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[Stoney Mason]

So this topic was locked

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=141615&highlight=incest

but I assume it was mainly because the spirit of it wasn't towards having a debate but being a troll. So here is a legit news story to frame the issue

Patrick is looking at me, clenching his fist, his body shaking, he’s saying nothing. Susan isn’t saying anything either and neither am I. Silence can be so agonizing and there’s so much tension in the air you could almost cut it with a knife. There we are just staring at each other.

It was a difficult interview for a story that couldn’t be more controversial.

Patrick and Susan are a couple and have four children. They are also brother and sister and that makes their relationship illegal under German law. Patrick and Susan didn’t even know of each other’s existence until Patrick was over 20 years old and Susan was in her teens. After their mother died, they lived together and eventually fell in love.

“We just want to lead a normal life,” Patrick tells me, when he finally does manage to speak during the interview. He and Susan appear to be afraid of the camera. I can’t blame them. We’ve come into their home, are shining powerful lights in their faces and asking them to put their whole lives out in the open for us. Lives that have been as tough as anyone could imagine.

“People harass us all the time and call us the incest couple. They have no idea who we really are or how it all happened,” Patrick says, and then he goes on to speak about the legal ordeal he’s been put through. He’s been to jail because of the relationship with his sister; and three of their four children have been taken away from them by German Youth Welfare Services. Now Patrick wants to take the struggle to get the relationship legalized to the highest German court.

Many other European countries lifted bans on incestuous love long ago, and there are interesting arguments on both sides of the equation. Those who feel the ban should be kept in place say incestuous relationships are far more likely to bring forth children with birth defects than relationships between people that are not siblings. But opponents of the ban say it is a violation of couple’s rights to sexual freedom.

Patrick and Susan don’t care about all the politics, they say.

“We really love each other a lot, and we never want to be without each other again. We’re living like a small happy family,” Patrick says. To them, in the end, that’s what it comes down to: He needs her, and she needs him…nothing more.

If Germany’s highest court decides not to take the case, Patrick will go to jail again

Story
http://www.cnn.com/exchange/blogs/in.the.field/

Video Link
At the bottom of the story article

Interesting Wikipedia Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_sexual_attraction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)#Westermarck_effect

So I'm of two minds and I don't know which one I exactly choose. On one hand I can logically say I don't really care what two consenting adults who are of age do. I'm a very big believer in personal freedom. I have no problem with the couple in that video for instance. (Although the notion that they are increasing their odds of having kids with birth defects definitely muddies the water for me)

On the other hand I think it could lead to some bad situations like father-daughter relationships if it was legal which seems a lot worse for some reason to me because one partner has a position of strong authority. Makes it even more creepy than it already is.

The obvious reference point is gay marriage which if I'm completely honest about, as a very young dumb person I may have been against and also thought odd. As I got older and matured now I'm all for gay marriage and think it's a form of discrimination to not allow it. I know some gay people who don't like drawing that analogy because it plays into conservative notions of a slippery slope and it is a bit unfair to compair familial relations to heterosexual or homosexual relations.....So I've basically talked in circles. What's your take? Fight!

 

[ForzaItalia]

Sister......when you just can't get laid any other way.

 

[xsarien]

Boy, the way Glenn Miller played...

 

[JayDubya]

With regards to that specific couple, I mean, **** it, they already have four kids. The kids either turned out alright, or they didn't. Leave 'em alone.

The reasons against doing it are strong ones and social stigma against it is well deserved, but I see no compelling reason why it's any of the state's business.

 

[Corwood Rep]

Boy, the way Glenn Miller played...

Everybody pulled his weight indeed.

 

[buhmachine]

as soon as i saw "and they're also brother and sister" i thought GERMANY and whaddya know.

 

[GSG Flash]

I just think it's ****ing weird, I don't think anybody here can imagine having relations with their sister, and if they don't have a sister, can anyone imagine having relations with their mother? It's basically the same thing

There is a good reason why it's banned in so many countries, religion plays a huge role in it, but also the welfare of the offspring, children are the most important thing for most societies and having a kid through an incestuous relationship is basically damning the child to a life with a disability.

 

[disappeared]

Cue "The Deeper In" by the Drive-By Truckers.

 

[way more]

Cue "The Deeper In" by the Drive-By Truckers.

Goddamn it. I just tried to look that song up and after 10 minutes found out my song titles have been messed up on that album. Some are right. This is going to haunt me in my sleep as I thought I had such a organized playlist.



Sounds like they had no clue about what they were doing. Are the kids alright?