
Originally Posted by
Vera
What the fuck.
Really, Llamas, comparing homosexuality to incest? You went there?
Okay.
There's a reason this is a universal taboo. That means it's been taboo, and will conceivably be taboo in every human society, regardless of size or organization or ideology or religion. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, it just means it's strongly frowned upon and sanctioned. I mean, let's face it, even if you put aside biology, it's weird. Most of us have that gut instinct, which comes out of psychological and developmental reasons I read an article about once but don't have detailed knowledge of to quote right now, so I'll just say - there are good reasons why most of us wouldn't bang a family member. And why most consensual incest happens in cases where the family members did not grow up together at all. Something happens when you live in a family, where you're just put off by the thought of thinking about these people sexually. And that's a fucking good thing.
To all those defending incest from a purely intellectual or logical standpoint, rather than because of a personal experience and conviction - why? What's your investment in all this? This isn't the civil rights movement. This isn't about discriminating against a large section of the populus for racist or homophobic or other -ist reasons.
I have sympathy for the miniscule minority of people who've inadvertently ended up in incestual relationships ("we didn't know we shared a father before we boned, whoops!") or strongly believe theirs is an entirely consensual relationship between adults. But if they've got good heads on their shoulders, they probably understand that the law isn't there just for their circumstances - it's there for the underage, often child, sexual abuse victim whose abuser is a family member.
Power differences exist in all kinds of relationships, some of them we legislate against, some of them we don't. (We don't ban inter-office relationships in the law, for example, though it's often acknowledged that they can be a bad idea because of power relations/potential sexual harassment.) You know what that's a good argument for, though? Better protection for sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape victims- who are constantly undermined, blamed and questioned, even within the justice system that is supposed to guarantee them safety and rights. It's not an argument for opening the doors to all possible relationships where skewed power dynamics are involved, and therefore it is not an argument for legalizing incest.