As an only child, I can't even begin to imagine incest. I've been indoctrinated that it's utterly wrong, and do seem to have succumbed to that view, but I have never really given it a second thought. I've actually seen this post laying here for a long time, but today is the first time I checked it out, just because it's so often in my "similar posts" list.

I would say to that person that morality has nothing to do with God, and would counter by bringing up Adam and Eve. According to the bible, there must have been a shit load of incest early on. As in, no choice. Be fruitful, and multiply, he said.

Non Vote. But reckon poster is Very Amoral based on his post. Should had give us his definition of incest. What he believes incest is.

I had sex with a cousin when I was a teen. She was way older and married and many other things, but it was just one of those things. I don't consider what happened wrong, and neither does she. It only happened once, and I would never consider being with any other family members. It's just a little odd, but I was a horny teenage boy at the time, so it seemed like a heck of a deal. We broke the legs off my Uncle's pool table.

How any one can find their own sibling sexually attractive is beyond me. My family is NOT a sexual environment I seek out.

As long as they're both adults and consenting and aren't planning on making back babies, it's completely moral.

Morality is mobile. What may be immoral for us today, may not have been in the past or in the future.
For now, for me it's immoral.

when my mother was a teenager she fell in love with her own brother but didnt know he was her brother my grandmother had given him to her mother to look after as apparently in those days it was often done espcially if there were already another baby on the way . Charlie, the brother had come back to my granny as a teenager because the grandmother had died - No-one told my mother that Charlie was her brother until things started getting out of hand - I imagine family secrets like this one are hard for the family to contain and or deal with and that when the truth does come out its uncomfortable for everyone. I suppose safe sex isnt always safe as it sounds and isnt good for the family gene pool- I really don't think its a christian influence as most people would be concerned about the genetic defects from close alliances.

Immoral isn't the word I'd use, revolting is closer to it

Here's my non-scientific take on this: Incest is not immoral per se. I think there is a natural evolutionary taboo because of the biological disadvantages (mutations, abnormalities, weakened gene pool, etc.). Some other animals share this taboo.

However, I also think the taboo was commandeered early on by religion and declared immoral. It's another tool by which to control the masses.

I am going to say immoral because there is no such thing as 100% Safe Sex, they are still choosing to take the risk and have that slim and very rare chance of creating a child between them.

I can’t ascribe a moral/amoral label to incest because it goes against our genetic programming to mate with close relatives. Therefore it isn’t a subject that’s “moral” or not, it’s a subject that’s beyond simple morality and into an area of being human.

From what I've read, it's about keeping order in family and society. If sons can take mothers and sisters to bed, they would dethrone their fathers and brothers. Fathers would murder their sons. If daughters can have sex with their fathers, it would misplace mothers. Mothers would kill their daughters.

So, we now have extended rules that first cousins are not to have sex or marry each other. Same reason... families would end off killing themselves over affairs. In short, incest, or the possibility of incest, leads to murder in the family.

Instances where incest happens and it is accepted is in tribes. Males have children with many women. Women have children with many men. There are lap overs in parenthood as children born into the tribe are the tribe's children mainly under the care of their birth mother and her close siblings. Different system, so different rules.

Incest also happens in the animal kingdom. Animals don't have the intelligence of humans, so they may not get jealous or have a taboo thought of incest. I have heard of male lions killing off the offspring of previous males when they mate with a new female. I think that is more of a lineage dominance factor though. I've heard of dogs of the same litter mating with each other. They don't have the rules humans do.

How did Cain and Abel, the only two offspring of Adam and Eve, produce children? - Sex with their mother? Or if Adam and Eve did have other female children who are not mentioned, they would have been full sisters of Cain and Abel. Enuff said!

I don't like the question as written, either. Because, frankly, if we used the words unethical/ethical instead, it could be either. But the probability is so high that the privilege would be abused, I have to say that it's immoral about 99.99% of the time.

This question presupposes that a sexual relationship between consenting adults is always good, and is framed to minimize or remove most of the obvious problems with incestuous relations: power dynamics, possible genetic repercussions, etc. But incest is always a slippery slope, and not for genetic reasons as much as social reasons.

When people are related to each other, they already HAVE a familial relationship. Introducing sex into that relationship is likely to have significant negative consequences, and they cannot all be foreseen ahead of time. Woody Allen chose to become sexually involved with his then-wife's adopted daughter Soon Yi, who later became his wife. They weren't genetically related, and they are still married, but that relationship sundered his family, and ALL the other relationships in the family unit were affected. Woody's choice, to sexualize a relationship with a young woman who once thought of him as a father figure, is a selfish choice, and ignores the impact on the greater family constellation.

I know the post-writer tried to avoid the obvious father-daughter power discrepancy in my example, but the fact is, all relationships have power dynamics, and they can't be ignored. A pair of siblings shares a wider family together; will they brazenly display their affection for each other to their parents? and other siblings? or keep it a secret? Neither is a good choice.

No relationship happens in a vaccuum, and adding sex to a sibling relationship is almost always going to be the wrong thing to do.

Having said that, imagine two ageing siblings living together, whose parents and other siblings have died. Perhaps one of them is disabled, or crippled by poverty. They love each other, and always have. No one will be harmed if they decide to become lovers. But no one need know, either. Both moral, and ethical, standards upheld. This falls into the 00.01% of cases mentioned above.

I have never heard a case where incest has truly been consentual. No coercion, no power dynamics, bit two adults being intimate without any shady behavior. I don't believe it's possible, especially considering the biological imperative that programs us to view close family as non-sexual only. I think those who some how view close family as sexual have a wiring issue in the brain. If there was an existing case where it was close relatives, started in adulthood and was completely emotionally healthy, maybe that would be ok. I just don't see that existing in real life.

If consenting adult siblings decide to have sex, it is only their business - as long as they don't procreate. it supports the freedom of choice, not harming a third party.

Morality is a social construct.
Biological, inbreeding leads to the collection of heterogeneous mutations and can lead to reduced fitness. The incest taboo is much older than Christianity and has nothing to do with it. It came from thousands of years of observations. In the past, they used myth stories to show people that it was "wrong".
So if you want to get fixed and have sex with your sister or brother, whatever.

There are two types of incest, consensual and forced. Forced could also mean that the more vulnerable participant was manipulated verbally and/or emotionally. Consensual incest implies that both parties are fully aware of the consequences of having a child with genetic aberrations is increased. As long as each party feels mutually respected and has the option to stop at any time, their incest is none of my business.

Two non-religious issues with incest, as I see it:

1. The potential for genetic problems in any offspring produced.
2. The possibility of parents or older siblings grooming children for sexual activity. Consider a father raising his daughter to be his sexual partner the day she's legally old enough to consent, and this being perfectly acceptable in law.

The former, I will leave to science. The latter is a violation of the kind of trust that a child should be able to place in close family.

I find it rather tragic when two people meet, become romantically involved, and then discover that they're related closely enough to make their relationship incestuous. There has been no grooming at that point. Just a twist of fate that made their relationship unacceptable.

What's particularly interesting is where the boundaries lie. In the UK, for example, sex with a first cousin is perfectly legal. Elsewhere in the world, it's considered incestuous, and carries the same legal consequences and moral outrage as a parent and child or a pair of siblings.

I have to say my brother sister and I were abused sexually by our much older uncle; so knowing that that is the most common occurrence of incest it is IMMORAL.

Having said that our DNA and genetic make up passes along our genes, and humans are susceptible to damaging genetic combinations which cannot be weeded out by stronger genetics when there is incest resulting in pregnancy. Wild animals display almost no signs of incestuous relations ships, unlike homosexuality.

There is incest in most species.

Neither. Incest takes place in many societies and over 400 animal species. Is first cousin sex/married incest? Hundreds of societies do it. Best to avoid it in the immediate family for emotional reasons.

I find this gross because i was raised to believe it is gross. People are taught from birth what is moral or immoral . There is no answer to this question because morals are derived from cultural and society upbringing. Incest occurs in the animal kingdom

It is an Ethics issue. That is just not good for Civilized people to be doing.

I wasn't sure just how to answer this question, but after serious consideration, I can find no scientific reason why 2 consenting adults should not have safe sex.