"I knew Rita was my sister," he says now. "I didn't choose to fall in love with her, or expect to feel sexual desire. It just happened. Even in front of my wife, I made no attempt to hide my adoration, I just buzzed whenever she was around. It was as if no one else existed. The two biggest mistakes I made were deluding myself that I could become all-important in her life, a brother and a surrogate lover, even though she didn't desire me, and then believing I could control and resolve the problem by myself."
...In the past year, Lytton says, he came close to wrecking his marriage, having a complete nervous collapse, even committing suicide. What saved him was his sister's emotional detachment, his wife's extraordinary patience and understanding - and, most crucially, learning about a little-known phenomenon called genetic sexual attraction (GSA), increasingly acknowledged by post-adoption agencies to be a common feature of reunions between blood relatives who have never before met. "I seem to have contracted this condition, GSA, in its severest form," he declares, as if describing a virus. "Now that I know there is a condition, and why it occurs, I feel I have reached a turning point and will be able to work towards building a normal, balanced relationship with my sister." If, as seems possible, he comes through the crisis with his marriage, mental stability and relationship with his sister intact, Lytton will be in a fortunate minority.
The term GSA was first coined in the US in the late 1980s by Barbara Gonyo, the founder of Truth Seekers In Adoption, a Chicago-based support group for adoptees and their new-found relatives. The emergence of GSA both in the US and the UK coincided with the relaxation of adoption laws in the mid-1970s, which gave adopted children easier access to their records and led to an increase in the number of reunions between adoptees and their blood relatives.
The unexpectedly high number of reported cases of men and women struggling with sudden and terrifying emotions after a reunion has surprised and perplexed most post-adoption agencies. So far, because of the taboos surrounding GSA and its variable and complex nature, the frequency of these cases is almost impossible to quantify, although some agencies estimate that elements of GSA occur in 50% of reunions. Growing awareness of its potentially devastating implications, especially in cases where relatives embark on a sexual relationship, has prompted some organisations to warn all clients attempting to trace a relative about the phenomenon, while also training counsellors to recognise the warning signs and to help adoptees and their families cope with the damage.
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It wasn't until almost a decade later, when Gonyo became the director of Truth Seekers In Adoption and raised the issue of GSA, that others began plucking up the courage to confess their own "forbidden" attraction to a parent, adult child or sibling with whom they had been reunited. She vividly remembers the first time someone raised their hand in one workshop. A man in his 30s, he was the first person she saw stand up in a room full of people and speak the unspeakable. "He simply said, 'I slept with my mother. I was 21 when I found her. We were very much in love. After several years, it stopped.' His mother had ended the relationship because it was too painful for her; she felt guilty and was afraid of being discovered. That was more than 10 years ago, and he said he'd not only lost his lover but what was even more important: his mother. He said he had never regretted having sex with his mother, only that losing her was a high price to pay."