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The "rational" people over at RationalWiki have an article on Incest.
Incest describes all sexual activity between close, human relatives. Incest faces one the strictest sexual taboos in society, second only to pedophilia, almost to the point of omnilateral repulsion.
A preface: I don't have and never really had brothers, sisters, any real parents or a real family to speak of. I don't know what it's like to have close relatives, and if I ever did then I forgot. I don't have a sister that I could look at, wrinkle my face in disgust and go “fuck her?? EWWW”. I'm sure I would. If I had a close relative like that, whom I've known from family for years, I think I would be disgusted. Still, I am surprised by the strength of the reactions you get from a lot of people when you talk to them about incest. Personally, I don't care either way. Incest isn't relevant to me or my life. I don't have any strong feelings about it. The reason I look at incest is because there is a strong disconnect between what I would think of as a reasonable reaction to incest, as opposed to the “average” reaction I get on incest. I am trying to find out where that disconnect lies, why it is there. Now, me being me I will be looking for a “strong”, a rational argument. The way incest is presented most of the time makes it seem like people want to say that it's wrong, that one shouldn't do it.
However, no matter how disgusted you or me may be, I haven't yet found any serious moral objections to incest as a whole. So, I've spent quite some time talking to people and evaluating their reasons “against” incest. The first thing most people will say when asked is “it's disgusting”. This is not a “strong” reason the way I define it. People are welcome to their personal tastes, so if you think of something as disgusting, you are free to refrain from doing whatever it is that makes you uncomfortable.1) Naturally, I will push further, and here are some of the most common answers:
But diseases!
And what if it magically didn't yield a higher chance of disease? What about recreative (not pro-creative) incest?2) As RationalWiki puts it:
“
“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.”
“
Remember, the diseases don't make the incest itself bad. Diseases are associated with incest, but they aren't inherently part of incest. The disease is bad, we can agree on that, but incest isn't disease - it's merely a thing that can lead to a more frequent manifestation of disease.
However, since incest can indirectly3) lead to suffering I am willing to make concessions here. I wouldn't say that incest itself is bad because of disease, but we can agree that there is room for discussion on restricting it (to avoid the suffering). I don't even know where those lines should be placed… recreative incest only? Compulsory abortion? This is where I would be willing to compromise.
It isn't natural
Your mom isn't natural.If that doesn't convince you, how about: “That's what they said about homosexuality as well.” - In short: Why is it unnatural? Who are you to decide what is or is not natural? Why does being counter-intuitive make it unnatural? What's bad about doing unnatural things? Does it harm or hurt anyone? I have yet to see an argumentum ad nature that isn't just purely based on intuition.
I invoke God to win this argument!
And I invoke the flying Spaghetti monster, because he tells me that incest is perfectly fine. But that's heretical? You are heretical to my god and belief system. Now try to get out of this impasse, motherducker!