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--- incest [2026/04/21 11:39] – ultracomfy
+++ incest [2026/04/21 11:42] (current) – ultracomfy
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 <wrap hi>No Procreative</wrap>
-====== 2. Inbreeding and Incest ======
+===== 1.1 Inbreeding and Incest =====
 This medical reason, however, begins to point us into an important moral direction - there is a difference between incest and inbreeding. Inbreeding is a problem associated with genetic problems in the offspring. However, while inbreeding can be part of incest, it doesn't have to be. As RationalWiki puts it:
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-"An additional problem with most anti-incest arguments is that they tend to focus only on procreative sex [...], ignoring the likely possibility that many incestuous couples don't want, or even can't have, children (like gay couples, or those that use birth control). Humans do in fact engage in recreational sexual intercourse after all."
+An additional problem with most anti-incest arguments is that they tend to focus only on procreative sex [...], ignoring the likely possibility that many incestuous couples don't want, or even can't have, children (like gay couples, or those that use birth control). Humans do in fact engage in recreational sexual intercourse after all.
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 On its own, the medical reasons against inbreeding would give rise to a crime like "sexual recklessness", if you want to call it that way, but that is only a good reason against inbreeding, not //all// kinds of incest.
-====== 3. Family & Power Dynamics ======
+====== 2. Family & Power Dynamics ======
 Another interesting angle on incest is the problem of power dynamics. Parents and their children, even if both are above the age of consent, have an inherent power dynamic that encroaches on the ability of the child to actually give consent. This pervades across the hierarchy as everyone lower on the family tree answers, in one way or another, to those higher on the family tree. For simplicity sake, I will refer to an individual's height in the family tree as a //"Rank"//.
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 Between brothers/sisters/cousins/cousins-in-law, no such power dynamics exist. For where these power dynamics do exist, bringing up incest as a problem is a reasonable objection. Personally, I care more about the potential age difference than about whether it's the same family - both must be of the age of consent or - if underage - roughly the same age. If this condition is satisfied, I find "family" to be a weak argument against it, unless of course the goal is to have //procreative// sex, see [[Incest#1. Genetics|1. Genetics]].
-<wrap hi>If strict: No rank differences</wrap>
+<wrap hi>If strict: No rank differences</wrap>\\
-<wrap hi>No age of consent discrepancies (applies to sexual relations anywhere)</wrap hi>
+<wrap hi>No age of consent discrepancies (applies to sexual relations anywhere)</wrap>
-====== 4. Development Issues ======
+====== 3. Development Issues? ======
 One argument that I do not know whether it is true/valid is whether incest can cause developmental issues. If siblings of similar age engage in incest, does it genuinely cause harm to either of them? I don't know. I wouldn't have thought that it would, and as usual I'm not typically very knowledgeable; but, if that is the case then of course incest is problematic.
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 To me, purely recreational incest where no rank differences occur and everyone involved is capable of consenting to everyone else involved, is still possible here. This would apply to siblings of similar age, or for example siblings of similar age who were seperated at birth. In fact, that is the classical example, as siblings seperated at birth do in fact often experience sexual attraction to each other if they get to know each other later in life, no development issues or other problems required. This is particularly interesting to observe in such pairings where both don't even know that they are related.
-This example, of seperated siblings who get to know each other later in life and don't even know that they are related, illustrates why I think that families are primarily an elective brain thing. There is no practical difference between them and siblings that grew up together. Whether they are "family" or not is entirely an opinion in their brain and doesn't change any physical realities.
+This example - of seperated siblings who get to know each other later in life and don't even know that they are related - illustrates why I think that families are primarily an elective brain thing. There is no practical difference between them and siblings that grew up together. Whether they are "family" or not is entirely an opinion in their brain and doesn't change any physical realities.
 ====== Addendum: Unnaturality and other Subjective Arguments ======
 Arguments I do not like are arguments that are based entirely around subjectivity. If someone's opinion is based on an entirely subjective perception of the world then it is valuable for them to guide their own behavior - and they are free to do that! - but it is entirely worthless in a general discussion of the ethicality of the thing in question. This includes, amongst others, being disgusted and similar subjective experience, or religiously motivated god arguments ("god says we shouldn't"), because god is exclusively subjective and cannot be externalized or measured in any way.