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Adam [redacted]

[redacted]

English 102

8 Mar 2019

Case for the Legalisation of Consensual Incest

Incest is a very charged word. For many people it brings to mind images of fathers

abusing their underage daughters. That is not the subject of this paper. While incestous unions,

like all unions, can indeed be abusive, in the proper scenario, between consenting individuals

following any applicable age of consent laws, they are not very different from any other type of

relationship. In the wake of the recent gay rights movement, many make the comparison between

incest and homosexuality in a pejorative manner. They use the slippery slope argument, making

statements to the effect of “what’s next, being able to marry one’s sister?” A member of

YouTube by the name of Tim Hicks made a parody video where he made the analogy clear. It

was presented as the natural progression of the progressive agenda. The majority of progressives

would tend to disagree, but really, what is the difference? Even though the analogy is presented

in a biased and pejorative matter, it stands. In both cases, it’s consenting individuals who would

otherwise be able to get married or have sex being discussed. It’s a matter of personal liberty.

People should be free to do as they please so long as they aren’t harming anybody. While some

arguments have advanced that make the case that incest is indeed harmful, even between

consenting individuals, they will be addressed in the course of this paper. There is really no good

reason to keep consenting individuals from having sex and getting married so long as they follow
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all applicable laws such as those regarding age; any counter arguments that have been advanced

are easily dealt with.

To be very clear, the subject in question is specifically consenting individuals working

within the framework of existing laws regarding age. Anything that could be considered

non-consensual, or involving parties not legally able to consent to sex or marriage with each

other, due to age or some other reason beyond mere genetic or legal relationship, is outside of the

scope of this discussion. There is a definite problem with the word “incest.” Many supporters of

these kind of unions avoid the label altogether in favor of the non-stigmatized

“consanguinamory,” “ consanguineous” or variations thereof. This is shown even in the formal

literature where Bennett et al. in the ​Journal of Genetic Counseling,​ experts in their field, make a

distinction between Consanguineous couplings and incestous ones, with the former including

most genetic relatives, including cousins, and the latter referring specifically to “first degree”

relations such as sibling and parent/child (99). This also shows the inconsistency of the terms

used. They also show awareness of the typical connotations of the term “incest,” to the point of

possibly creating a false dichotomy when they say “For example, there is a major attitudinal

difference regarding a union involving consenting adult cousins as compared to incestuous abuse

of a minor” (103). While the intention was most likely not to present those two possibilities as

the only ones, there is certainly a suspicious absence of the mention of consensual incest between

closely related individuals considered old enough to consent. For the purposes of this paper,

“incest” will be the term used, and the focus will be on those unions that Bennett dubs incestous.

Couplings between cousins are uncontroversial, relatively speaking, and marriage between first

cousins is often legal, even in the developed world. According to Bennett et al., it is illegal in 30
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states, making it legal in 20 (118). The only countries where proper data is available and

marriage between first cousins is illegal to any degree are the United States, the Koreas, India,

Thailand, China, Romania, and some of the smaller countries in eastern Europe (“Cousin

Marriage”). Marriages between second cousins and beyond don’t seem to be illegal anywhere.

The argument that seems to be advanced time and time again in opposition to incest is the

idea that any children of such unions will have a much elevated chance of birth defects and other

problems. This is not a conclusion that’s supported by the facts. In Bennett et al., the authors

examine many different studies from different times and places and attempt to come to

conclusions based on that. They concluded that the elevated risk of first cousins wasn’t

significant and didn’t warrant any special considerations. Being genetic counselors, they extolled

the virtues of their service, but didn’t find it to be any more necessary in first cousin couplings as

in random couplings. Genetic counseling involves doing genetic tests on people who plan to

reproduce, and seeing what genetic problems may happen in their offspring. They also were

unable to make any sort of firm conclusion on incestous couplings, stating that “The risk for

adverse medical outcome in the offspring of incestuous unions is probably in the range of 7–31%

above population background” (116). This is obviously a large range, and makes it impossible to

make any sort of firm conclusion. More research needs to be done before we can really put a

number on the risk. It’s important to note that this includes things such as minor cognitive

impairment, which need not be considered serious. It seems likely that the problems that would

result from this would be mostly tied to the self-image of the child, and could be largely

mitigated through counselling. These problems do not constitute a serious detriment on the

quality of life of the individual. In fact, it stands to reason that even severe cognitive difficulties
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would be more a problem for caretakers than the individual themselves. There’s no reason to

think that one is really worse off “dumb and happy,” or more eloquently “blissfully ignorant.” In

this way, more severe cognitive disability is less detrimental to quality of life than less severe

issues. That leaves physical problems as those that really represent a decreased quality of

life.There is not nearly enough information to conclude how common those are, but it’s safe to

assume they’re well-below 31%.

It is a common thought that the aversion to incest evolved through natural selection due

to the negative effects of inbreeding. This thought is forwarded, for example by PhD

psychologist Hal Herzog in “The Problem With Incest.” His main source on the negative effects

of inbreeding seemed to be a Czechoslovakian paper that was among those Bennett et al. covered

and found problems with. He also made the assumption that a woman pregnant with a child via

incest would bear psychological scars. This seems to be another example of the conflation of

incest and rape. Surly if it were rape, that would be the primary reason for any emotional scars,

not the identity of the rapist. Additionally if it were not rape, why would there be scars at all? It

is important to separate rape from non-rape. Also, he puts a roughly 50 percent figure (based on

the Czech figure) on problems and forwards pregnancy termination as an act of compassion.

That figure is far above the more nuanced and complete research of Bennett et al., even well

above the high range, and as stated previously includes cognitive problems which don’t represent

a detriment to quality of life for the individual with them. He actually cites Bennett et al. in his

article, but seems to ignore their conclusions in favor of his own reading of the data. He also

skims over the main point of the article, about cousin couplings.
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Dr. Tobias [redacted], professor of anthropology at [redacted] college also forwarded

Darwinian reasoning for the incest taboo, as well as stating it to be a cultural universal. He

contended, that serious problems are near-certainty, if not in the product of incest themselves,

but in their children ([redacted] and [redacted]). He seemed to be alluding to research that was

unable to be verified in the writing of this paper, and conflicts with the data that was found. He

also contested that the possible children are the victims in the otherwise victimless “crime” of

consensual incest. This view doesn’t hold if, as seems to be the case, problems that cause a

detriment to the quality of life of the child are not common.

Gregory C. Leavitt a PhD sociologist at Idaho State University writing in the journal

Anthropological Theory​ has a different view of things. He contends that the aversion to incest is

purley societal as opposed to being adaptive (393). He defends this notion by pointing out how

populations with a high proportion of inbreeding can actually end up healthy because the serious

recessive genes are heavily selected against, including carries due to the inbreeding, and they end

up disappearing from the population after a short amount of time in terms of population

mechanics (395). He attributes problems associated with inbreeding as being caused by mixing

inbreeding and outside genes, thus preventing the inbreeding from eradicating the harmful

recessive genes. While he applies this first to cases where cousin pairings are the common ones,

he uses Roman Egypt as an example of a society with a large amount of sibling inbreeding that

didn’t seem to have problems (401). He also contends that the Westermarck effect, the supposed

evolutionarily derived aversion to the thought of sex with someone one lived with growing up

would not have been able to evolve due to the long interval between children who survived

infancy for most of human history (402). Additionally, he points to examples of cultures where
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children who are arranged to marry are brought up together, bringing into question the view that

this is a biological, rather than sociological phenomenon (399). It’s important to note that Leavitt

is not a geneticist, so his claims about genetics must be taken with a grain of salt. He seems to

have done his research, though.

Most people agree, at the very least, that multiple generations of inbreeding leads to

serious problems in a population. While there are certainly examples that seem to support this

notion, there are others that complicate matters. As Leavitt discussed, it seems that highly inbred

populations can actually be healthy due to the truly harmful genes being selected against (395).

Typically, these populations don’t include high rates of sibling (or other first-degree) incest,

though they can, as Leavitt discussed with the Egyptians (401). It seems like more commonly,

these are small, isolated populations where whether they’re mating with people they know to be

their close relatives or not, everyone ends up being related closely enough that they may as well

be. Steve Olson, a science journalist talks about cases like these in his book (one of Leavitt’s

citations), “Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins.”. One case he

talks about are the Samaritan, a religious people in Israel who only marry within their own group

(150 people at its lowest in the 19th century), with that being a historical high number), and have

been doing so for over 2000 years/ Eighty percent of marriages are between first or second

cousins. He says they strike him as a “hearty, proud, and generous people” and don’t show the

problems that one may assume (115). They have some problems though, with congenital

deafness and a specific walking problem that necessitates the use of a cane existing in some

members of their group. They do say they’re taking care not to pass those problems to the next
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generation (116). While they do have some problems they’re hardly the horror story that the

superlative “most inbred population” (115) might make one assume.

It’s also important to note that even if the effects if inbreeding were really as bad as is

commonly thought, it doesn’t seem to be a standard that is consistently applied. There are many

other reasons why somebody might be at high risk for having a kid with problems. For example,

according to Denise Grady writing for the New York Times, “people with Huntington's disease,

a severe neurological disorder, have a 50 percent chance of passing the disease to their children.”

She was actually writing regarding the findings of Bennett et al., and making a comparison to

cousin couplings, which that study found to be quite low risk, but it applies equally well to first

degree incestous couples, as they seem by all accounts to have less than a 50 percent chance of

problems, and a lot of these problems would not be as severe as Huntington’s. One might argue

that one has the choice to reproduce with a close relative, while one doesn’t have a choice to be

born with a serious genetic condition, and it wouldn’t be fair to deny reproductive rights based

on something outside of one’s control. The fact is, it’s a choice either way. Someone with

Huntington’s could chose to adopt rather than have biological children, for instance, as could an

incestous couple, presuming the laws were such that they allowed that. Also, if one contends that

the reason incest should be illegal is due to the possible harm to a hypothetical child, surely it

should be inbreeding itself that should be the crime, not incest. Crimes are usually based on harm

having been done, not the hypothetical that harm could be done in the future. If one can’t point to

a victim, it seems likely that no true crime has occured at all. If consistency is desired, which it

should be, and it is considered to be within the bounds of the powers of the government to

regulate such things, which there doesn’t seem to be good precedence for. It should be both the
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acts of inbreeding, and other forms of reproduction with the knowledge of high risk that should

be outlawed. The rights to sex and marriage should not be infringed at all. This might make it

sound more authoritarian, telling married people that they can’t have kids, the fact it it is far less

authoritarian than telling them they can’t get married in the first place. Either way, both are

examples of overreaching government.

People may argue that both participants are victims, because they think that one ​must​ be

mentally ill to want to have sex or get married to a close relative, and it would thus harm them to

let them engage in their “pathological” behavior. This thinking seems to be based on the

unfounded assertion that someone with nothing “wrong” with them would never want to engage

in incest. There seems to be no evidence backing this up, or the idea that even consensual incest

is somehow inherently harmful. Until someone presents proper evidence, this claim can be safely

dismissed. This seems to be related the the idea that siblings and other close relatives simply

aren’t “supposed” to have sex with or marry each other. It’s simply not what is done. This idea is

a philosophical one more than anything and should have no bearing on the law.

A related idea that may be more worthy of serious consideration is that in cases where the

coupling is intergenerational, or otherwise has a large age-difference, there might be a power

imbalance between the two individuals, even when they’re both considered old enough to

consent to sex. While this can certainly be the case, it’s not necessarily universally true, and

doesn’t reflect how other matters are handled. In pretty much any other case, once someone is

considered old enough to consent to sex, that means they can consent to it to any other person

who is considered old enough to consent to sex. Other situations where a power difference is

almost guaranteed would for example be sex between a rich and powerful person and some
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submissive commoner. Yet, no one is saying that Bill Gates and Elon Musk shouldn’t be free to

have sex with anyone who is willing, the fact that those specific men are in long-term

relationships notwithstanding. Also, employer/employee relationships, while considered

unprofessional, and seen to represent a conflict of interest aren’t illegal in the sex crime sense,

like incest is, even though there is an obvious power differential.

People in incestous relationships are often just normal people living average lives. Even

when they’re a bit unusual, they still want to have good lives for themselves and their families.

Keith Pullman runs a blog called ​Full Marriage Equality​ where he, among other things,

interviews people in incestuous relationships. He contends that these people should be free to

marry the ones they love, just like anyone else. One interview titled “A Same-Sex Marriage Still

Denied” was with a pair of male identical twins who have been in an incestous relationship since

adolence named Joel and Elijah. Interestingly, their parents were foster siblings, and their dad

has said that he and another sister of his had feeling for each other in High School. This may be

interpreted as a genetic predisposition to incest. One could also interpret it as them engaging in

incest because their family didn’t consider it wrong, however it seems that their relationship

started before they knew that their parents were “siblings.” At the time of the interview, they had

considered themselves to be lovers as well as brothers for 12 years, but their romantic and sexual

activities together started years before that. Joel says he would “love to get married to [his]

brother if it were legal,” and why shouldn’t he be able to? With them, biological kids aren’t even

a possibility, and they don’t even want to adopt. As it is, they have to keep their relationship a

secret because it is illegal where they live, as it is most places. What’s the point in that? Who
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could they possibly be said to be hurting by being a couple and having sex, and why shouldn’t

they be able to make their union a legally recognized one, and get married?

Another couple that Pullman interviewed were a brother and sister under the assumed

names of Hellen and John. It’s too risky for them to reveal their real names. Hellen is a Marine

biologist and John is an IT engineer. They got ceremoniously married 25 years before the time of

the interview, though John says “It’s more like we have been married for 40 years though.” Of

course, this was not an official marriage with paperwork, because such things aren’t legal. They

have four biological children together, none of them with any problems. They basically live as a

normal married couple, though most people do not know that they’re siblings. When they told

their sister of their relationship, she had a very negative reaction and falsely accused their father

of having molested them. They’re lucky that she didn’t go to the police. This shows the harm

that negative views on incest can have. Lexi (a pseudonym), their eldest child describes their

relationship thusly. "They are so cute together. I have never heard them fight, which I think is

because they never fight.” While probably hyperbolic, this shows that they have a functional

relationship. They shouldn’t have to hide the full extent of their relationship in order to protect

themselves from legal trouble.

Laws regarding incest are extremely varied by area, and often bizarre and inconsistent. In

Washington State, it is illegal to have sex with “an ancestor, descendant, brother, or sister of

either the whole or the half blood.” The law also clarifies “‘Descendant’ includes stepchildren

and adopted children under eighteen years of age” (Washington State Legislature). This has

some interesting implications. Basically, the assertion that some make that any sexual

relationship between a person and someone they raised as a child must necessarily be abusive,
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even if it started when both parties were adults is unaccounted for, specifically making adult

foster and adopted children kosher. This law is consistent with the notion that it is the possibility

of inbreeding they’re worried about, besides the fact that that argument wouldn’t apply to

homosexual couplings, so they should be excluded. However, the inbreeding argument has been

shown to not really hold water.

Often, in cases of consensual incest, both parties get in legal trouble. If there’s no victim,

and two perpetrators, how can a crime really be said to have been committed? An example is

covered in a news article by local Nebraska TV station, KSNB. The article title “Father accused

of incest pleads not guilty” might conjure images of child rape, but rest assured that this was a

consensual act between adults and the daughter got in trouble too. The article is written

starangly, with the fact that the daughter was arrested and charged too always being secondary.

Also, the way they have the headline, right above his mugshot, and don’t show any mugshot

from the woman at all suggests they are trying to make people jump to conclusions without

reading the (short) article.

To really show that the view on consensual incest is that of two perpetrators and no

victims, there was a case in Indiana of a man convicted of incest with his elder aunt trying to use

an admittedly stupid defense (an obvious misappropriation of what seemed to be intended as a

statute of limitations law of child sex crimes), and it was rejected on the grounds “​‘Pavan’s

appellate argument is based on a flawed interpretation’ of the statute, Judge Robert Altice wrote

for the panel, because he argued his aunt was the victim.” He was sentenced to 6 years in prison.

His aunt was convicted too (Stafford), but her sentence wasn’t stated. The fact that anybody

could go to prison at all for consensual sex, not to mention 6 years is ridiculous. It must have
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been consensual too, because both parties were prosecuted. How does the government have any

business telling consenting adults that can’t have sex?

Sometimes media coverage fails to differentiate incest rape from consensual incest. Mark

Young writing for the North Platte telegraph seems to make this error. The article is about a man

being sentenced to 10-20 years for having sex with his daughter, but it fails to mention the

daughters age at the time, or whether the interaction was fully consensual. Obviously this is

ridiculous if it was consensual and she was above the age of consent, but the article makes it

impossible to tell one way or another.

In addition to the actual legal problems, the laws and stigma surrounding incest can have

other problems. People live in fear of their consensual sexual relationship being found out

because both them and their lover could go to prison. That is obviously not a good thing to have

to deal with psychologically. People tend to have the idea that even if a child of incestous parents

has no physical or mental problems because of it that they’ll still suffer from it because they’ll be

teased by other kids. Unfortunately, this is likely true if people find out about the incestous

nature of their parents relationship. This is proof more of the harmfulness of the negative stigma

associated with incest, then with the incest itself.

Incest is a complicated issue, but specifically consensual incest between individuals who

would otherwise legally be able to consent seems to be a no-brainer.Inbreeding argument falls

flat on many facets. If inbreeding should be illegal, so should reproducing while knowingly

having serious inheritable genetic conditions, and anything else that leads to increased chances of

health problems in one’s kids. Additionally, the actual reproduction is the only thing that should

be illegal in that hypothetical, it makes no sense to make incest illegal just because there’s a
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chance of inbreeding, and that argument doesn’t even apply at all to things like homosexual

incest. One might say, “what if they have kids anyway?” In the hypothetical, that would make

them criminals and they’d be dealt with accordingly. Of course, that’s ridiculous, and

totalitarian, but it would be the only way to be consistent. The real solution is to simply not

criminalize consensual sex and to encourage incestous couple to consider all of their options,

such as adoption and genetic counseling, when they want kids. Also, to let them get married.
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Works Cited

Bennett, Robin L, et al. “Genetic Counseling and Screening of Consanguineous Couples and

Their Offspring: Recommendations of the National Society of Genetic Counselors.”

Journal of Genetic Counseling,​ vol. 11, no. 2, Apr. 2002, pp. 97–119., doi:

10.1023/A:1014593404915.

"Cousin Marriage." ​Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.​ Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 26 Feb.

2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage.

Grady, Denise. “No Genetic Reason to Discourage Cousin Marriage, Study Finds.” ​The New

York Times​, The New York Times, 3 Apr. 2002,

www.nytimes.com/2002/04/03/health/no-genetic-reason-to-discourage-cousin-marriage-s

tudy-finds.html​.

Herzog, Hal. “The Problem With Incest.” ​Psychology Today,​ Sussex Publishers, 11 Oct. 2012,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/201210/the-problem-incest.

Hicks, Tim. “Vote No on Judicial Retention.” ​YouTube,​ YouTube, 12 Oct. 2010,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj2gOLUw5yk.

KSNB. “Father Accused of Incest Pleads Not Guilty.” ​1011 Now​, KOLN-TV, 19 Feb. 2019,

www.1011now.com/content/news/Father-and-Daughter-Arrested-for-Incest-505142941.h

tml.

Leavitt, Gregory C. “The Incest Taboo?: A Reconsideration of Westermarck.” ​Anthropological

Theory​, vol. 7, no. 4, 2007, pp. 393–419., doi:10.1177/1463499607083427.

Olson, Steve. ​Mapping Human History Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins​. Houghton

Mifflin Company, 2003, Archive.org, archive.org/details/mappinghumanhist00stev/.

Pullman, Keith, et al. “A Same-Sex Marriage Still Denied.” ​Full Marriage Equality​, Blogspot,

11 Sept. 2015,

marriage-equality.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-same-sex-marriage-still-denied.html.

Accessed 25 Feb. 2019.

Pullman, Keith, et al. “The Family Values of Lifelong Love.” ​Full Marriage Equality​, Blogspot,

1 Mar. 2016,

marriage-equality.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-family-values-of-lifelong-love.html.

Accessed 25 Feb. 2019.

[redacted] and Tobias [redacted]. “Consensual Incest.” 20 Feb. 2019.

Stafford, Dave. “COA: Incest Age Defense Can't Win Post-Conviction Relief.” ​The Indiana

Lawyer​, The Indiana Lawyer, 17 Nov. 2016,

www.theindianalawyer.com/articles/42063-coa-incest-age-defense-cant-win-post-convict

ion-relief?v=preview​.

Washington State Legislature. ​Revised Code Of Washington​. Title 9A, chapter 9A.64, section

9A.64.020, Washington State Legislature, Accessed 6 Jan. 2019,

https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=9A.64.020.

Young, Mark. “Incest Charge Leads to 10-20 Years in Prison.” ​The North Platte Telegraph,​ The

North Platte Telegraph, 4 Jan. 2011,

www.nptelegraph.com/news/incest-charge-leads-to---years-in-prison/article_8081f4e2-9c

7b-5e3e-be75-ed6c9108797f.html.