That’s a valid opinion!!
Honestly I feel like it’s just an entirely separate issue from shipping. It’s a situation where exploitation is both likely and difficult to detect, and so the benefit of having it be legal/acceptable is way lower than the potential harm. (Boss/employee and student/teacher relationships are kind of in a similar position, I feel: sure, one in a million might be healthy, but it just makes everyone safer to have it be illegal/socially unacceptable.)
There’s a reddit thread somewhere about a sister and brother who had a consensual incestuous relationship for quite a while as teens. It’s an interesting read, but it’s hardly going to keep me from condemning incest when I hear of it. The potential harm is just way higher than the potential benefit.
I half-agree and half-disagree.
I think why boss/employee relationships tend to have rules against them in various companies, and teacher/student relationships banned by many universities and/or made illegal in certain places, is because of the power imbalance and the strict difficulty in being unable to disprove abuse. You don’t know if Joe’s been threatened with being fired or failure, you just don’t.
Now, in some forms of incestual relationships, you come across the same issue, and I think the most obvious examples would be parent/child or grandparent/child, because usually these are the people we live with or depend on financially or who continue to have some control over us.
A few countries have actually legalised aunt/uncle with niece/nephew relationships, or sibling relationships, and I think generally these tend to have far less room for potential abuse, especially sibling relationships. Sure, some sibling relationships have room to be abusive, but you could say the exact same thing about regular friendships or roommates or colleagues. It’s the same equality.
It’s why I think we need to legalise most forms of incest.
Well, between over-eighteens. I would say “the age of consent”, but my country actually heightens the age of consent when one person is in a position of trust, and I think – with it being such a controversial issue – eighteen would be better in terms of playing it safe and making sure no trust has been abused. If I can fuck my doctor or professor or local police-officer -? Is my brother really that much more controversial in the scheme of things? Why is one worse than another?
We need to take things case-by-case.
Plus, outright condemnation only pushes people into further secrecy, which we’ve all seen with the MAP discourse, so the few people who do want help or could be abused (or the abuser) will not seek for help or ask for help, as they’ll end up too ashamed or too afraid of being judged. I think we owe it to people not to condemn them, but instead do what we do for MAP discourse: raise awareness, discuss pros and cons, and educate people on warning signs.
Now, I know the difference here is that MAPs cannot act on their attraction, so there isn’t a direct equivalency here, as we’re talking about actual relationships in regards to incest, but I do think the lack of condemnation to be important in both, because it’s what allows for understanding, awareness, and education.
The idea of going by potential harm worries me.
It’s why we have a system of “innocent until proven guilty” and not “guilty until proven innocent”. I think we should allow all behaviours, only condemning those with proven harm (like keeping it illegal to engage with intercourse with animals or children), and only condemning those who abuse the law in some way. I mean, if I’m in a same-sex relationship and abused, is the problem being with an abusive partner or being in a same-sex relationship?
You made my day.
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