Incest in a lift

[Ron_Tomkins]

At least they didn't do it on an escalator.

 

[Babbylonian]

Yeah, I would quote what my father said on the issue but it’s highly offensive. He uses the word "faggot" 3 times a day .

Are you sure you're not being overly sensitive about what he says when building fires to cook his meals?

 

[Arcade22]

C'mon, at least they were male and female. Can you imagine if they were two brothers? That would be, you know, weird...

What are you talking about?! I think it would have been pretty sweet! Well, as long as they are cute and not rat like in appearance. Although the nature of incest might favor the latter, as demonstrated in this case.

 

[Stellafane]

What are you talking about?! I think it would have been pretty sweet! Well, as long as they are cute and not rat like in appearance. Although the nature of incest might favor the latter, as demonstrated in this case.

Actually, in the great scheme of things two siblings of the same gender going at it is probably preferable, since it eliminates the possibility of the union producing progeny, the primary downside of such activity.

 

[Ziggurat]

the point you keep failing to address is that the reason for the law is not this eugenic reason but to place a ringfence around the predatory relationships that characterise many but not all examples.

Quite so.

I've made this same point before in another thread where the topic of incest came up. Nobody was able to provide a good counter-argument, though plenty of really weak counter-arguments were offered.

 

[Skeptic]

The slippery slope argument isn't a fallacy if the slope is, in fact, slippery. Before X is legitimized, those who say X will lead to Y are laughed at for not noticing X is totally different than Y. After X is legitimized, however, the same people who previously claimed this X is totally different than Y usually also want to legitimize Y, claiming it is very clear X and Y are actually really similar -- precisely the slippery slope argument they laughed at with their opponents as long as their goal was to legitimize X.

We've seen this happen, for example, with divorce. Those who claimed easy divorce will increase illegitimacy were laughed at, told clearly these two things are totally different. Then, once divorce became the new norm, sure enough illegitimacy was normalized as well: after all, divorced kids and illegitimate ones both grow up with their mother alone most of the time, so what's the difference? By now, illegitimacy -- not having a family and then the family breaking up, but raising children without bothering, or expecting, much of the father apart from a sperm donation -- is, in some communities, the new norm, causing terrible damage to generations of people, especially the poor. The "slippery slope" folks were 100% correct, yet they were villified.

We've also seen this happen with civil unions. At the time those who supported it claimed it is totally different than marriage, and thus only people who are bigots will claim that it will lead to gay marriage. Needless to say the minute civil unions became legalized the fight to legalize gay marriage -- naturally enough, now considered very similar to civil unions -- started. Once again the "slippery slope" folks were 100% correct.

We might well see this with polygamy: first we are told there is no relation, and marrying two men is something totally different than one man marrying two women; I myself was often told this on this forum. But if and when gay marriage is normalized, why, then one can bet -- judging from previous experience -- that suddenly it will become "obvious" to everybody except "bigots" (or so the proponents of polygamy will claim) that surely, if two persons can marry, this is suddenly very similar to three people marrying.

With sexual morality, the slippery slope isn't a bug, it's a feature. The argument for normalizing conduct X is always the same: (1) It is unfair since many people do things similar to X and that isn't considered bad; (2) People who are told X is wrong felt bad because they counldn't do X; (3) we used to think Y is bad and now we don't, so why not allow X as well? (4) X is "just between consenting adults", so who are you to oppose it? (5) "If you don't like it don't do it, it's just the ick factor; be open to other people's experiences!". But since it applies equally well to any sort of X whatever, then there is no way to stop polygamy, prostitution, sadomasochism (wait -- that's already de facto legal at least), necrophilia (the corpse isn't a person, so who is hurt?), incest (between adults), or any of the numerous other psychopatia sexualis from being normalized, as well.

The road, I suppose, started when the APA declared in the 1970s homosexuality isn't a pathology -- the logical equivalent of Constantine's claim in the 4th century that homosexuality causes earthquakes -- if not before, in the 1960s. But ever since, the assembly-line use of the above argument became so standardized that there is hardly anything considered "perverse" these days, and it's probably only a matter of time before the walls of the morgue, or the kindergarten, come tumbling down.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

However it IS complete bullcrap if in fact there are examples of countries around the world where prostitution has been legal and normal business for 800+ years, and none show any sign of legalizing sibling sex. So, you know, if there's a slippery slope, it can't be too steep or slippery.

The argument that finding sibling sex normal follows after allowing prostitution as normal business, just is false by simple virtue of RL counter-examples. Not to mention that every single case that fits column A is not fitting column B, so every single case ever observed is a counter-example.

And generally, there is no conceivable situation where writing a page of delusional, disconnected-from-reality BS overrides reality. It's one of those things that feel silly to even have to tell someone over the age of 6.

You can't make water be not wet by just arguing that it makes sense to you that it's dry. And you can't make pigs fly by just arguing that it's logical to you that they fly. And you can't connect incest to prostitution by just refusing to acknowledge reality. It's really that simple, sorry.

 

[Skeptic]

However it IS complete bullcrap if in fact there are examples of countries around the world where prostitution has been legal and normal business for 800+ years,

Oh really? Name one.

And generally, there is no conceivable situation where writing a page of delusional, disconnected-from-reality BS overrides reality. It's one of those things that feel silly to even have to tell someone over the age of 6.

I'm right about divorce and "civil unions", ain't I?

By the way, polygamists are already making the argument I said they will... if two people can marry, why not three? Or six? Surely if anything, during most of history, polygamy was far, far more common than gay marriage.

Of course such societies usually went together with de facto female slavery, but of course historical examples only teach us something when it agrees with what is currently fashionable -- like those "800 years" of "legal and normal" prostitution.

 

[ktesibios]

It's truly unconscionable that thesse two should have been boinking in the lift at Motherwell.

I mean, isn't that what the lost luggage queue at Fenchurch Street station is for?

 

[sadhatter]

A point i havn't seen raised, and one that provides a bit of an insight into why i think incest, in most situations is a bad thing, is as follows.

The brother gave the sister money for the deed, to me this would indicate a level of control, the same kind of control one has when one gives a child a new toy for doing well in school or the like. And would indicate to me that this has been going on for quite some time.

Incest among siblings, parents, whatever, that have not been in the traditional roles, i have no issue with. ( separated parents and children, brothers and sisters, cousins that havn't met, etc.) Not my cup of tea, but to each their own. But the bonds of a modern family put a younger sibling, or child, in a detrimental position, of being able to be groomed for the pleasure of a family member.

And simply, that is not something that a child should have to worry about. A family is supposed to be a safe non judgmental environment. But when someone promotes sex in this kind of environment, they have a lot more sway than other circumstances. The approached person may want to just keep father or mother ( or big brother, etc.) happy, they may think they have to, in the same way they have to cut the lawn or clean their room ( complete with allowance like rewards, in this case.), or any number of other manipulative tactics that are severely enhanced by the familial relation.

I mean people believe that a man rose from the dead and that a cracker turns into his flesh, soley because they were raised with that concept ( there are other reasons for conversion, but i am speaking of the fact that there are people who believe for no other reason than they grew up with it.). And only decades later, in a lot of cases realize that it wasn't something they would have done should they have been given the choice, as opposed to having it presented like the only option. The same , obviously can be said for incest. So why exactly should we open the doors to things like this by making it legal? Are we in that dire need of another thing that people can force upon children in their care?

But what about the tiny percentage of relationships that evolved only well after all parties were of legal age? ( i would like to see evidence of this happening, but that is another point. For the sake of argument, i will concede it may have happened at some point. ) Well one of my favorite quotes sums the situation up perfectly.

" The rules work well for 95% of people. 5% are in situations that the rules should not apply. You know what these 5% need to do? Follow the rules. Because everybody thinks they are in that 5%."

Those mythical couples who only realized they wanted to have an incest based relationship when they were adults, need to realize that they need to "take one for the team.", in order to minimize the harm coming to the many many others who could be born as nothing more than a source of sex for a parent or sibling.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Oh really? Name one.

Germany.

I'm right about divorce and "civil unions", ain't I?

By the way, polygamists are already making the argument I said they will... if two people can marry, why not three? Or six? Surely if anything, during most of history, polygamy was far, far more common than gay marriage.

The lack of logic in there is truly staggering. So if injustices A and B happened to be both repealed and both vaguely on the same domain, then issue C will lead to issue D? I'll introduce you to this newfangled thing called logic, and more specifically the fallacy of four terms.

But generally, your argument is so broken, it's not even funny. The best counter-argument to it comes from Sagan, "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." When your argument for the validity of some scare BS boils down to basically "yeah, they also said other stuff won't happen and it did", you can know it's crossed the line into pencils-up-the-nose crazy. Not only it's a by association fallacy anyway, but sharing the characteristic that someone had an objection, is so generic and encompassing everything between legitimate ideas to bat-crap crazy stuff, that it's weak sauce even by the standard of fallacious handwaving.

"They said X won't happen and it did" doesn't make Y true because they also said Y won't happen. You know what else people said won't happen? People asphixiating as air is being sucked out of trains at speeds over 30 mph... and it actually didn't happen. Electric light turning cities into a child rape-fest, like some idiot moralists were claiming would happen if potential rapists could see if someone's home, most people said it won't happen... and it didn't happen. Etc.

Really, trying to make X true just because they laughed at Y too and were wrong, is as illogical as trying to make everyone who's been laughed at a great scientist. Including Bozo The Clown.

So, you know, even skipping everything else I could object to that self-righteous wall of text of yours, come back when you have an argument that's not that silly a fallacy.

Of course such societies usually went together with de facto female slavery, but of course historical examples only teach us something when it agrees with what is currently fashionable -- like those "800 years" of "legal and normal" prostitution.

Which is at best a red herring, and at worst moving the goal posts. What you claimed was that once a society is ok with prostitution, it will be ok with incest too. Whether said societies were patriarchal or not, is smoke and mirrors for what you actually claimed.

 

[L.Y.S.]

Are you sure you're not being overly sensitive about what he says when building fires to cook his meals?

You should hear what he thinks of women .

Let's have a society of quasimodo's!

 

[caniswalensis]

At least they didn't do it on an escalator.

Are you tryig to get me excited?

 

[I Ratant]

...
But what about the tiny percentage of relationships that evolved only well after all parties were of legal age?...

.
Ripe enough to be picked, and probably from the same bunch!

 

[Mark6]

A society where there is nothing wrong with prostitution and it's just another business is not likely to keep considering incest as too bad. Once sex is for you not the result of deep feeling and relationship, but a quick business act, why not with your brother? Why is that so much worse than with a total stranger? Not everything two concepts that are logically independent are also causally independent.

Take another look at the map Humes_Fork provided at the start of Is there any good reason for prostitution being illegal? thread. Notice all the blue and green countries? Prostitution was ALWAYS legal in France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Greece. (Also Germany, except in Eastern part under Communism.) Provide evidence these countries are okay with incest.

Or with forcible polygamy or with wife-beating, which are all things you claimed (on that thread) legalized prostitution leads to.

Without such evidence, you are just blowing your prejudices.

 

[RandFan]

The slippery slope argument isn't a fallacy if the slope is, in fact, slippery. Before X is legitimized, those who say X will lead to Y are laughed at for not noticing X is totally different than Y. After X is legitimized, however, the same people who previously claimed this X is totally different than Y usually also want to legitimize Y, claiming it is very clear X and Y are actually really similar -- precisely the slippery slope argument they laughed at with their opponents as long as their goal was to legitimize X.

We've seen this happen, for example, with divorce. Those who claimed easy divorce will increase illegitimacy were laughed at, told clearly these two things are totally different. Then, once divorce became the new norm, sure enough illegitimacy was normalized as well: after all, divorced kids and illegitimate ones both grow up with their mother alone most of the time, so what's the difference? By now, illegitimacy -- not having a family and then the family breaking up, but raising children without bothering, or expecting, much of the father apart from a sperm donation -- is, in some communities, the new norm, causing terrible damage to generations of people, especially the poor. The "slippery slope" folks were 100% correct, yet they were villified.

We've also seen this happen with civil unions. At the time those who supported it claimed it is totally different than marriage, and thus only people who are bigots will claim that it will lead to gay marriage. Needless to say the minute civil unions became legalized the fight to legalize gay marriage -- naturally enough, now considered very similar to civil unions -- started. Once again the "slippery slope" folks were 100% correct.

We might well see this with polygamy: first we are told there is no relation, and marrying two men is something totally different than one man marrying two women; I myself was often told this on this forum. But if and when gay marriage is normalized, why, then one can bet -- judging from previous experience -- that suddenly it will become "obvious" to everybody except "bigots" (or so the proponents of polygamy will claim) that surely, if two persons can marry, this is suddenly very similar to three people marrying.

With sexual morality, the slippery slope isn't a bug, it's a feature. The argument for normalizing conduct X is always the same: (1) It is unfair since many people do things similar to X and that isn't considered bad; (2) People who are told X is wrong felt bad because they counldn't do X; (3) we used to think Y is bad and now we don't, so why not allow X as well? (4) X is "just between consenting adults", so who are you to oppose it? (5) "If you don't like it don't do it, it's just the ick factor; be open to other people's experiences!". But since it applies equally well to any sort of X whatever, then there is no way to stop polygamy, prostitution, sadomasochism (wait -- that's already de facto legal at least), necrophilia (the corpse isn't a person, so who is hurt?), incest (between adults), or any of the numerous other psychopatia sexualis from being normalized, as well.

The road, I suppose, started when the APA declared in the 1970s homosexuality isn't a pathology -- the logical equivalent of Constantine's claim in the 4th century that homosexuality causes earthquakes -- if not before, in the 1960s. But ever since, the assembly-line use of the above argument became so standardized that there is hardly anything considered "perverse" these days, and it's probably only a matter of time before the walls of the morgue, or the kindergarten, come tumbling down.

A lot of problems with this but I'll keep it simple. First read Fallacy: Slippery Slope next read post hoc fallacy.

In any event, your premises are asserted as if they are axiomatic, you confuse correlation with causation, over simplify complex social dynamics and you appeal to intuition. You supply no sources or data and appeal to emotion and consequences.

Not worthy a post of a supposed skeptic on a skeptics forum. It's rather mystifying actually.

 

[commandlinegamer]

IIRC it's not illegal to sell sex in the UK either. But there are severe restrictions. One woman may do it in her own home for example. Two, and it's a brothel; not on.

Solicitation, is a criminal offence though.

 

[Arcade22]

Actually, in the great scheme of things two siblings of the same gender going at it is probably preferable, since it eliminates the possibility of the union producing progeny, the primary downside of such activity.

Exactly! That's the reason it appealed to me...!

Take another look at the map Humes_Fork provided at the start of Is there any good reason for prostitution being illegal? thread. Notice all the blue and green countries? Prostitution was ALWAYS legal in France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Greece. (Also Germany, except in Eastern part under Communism.) Provide evidence these countries are okay with incest.

Incest is legal in France:

Napoleon abolished incest laws in France and Belgium. Incest had been legal in these two countries. On January 27, 2010, France reinstated laws against incest, which had been thrown out during the French Revolution as a "religious taboo" over 200 years prior. The new law, however, definies incest as rape or sexual abuse on a minor, "by a relative or any other person having lawful or de facto authority over the victim". Incest between consenting adults is not prohibited.

 

[Mark6]

If anything, this is an even better counterargument to Skeptic. After 200 years of legal prostitution and legal incest, France made child incest illegal. If Skeptic's "logic" were true, France should have made child incest mandatory by now!

 

[I Ratant]

Possibly in Belgium.
"Playboy" once said that behavior not prohibited there, is mandatory.