the classic story of Oedipos, thankfully without killing the father.

[Losty]

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I would argue that, even with the general principle that two consenting adults should normally be allowed to engage in whatever behavior they want, laws against same-household parent/child incest are important even if they extend beyond the child's age of majority.  This is because a parent (or aunt/uncle, or teacher, or coach, but especially a parent) is in a relationship of extreme influence and control over the child from a young age, and could certainly use that influence to "groom" or otherwise entice the child to desire to engage in a sexual relationship, even if it doesn't actually start until 18.

This is the same sort of principle behind laws in many states that set certain general ages for sexual relationships but modify them for people in positions of influence over children.

There was a case in Ohio, recently, that highlighted this. In Ohio, as in many states, you can have sex with everyone over a certain age (I think 18) or with someone 14 to 18 as long as you're not more than 4 years older than that person (so, a 19-year-old could legally have sex with a 16-year-old, but a 22-year-old couldn't).  As is often the case with these kinds of laws, the "or four years younger" part is removed with regard to people in positions of power over minors (family, teachers, coaches) and the minors they have that power over. So, a just-turned-21-year-old just hired as a teacher could have sex with an 17-and-a-half year old who's a freshman at the local community college, but not one who's a senior in the high school he works at.

The particular Ohio case was about a provision that said removed the "or four years younger" provision for police officers (a twenty-year-old police officer was arrested for statutory rape for having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend).  The Ohio appellate court (I think it was Supreme but it may have been intermediate) ruled that this was a civil rights violation and invalidated the law, essentially saying that "whereas teachers and coaches and parents exert a particular interest over children, which justifies the additional restrictions, police officers are not in the child-rearing business. They deal with the entire population, not only or even primarily with children."

Of course, the media reported this as "Ohio court says police can have sex with minors," prompting something of a firestorm. I'm convinced the case was rightly decided on legal principles, although reasonable minds can differ of course.

Edit to add: although I can understand (though not endorse) the imposition of criminal sanctions on the parent in an incest case like this (up to and including some jail time, but certainly not a decade or whatever), I don't think such penalties should be applied 1) to the child in a case like this, or 2) in cases of incest where there is clearly not an undue influence exerted.  This gets murky with different-aged siblings.  What I mean is, if two people who are related but did not grow up together and were not in a position of power over each other want to have sex, let them. The touchstone should be the potential for coercion/abuse of a power dynamic that comes with family life, not actual genetics.

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I would agree with you (I think because I just skimmed your post. Sorry it was so long. Sorry), but not in a case where the relationship began as adults and especially not in the case where he wasn't even raised by the mother he's having sex with.

[Losty]

I would be interested to see what would happen if incest between consenting adults was made fully legal.

My guess is that not much would happen. I doubt people would suddenly be doing it any more than they already do.

Yea my guess is that nothing would happen at all. People in general will still think it's nasty.

[Losty]

Unlike many of you, I don't find it gross from the man's perspective, simply because the man met the woman after a long time, after being given up as a child and "biological mother" doesn't always stir the same emotions as a parent does who actually raised the child and formed those bonds. From the mother's perspective it does feel weird though..

My view on this is pretty much the same as gay couples, that is, how two consenting adults choose to love each other is nobody else's damn business.

In this specific case I don't think it's disgusting at all. From either side. Weird, yes. Possibly a bit morally wrong from the mother but disgusting...I don't know he's a stranger to her. But it's two who have been strangers. Human beings naturally shy away from sex with people they were raised by/with/around not people they're biologically related to so I don't think it's really surprising either. People are usually attracted to people who look kinda like them in my experience though not for myself personally.

[abaris]

In this specific case I don't think it's disgusting at all. From either side. Weird, yes. Possibly a bit morally wrong from the mother but disgusting...I don't know he's a stranger to her.

Can't put myself into his or her shoes. But knowingly? There are some things I find entirely unerotic, and that's one of them.

[Losty]

In this specific case I don't think it's disgusting at all. From either side. Weird, yes. Possibly a bit morally wrong from the mother but disgusting...I don't know he's a stranger to her.

Can't put myself into his or her shoes. But knowingly? There are some things I find entirely unerotic, and that's one of them.

Not saying I would do it lol. It just doesn't give that extreme ick like it would if she'd have raised him.

[paulpablo]

It's wrong because you're never supposed to have sex with your own children no matter what age they are.

You're supposed to raise them in a loving but none sexual way even when it's no longer a matter of it being paedophilia.

This is just my own moral outlook, I'm not arguing any legal consistencies.

I see it as a breech of trust and failed parenting on the biological parents behalf.

In this specific case the woman gave her son up for adoption. She didn't raise him nor did he know her as a mother.

So then it may not be her fault at all but it is failed parenting if he didn't know her as a mother.