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Incest Is Best?

I would question how consenting that kind of sex is, but this isn't my field of expertise.

It will vary from instance to instance and I imagine in the majority of cases it is not consensual and is abuse but I find myself agreeing with Scargy over the terminology. The term "abuse" is clearer and more accurate.
 
I don't know, the word "incest" is really bad as it is!
Back in the early/mid '80s what is now known as 'familial child sex abuse' was being tentatively discussed as incest.
'Incest' does indeed sound pretty bad, but it implies ignorance and vice rather than coercion.
 
I used to frequent a second-hand bookshop. I bought a number of Biggles books there, but the bloke had a stack of magazine from the seventies full of "keep it in the family" articles on why incest was a really good idea.
This was in Norwich, by the way.
 
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Back in the early/mid '80s what is now known as 'familial child sex abuse' was being tentatively discussed as incest.
'Incest' does indeed sound pretty bad, but it implies ignorance and vice rather than coercion.

I have always thought of the word "incest" as being neutral in the context of violence, abuse, etc. I do remember what scargy says about that time, though. I wondered why what I would call incestuous rape or abuse was simply being called incest, as if concentual incest didn't - couldn't - exist.

Of course it could be argued that consentual incest is wrong, unhealthy, etc. but that doesn't make it abuse.
 
I have always thought of the word "incest" as being neutral in the context of violence, abuse, etc. I do remember what scargy says about that time, though. I wondered why what I would call incestuous rape or abuse was simply being called incest, as if concentual incest didn't - couldn't - exist.

Of course it could be argued that consentual incest is wrong, unhealthy, etc. but that doesn't make it abuse.
It's abuse because of the power relationship, as with the 'affair'/incest between Sappho and her father.

If a partner would find it hard to deny the other sex because of the consequences of saying 'no', the relationship is abusive, incestuous or not.
 
Agreed,. And if I didn't make it clear, I was in no way promoting or condoning consensual incest. But however distasteful it may be, it does exist - for example, one hears the occasional stories of couples who fell in love and later discovered they were first cousins, or siblings separated when infants.

Merriam-Webster defines incest as "sexual intercourse between persons so closely related that they are forbidden by law to marry[;]
also : the statutory crime of such a relationship". Nothing about abuse, psychological or otherwise. I just get annoyed when words acquire subtleties of meaning that can cloud intelligent discussion of the matters at hand. Consider "kill" versus "murder": it's almost never a good thing when someone kills another person, but that doesn't mean that all killings are murders.
 
Agreed,. And if I didn't make it clear, I was in no way promoting or condoning consensual incest. But however distasteful it may be, it does exist - for example, one hears the occasional stories of couples who fell in love and later discovered they were first cousins, or siblings separated when infants.

Merriam-Webster defines incest as "sexual intercourse between persons so closely related that they are forbidden by law to marry[;]
also : the statutory crime of such a relationship". Nothing about abuse, psychological or otherwise. I just get annoyed when words acquire subtleties of meaning that can cloud intelligent discussion of the matters at hand. Consider "kill" versus "murder": it's almost never a good thing when someone kills another person, but that doesn't mean that all killings are murders.
Hence the argument that 'Thou shalt not kill' means 'thou shalt not murder'. Not one i subscribe to, BTW.

Incest does not necessarily mean abuse, and can , depending on the particular state's definition of incest, be entirely unwitting. Given my Gran was one of 14 siblings only one of which I ever met, the world is full of first cousins once removed and second cousins I know nothing about.
 
Hence the argument that 'Thou shalt not kill' means 'thou shalt not murder'. Not one i subscribe to, BTW.

Incest does not necessarily mean abuse, and can , depending on the particular state's definition of incest, be entirely unwitting. Given my Gran was one of 14 siblings only one of which I ever met, the world is full of first cousins once removed and second cousins I know nothing about.
I don't think it would be counted as incest if it was between cousins once removed or second cousins. The level of blood relationship would be distant enough to make it not a crime.

We are pretty well ALL related anyway, if you go back far enough.
 
Austrian 'hid daughter in cellar'

A 73-year-old Austrian is under arrest on suspicion of hiding his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children with her, police say.
Unbelievably, it appears that the detestable perpetrator, Joseph Fritzl, will be eligible for parole this year

Irrespective of his advancing years (and consequent 'graduation' into a lesser jail facility that includes the theoretical right of release) this utterly-horrible excuse for a man should never, ever, be allowed out of confinement.

My instinctive hatred of him has just gone up a number of levels, when I read that he fathered at least 14 children (that are known of, between his wife and daughter).
 
It's abuse because of the power relationship, as with the 'affair'/incest between Sappho and her father.

If a partner would find it hard to deny the other sex because of the consequences of saying 'no', the relationship is abusive, incestuous or not.
It's abuse because of the power relationship, as with the 'affair'/incest between Sappho and her father.

If a partner would find it hard to deny the other sex because of the consequences of saying 'no', the relationship is abusive, incestuous or not.
100% .. I've met someone who's gone through this.
 
Agreed,. And if I didn't make it clear, I was in no way promoting or condoning consensual incest. But however distasteful it may be, it does exist - for example, one hears the occasional stories of couples who fell in love and later discovered they were first cousins, or siblings separated when infants.

Merriam-Webster defines incest as "sexual intercourse between persons so closely related that they are forbidden by law to marry[;]
also : the statutory crime of such a relationship". Nothing about abuse, psychological or otherwise. I just get annoyed when words acquire subtleties of meaning that can cloud intelligent discussion of the matters at hand. Consider "kill" versus "murder": it's almost never a good thing when someone kills another person, but that doesn't mean that all killings are murders.
The dictionary definition doesn't have to go into issues of psychological harm; it's about the meaning of the word.
 
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