Why is incest bad?

[ZaraKitty]

First off let me start by saying; I am not sexually attracted to a family member, and I am not talking about children being abused by adults, that's pedophilia and I am strongly against that.

I had a curious thought about when society decided incest was bad, as it was normal a few hundred years ago, what changed? What caused the change? Also, really why is incest between two consenting adults bad?

This may be a confronting thought for some, but please no flaming. I am just curious.

Things such as the Electra/Oedipus Complex come to mind, the child's subconsciousness wanting the parent sexually, this all seems natural in the evolution side of things (otherwise it wouldn't exist I assume), there are studies on sexuality within families all asserting natural sexual attraction yet it's social taboo? Is this because of the bad affects on children as the result of inbreeding?

Again, this is about consensual adults.

Thank you!

[Simbi Laveau]

Well,it just seems unnatural .

In ancient Rome,no sexual practice was frowned up ,save incest .

Any form of homosexuality ,fetish ,some beastiality ,skies the limit .

Diddle your sister ,and you were both put to death.

[RockabyeBillie]

From a genetic level it does damage offspring. When you mate with someone in your bloodline you are keeping the gene pool really limited. Out of your bloodline it gives the offspring added abilites to fight infections, illnesses, etc that your family alone may lack. Heterosexual women are generally attracted to men (whether they know it or not - usually subconciously detected by scent) that have something in their DNA that they may not have, such as a stronger resistance to certain harmful organisms. This gives potential offspring a better chance at survival.

Personally the thought of having sex with anyone in my family makes me queasy.

[Render]

Well,it just seems unnatural .

In ancient Rome,no sexual practice was frowned up ,save incest .

Any form of homosexuality ,fetish ,some beastiality ,skies the limit .

Diddle your sister ,and you were both put to death.

that's not true at all

Numerous Roman emperors performed incest. Caligula, Nero (although concrete proof hasn't been found of this), Carinus

Cleopatra was married to her younger brother.

And a lot of wedding papers have been found that attest to sister-brother weddings.

There came a time where there was a theorethical ban, but especially in Egypt incest was still practiced.

[tyrant lizard]

I generally think it's to do with the gene pool thing. Inbreeding produces smaller and smaller gene pools until you have dudes like the baddies from Wrong Turn showing up.

In dog breeding pedigree dogs are much less healthy than mongrels due to there controlled breeding - Not with siblings, but with dogs with a very similar genetic make up.

I'm thinking of Game of Thrones though, and if I was Jamie Lannister, I probably would

[Artaxerxes]

Genes become less heterozygous and more homozygous the more inbred an animal is thus reducing the viability of the offspring. It is especially deleterious to the immune system. Many purebred animals are highly inbred and have a lot of genetic problems as a result.

[+ouija ouija]

This is only a guess, I have nothing to back it up, but genuine sexual attraction between close family members is very rare, I would think. Here in the UK you can marry your cousin, but no one closer than that.

[+OverSword]

It seems like I read an article a while back where they did a study that determined under normal healthy circumstances people don't get sexually attracted to those they imprint on at a young age, which is probably why very few boyfriend/girlfriend relatonships bloom out of childhood friendships. I can easily see that my sister is attractive but I'm not sexually attracted to her, if you have a good looking brother you probably understand. Most of the examples of siblings marying in the above posts were probably where the female was older and they married to keep the family wealth from being absorbed into a different family.

[Gunn]

Rules and influence made by the early church, during the first years in the organization of the Christian religion. Because incest was sometimes practice in ancient pagan religions.

[meryt-tetisheri]

I think a good angle to look at incest is a functional, objective one.

Biologically, interbreeding intensifies phenotypic traits, both recessive and dominant, giving a higher possibility for the expression of undesirable genes. Marrying outside the group means children will have a wider gene pool and better chances of survival.

Culturally, every society regulates the rules governing mating of its members. Incest tabu is almost universal as means to protect the solidarity of a foundational unit of the social structure (family/lineage/clan) from subversive sexual rivalry; or in some societies, the prohibition is used to extend alliance by forging kinship ties (marriage) with another group. The definition of 'incest' varies from one society to the other: for example first cousin marriage is regarded as incestuous by the Catholic church, but is preferential marriage among the Bedouins of the Middle East (to keep property within the family). Brother/sister marriage among ancient Egyptian royalty was not only to maintain the undiluted 'divinity' of the royals, but also because kingship passed through the female line.

Psychologically, incestuous relations are destructive.

Subjectively, I am against it!

Bones101proof, Gaddafi is not even Egyptian, he was Libyan, an altogether different country, maybe look at the map first? Contemporary Egyptians do not 'practice inbreeding', if you are referring to the ancient Egyptian royals, it was a matter of politics not unbridled lust and was not common among citizens. The words 'sister/brother' were not used exclusively to refer to a sibling, but were also used as terms of endearment which could confuse the interpretation of some ancient literary texts. If you need think of an example of 'inbred' rulers, you might as well consider Cleopatra.

Edited for typos!

Edited August 24, 2012 by meryt-tetisheri

[Abramelin]

that's not true at all

Numerous Roman emperors performed incest. Caligula, Nero (although concrete proof hasn't been found of this), Carinus

Cleopatra was married to her younger brother.

And a lot of wedding papers have been found that attest to sister-brother weddings.

There came a time where there was a theorethical ban, but especially in Egypt incest was still practiced.

That's partly true.

The only people you mention are rulers. Rulers can get away with just about anything based on the power they have over their people.

But that doesn't mean the socalled 'common people' could or would do the same.

[Old Man Waffles]

I find it wrong and perverted. so do a lot of other people. I guess society just finds it revolting.

[ThePhantomFlanFlinger]

Well...they do say incest begins at home...

[Abramelin]

I find it wrong and perverted. so do a lot of other people. I guess society just finds it revolting.

But the question was why it is wrong.

The reasons appear to be biological (health), cultural and religious.

Cultural and religious reasons are based on what? On the biological reason?

Is incest something we instinctively despise? From what I read on Wiki even apes and most other animals stay far away from incestuous relationships.

[Abramelin]

Well...they do say incest begins at home...

Hmmmm....

When I was 15 years old an older (22?) niece of mine visited our house. I remember I past a room (door ajar) and saw her changing clothes.....

Now every woman knows a man has 2 brains. My first brain said "Nooooooo !!!!", but my second brain said "Just wait a sec and enjoy the view, and..."

My first brain won the battle, but not before I performed a "5-to-1" manoeuvre on my second brain, LOL.

No worries, for the rest nothing ever happened.

[Promethius]

Well...they do say incest begins at home...

Incest - the game which the whole family can play.

In all truth though, it's all about genes - Incest is very, very bad from a genetic point of view, for the reasons I've already seen mentioned. Also, I think there's something psychological to it - the bond between a parent and child is, hopefully unanimously, different from that between lovers, and these two things conflict, which is why incest feels objectively "wrong" as a notion.

[meryt-tetisheri]

Cultural and religious reasons are based on what? On the biological reason?

My guess is partly for biological reasons, and partly to enforce social order and cohesion within a basic social unit by eliminating sexual competition. If you compare the human family unit to a canine pack for example, only the alpha couple are allowed to breed.

[Ealdwita]

Incest and inbreeding may have given rise to many a 'Royal' medical problem in the past. The possible Marfan's Syndrome suffered by Akhenaten, the Prognathism which resulted in the famous 'Hapsburg Jaw' and more recently, the Haemophilia that was widespread in the extended family of Queen Victoria, and the existence of mental illness in no less than five of the Queen's cousins and resulted in them being shut away from the public gaze. It's possible not all of these problems are a direct result of inbreeding, but I suspect it can't have helped matters!

[Amy the Mighty]

Things such as the Electra/Oedipus Complex come to mind, the child's subconsciousness wanting the parent sexually, this all seems natural in the evolution side of things (otherwise it wouldn't exist I assume), there are studies on sexuality within families all asserting natural sexual attraction yet it's social taboo? Is this because of the bad affects on children as the result of inbreeding?

The reason people still learn about Freud within psychology, is because he was the first modern doctor to attempt to identify psychological problems and their causes. The first, not the best. The Oedipus/Electra complex stuff was more about Freud trying to get his head around other people's issues, by using his own weird sexual hangups as a starting point. When we're talking about the psychosexual development of individuals, they are completely irrelevant. The only people who acknowledge them are people who want to talk about Freud, not people who want to talk about psychology in general.

Humans are deeply comforted by things that they find familiar. They are also incredibly narcissistic. Perhaps these are the underlying factors in cases where individuals are attracted to members of their family. They shouldn't be the only factors in determining an appropriate mate, however. We need to balance the social and emotional variables with the physical variables. A man might be sufficiently different and sexy to us because he has a fantastic jawline, but if he bashes small children, he's probably not going to be a good candidate for fathering a child.

When you make a baby, you want the genes from mum and the genes from dad to be as different as possible, because this allows the crappier genes from one parent to be covered for by the stronger genes from the other parent. When you have more different genes, you have more options to express those healthy genes, so that defective genes aren't expressed. If mum and dad are closely related, they have more of the same genes. There are no alternative genes in the mix, to dominate the crappier genes. If the only genes on both sides are the crappier genes, the baby ends up with matching crappy genes from both parents.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/08/16/3569231.htm

A segment in this episode talks about how koalas were taken as joeys to French Island in Victoria, and bred in isolation over the past 80 years. The koalas all bred with each other, and there was no introduction of fresh koalas with different genes to improve the gene pool. A koala from this inbred population is quite visibly different to a normal, healthy koala.

[pallidin]

Wait a minute, I thought that since we all came from Adam and Eve(or similar such thing), that incest was the ONLY way to procreate.

Hmmm... that could explain why we're so screwed-up now.

Edited August 24, 2012 by pallidin

[TheBanana]

Wait a minute, I thought that since we all came from Adam and Eve(or similar such thing), that incest was the ONLY way to procreate.

Hmmm... that could explain why we're so screwed-up now.

i think that humans came from way more than just two people, evolution wasnt one of those things that one or two animals came from different, this was happening in fairly large amounts, big enough for it to not be incest.

this is one of the reasons why i dont agree with the adam and eve story, as their children must have had children with eachother, which would have caused a lot of genetic abnormalities, apparently, to sustain a population with minimal incest, there would need to be about 100-200 people at the start.

the reason why incest is wrong is because of genetics, a child born from an incestuous relationship is at risk of having genetic illnesses.

[pallidin]

i think that humans came from way more than just two people, evolution wasnt one of those things that one or two animals came from different, this was happening in fairly large amounts, big enough for it to not be incest.

this is one of the reasons why i dont agree with the adam and eve story, as their children must have had children with eachother, which would have caused a lot of genetic abnormalities, apparently, to sustain a population with minimal incest, there would need to be about 100-200 people at the start.

the reason why incest is wrong is because of genetics, a child born from an incestuous relationship is at risk of having genetic illnesses.

I understand what you're stating, and, by no means am I for incest. But I must disagree on the science.

Racial distinction could not have happened unless inbreeding occurred.

[Simbi Laveau]

that's not true at all

Numerous Roman emperors performed incest. Caligula, Nero (although concrete proof hasn't been found of this), Carinus

Cleopatra was married to her younger brother.

And a lot of wedding papers have been found that attest to sister-brother weddings.

There came a time where there was a theorethical ban, but especially in Egypt incest was still practiced.

They were all of royal blood ,and cleopatra wasn't Roman .

And Caligula was a sociopath

If general populace were found having incest ,they were put to death by usually the patriarch of the family .

He could kill his wife and children as well,if she committed adultry .

[ZaraKitty]

Hmm, so general consensus suggests it's genetics that tell us to stay away, but what about those cases where families actually do inbreed? Why didn't their brains tell them to stay away?

[pallidin]

It would not be unusual for early humans to engage in incestual activities.

After all they were often isolated, in family groups.

"Venturism" beyond one's own family group certainly took place; It is also highly likely that instinctual pro-creation sexual relationships within one's family group was very common.

I have no proof of this.