Kiss me sister!

[Mint]

Incest is OK. The Bible says so.

[KrazyHorse]

Yes but that's the result of generations of inbreeding in a larger community.

Please think before you post.

[KrazyHorse]

Just to point out I've said nothing about marriage, we're arguing about the basic right to **** your sister not the right to make her preggers or marry her.

Who is this "we" you've brought into it? If you're not interested in a discussion about the legality of marriage and breeding specifically then butt the **** out of my conversation, because this is what I'm talking about.

Not everything's about you, you non-statistics, non-genetics understanding buffoon.

[Lul Thyme]

This is true, but this does not mean they don't have them. Such defects can be hidden for generations and then strike pretty much out of the blue.

Nonsense.
If the incest happens just in one generation, then, in the next generation, the "double-recessives" get split up, and the risks go back to normal.

[notyoueither]

What about retards, shouldn't we sterilize them too?

If they refuse to leave their sisters alone, yes.

[Heraclitus]

Please think before you post.

Why?

[KrazyHorse]

Because the level of misunderstanding of genetics which you displayed in your post hurt my brain.

[Heraclitus]

Because the level of misunderstanding of genetics which you displayed in your post hurt my brain.

Your pain is my pleasure.

[Alinestra Covelia]

The most recent Economist issue has a cover story about America's tough anti-pedophile laws. Boiled down, it says:

1. Laws to punish pedophiles have mass appeal. Partially because it's against a sexual minority, and partially because it deals with child protection, which is a very strong voter demographic since most voters are parents.

2. Laws to punish pedophiles are in most part punitive rather than rehabilitative. There is a growing body of sociological evidence to suggest that a considerable proportion of pedophiles can be rehabilitated. The legal and executive structures in place for this contribute almost nothing or even obstruct rehabilitation. (From jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it's possible that even seeking medical help to "cure" oneself of pedophilic tendencies could be used as evidence against one.)

3. Lawmakers have no political reason whatsoever to propose less-punitive legislation. A proposal to gear the executive agencies to a more rehabilitative structure would instantly meet with skepticism and attack ads from the electorate or rival politicians. The result is a vicious circle of increasingly harsh (though popular) legislation which is not the ideal way of dealing with the root problem. Part of the collateral damage is that draconian laws can and have criminalized individuals doing acts that were not under the initial spirit of the law. (Poly itself has a thread on adolescents who text message pics of themselves to others - and then are promptly charged with distributing child pornography.)

Relating back to incest: Obviously, sex offenders against children and incest between consenting adults is different, constitutionally speaking. (SCOTUS has given USC interpretations that sex between consenting adults generally is protected, but child sex is not, possibly because there is no "adult choice" issue on the part of the child.) But I was struck by how similar the political dynamics are.

Both are clearly sexual practices that have a serious public welfare issue to deal with, giving the state a legitimate interest in controlling it. But the way that voters like to deal with it - and therefore pressure legislators to deal with it - is harsh beyond optimal effectiveness and risks infringing on the balancing interests of individual rights, many of whom may get trampled beyond the intended scope and spirit of the original law.

[Jon Miller]

All the studies I had heard about suggested that pedophiles weren't 'cureable'. I guess that doesn't mean that they can't be made to repress their urges.

JM

[DaShi]

Given this environment, I wonder how well conducted those studies were.

[Blaupanzer]

All the studies I had heard about suggested that pedophiles weren't 'cureable'. I guess that doesn't mean that they can't be made to repress their urges.

JM

If your study genuinely showed that a "cure" was possible, no one would want to publish it. No "pedophile-positive" group exists anywhere in the world to sponser such a study. Bombs and lynchings would halt any such group formation attempts. In that light, have great skepticism toward the not cureable results. Think about what sort of research would be needed to answer the question of a possible cure.

Incest is best.

[Jon Miller]

My impression was that it was some sort of 'this guy is a pedo, we will send him to cancelling and then show him pictures and see if he still gets arroused'.

Also, 'this guy is a pedo, we will send him to prison/counseling, and see if he abuses again'.

Based on my experience with the system, most of them don't go to prison. However, my experience is a couple decades old and a bit removed. I am pretty sure that only my younger sister (adopted) sent any of her abusers to prison, and she settled for one... I know that many others abused her and nothing was done about it.

Most molesters aren't caught. A lot of people are on sex registers for stupid things like having sex with a 16 yearold or something similar. I am not saying that there is nothing wrong with that, but that isn't like having sex with a 5 yearold or selling her for drugs/etc.

JM

[Dis]

I have my doubts about them not being caught. Kids now days aren't stupid, they know what's right and what's wrong. The thing about molesters is they don't stop, they keep going until they get caught. And they do eventually get caught. Eventually someone steps forward or tells a friend who steps forward.

[Elok]

Given Hera's claim that it's only a cultural taboo preventing us all from wanting to get it on with our sisters (Freud says so, etc.), shouldn't we want to enforce the incest taboo all the more fiercely? After all, if societal disapproval is all that's stopping us, there's nothing to keep every lonely guy out there from going that one extra step with the only girl he really knows, and then we're talking widespread freaky-babies...

Aside from that, it's not just cases of out-and-out deformity that we should be concerned with. Genetic diversity is generally to be encouraged, no? If you're just mixing the same old genes together in a population, you're not only encouraging illness, you're gradually losing versatility and adaptability, the main reasons sexual reproduction evolved in the first place (IIUC). BTW, that's the big difference that makes the incest taboo not-entirely-comparable with other forms of "eugenics": it doesn't care about specific genes, it just wants whichever ones you have to be properly blended.