Incest: a constructed crime

[narcasse]

Seeing as I seem to be biologically programmed to wake up at 2pm no matter what time I go to sleep and the first order of the day is idling until my tea finally wakes me up properly, perusing this post on fandomsecrets turned up secret 21 which seemed quite interesting. And by ‘interesting’ at a first glance I mean faintly stereotypical and bound to produce a flurry of comments along the lines of accusations directed at the poster of not being able to separate fantasy from reality. But surprisingly the comments seem to be more to the tune of reasoning that there are taboos against incest for a reason; namely due to the high incidence of inbreeding recession that it would cause.


From a biological standpoint incest is detrimental due to the progeny produced and also in a wider sense because it removes certain genetic material from the gene pool since it’s not being mixed with a different type but rather breeding with similar. And after a certain period of time if progeny are being produced then they’ll likely be biologically unfit to actually survive in the given environment. Which would be why in small communities that sort of issue would really be a problem, since there’s limited genetic material in the first place and in a small colony of settlers where everybody was required to do their part for the entire colony to survive, progeny who couldn’t would also create extra strain on the community that would have to look after them.

It’s a very ‘breeding pool’ sort of analysis really but it makes sense framed in those terms. On the other hand in the land of crazy genetic experiments if someone were deliberately breeding for a specific trait regardless of the potential detrimental effects on other traits caused by breeding close relatives, then it would make perfect sense. Though I’d venture in that sort of scenario that it’s more likely for deficiencies to show up long before whatever advantageous trait it is rears its head. The chance of inadvertently breeding for homozygous recessive disorders would be ridiculously high and with sex-linked disorders such as haemophilia and ones that, seeming for no apparent reason, skip a generation like schizophrenia; it’d be highly likely that such an experiment would end in the accidental culling of entire generations via early death or rendering them unsuitable for breeding via various disorders at a later date.

Thus, the use of incestuous relationships for breeding really isn’t a good idea, though that would be what we do with plants when we’re breeding for certain traits anyway. For more complex organisms or at least organisms who can object, it’s not a good idea then. But if the argument against incest is based around breeding potential then what’s the issue if there are no progeny and the partners involved are either biologically incapable or have no wish to produce any? Well, in that case there really isn’t much of an issue beyond taking similar genetic material out of the gene pool, which outside of small colonies isn’t really much of a problem at all, especially in a society were people may simply chose not to breed anyway.

So technically there’s no issue sans progeny in a built up sort of society where there is enough genetic material to go round and people often choose not to breed anyway so there’s no major stigma attached. Granted, there can be stigma in certain quarters about having no desire to breed but it’s generally possible to maintain that status of having no progeny. And in that case there shouldn’t really be a problem with the matter and yet there is.

The problem with incest then being less about genetic considerations than the taboo set up by society about said relationship, a taboo based on those genetic considerations. Because partners in such a relationship might feel that they’re doing nothing wrong, especially if they’ve no intention of breeding and have looked at all due considerations, and yet find that they’re behaving as if they’ve committed some hideous crime. And there in lies the problem. Society’s reaction to such a relationship would necessitate hiding it as if it were a crime and it’s the effect produced on the participants by being forced to hide that would be the real issue. Never being able to openly talk about your partner, never being able to mention something nice they’ve done for you or being able to tell your friends what you did for your anniversary... the list goes on. All the common, little things that the average couple would be able to slip into a conversation or little moments of acknowledgement from people around them that they were a couple, wouldn’t be possible. And not being able to share that with anyone else, in fact being forced to actively hide from everyone else would be the problem. It would create the same sense of guilt and confusion as actually committing some crime would and that wouldn’t be the sort of thing that anyone would want to live with.

Incest then does have biological considerations attached to it but also and perhaps more importantly in this day and age is more a sort of constructed crime, leaving participants acting and reacting as if they have committed a terrible crime even if they don’t believe that they’re wrong. And depending on just how much of that is internalise, if behaviour leads to actual thought that it is wrong or a sense of wrongness with the world; either way, it could end in disaster.

Comments

[kintail.livejournal.com]

I'd argue that the taboo about incest is not only about breeding, but also about the inherent power imbalance and dependency. Children and younger siblings are often treated much like property and servents anyway, and that's seen as socially okay, as long as the incest taboo draws a line against extending that to its natural (and common) conclusion of using a (usually) daughter or sister as a sex object as well by (usually) her father and brother(s).

One could try to be optomistic and say this is for the child's own good, to protect her from harm from those she's dependent on, but in reality, I'm not really convinced that's what's at the root of the historical taboo and apparently ingrained disgust many people profess at the idea. After all, a girl's "property value" to her family goes down if she's not a virgin.

I agree with the rest of what you say, though, about incest between freely consenting people, old enough to give that consent and be free of the power-imbalance and nowhere-else-to-live traps, shouldn't be taboo. Yet most people refuse to think through why. Meanwhile the consequences of always having to keep it secret and act as if they've committed a crime do take a toll, which makes it very difficult to have examples to study and point to, to show that it *can* be a healthy relationship -- under the right circumstances, like any relationship between non-related consenting people.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

That’s a good point. As long as that taboo is there then any single family has to bring in new genetic material when it breeds due to society’s standards and that would be beneficial. Though as you’ve said, there’s the value issue there too which at least would prevent anyone taking those property rights further and thus devaluing a female relative who could be sold off to perhaps create family alliances as necessary.

It would be similar to earlier studies of homosexuality which attempted to suggest that it caused infidelity, promiscuity etc when those were in fact caused by society’s imposed standards on the matter. I need to get round to reading the Humphreys study which illustrated that just about anyone in all walks of life could be gay and that it didn’t stop them contributing to society to see how that argument was framed really.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

The only examples of actual incest that I've ever encountered (anecdotally) were not consensual and between minors. There was a great deal of emotional damage involved.

So, I guess it would depend on the individual situation. I've come across a few male characters in Japanese manga who seem to have an unhealthy preoccupation with their sisters, so it could just be the whole forbidden fruit thing again, not unlike the genre of yaoi itself.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

That would be the other problem really. The cases that come to notice are the ones where abuse or at least coerced consent are involved. In those sort of circumstances the incest part would be really an issue of broken trust because family members in particular are meant to protect younger relatives. Similarly to student-teacher relationships though even more so with the implication being that one should protect the other and really, I wouldn’t expect anyone to be able to walk away from that sort of violation of trust unscathed.

I wouldn’t agree with yaoi being forbidden per se. It’s an idealised take on male homosexuality, granted but I suppose in that case there is an element of it being forbidden titillation directed mainly at a female audience who are still told by society that they shouldn’t enjoy anything of a sexual nature unless it’s not about the sex but rather the ‘romance’ involved. Which would be why those Mills & Boon novels are still selling really; as long as the porn is dressed up as romance it’s acceptable for a female audience apparently.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

I should've been more clear and put some quotation marks around the forbidden fruit to emphasize the perception of illicitness, rather than the actual legal injunction. My understanding of it evolved from a meta somewhere (Aesthetic magazine?) which informed me that Japanese girls invented yaoi in order to make the more formal, striated and socially ossified customs between men and women more agreeable and less hostile towards them, by depicting men in sympathetic emotional and romantic attachments with each other. So, yes, idealized and directed at a female audience. Not the reason I read it, but I don't think I can even come up with a reason for that --- it just doesn't seem to exist within the domain of rational thinking one way or another. *embarrassed* I know why I was searching for a definition though, because I didn't know the difference in practice between yaoi and slash. It still confuses me, frankly.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

I still don’t quite see it as illicit, unacceptable to some in society; yes but not really terribly out of the ordinary. Though I’m talking about actual male relationships now and not idealised yaoi really so I’m rather moving away from the topic. If you found that explanation at aestheticism.com then I’m not at all sure how much stock I’d put in it but it does seem like one of many plausible ones. I’d rather suspect that it’s porn for women really but that’s my own personal take on the matter. I’ve heard people say that slash employs more realistic relationships and that yaoi falls into obvious stereotypes but I’ve read enough slash to know that slash can do that too just as easily. In which case I think it’s just a media definition; yaoi is generally anime-based and slash is everything else.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

I don't see homosexual or lesbian relationships as illicit either, although I live in an affluent, sexually liberated (for the most part) society.

Funnily enough, as I was thinking about the conversation you and I are having about boarding schools and Malfoy childrearing techniques in another thread, another idea occurred to me as to why the injunction against incest evolved, apart from the purely biological problems --- because it's really since the western Renaissance that the social taboos became stronger, isn't it? At least that's the impression I received from Alexandre Dumas(père's) biography of Queen Margaux of France and stories about the Hapsburgs, Romanovs, and city-states of Italy, that incest was quite a normal occurrence amongst the royal houses of Europe. It strikes me that what is valuable in terms of protection to one's children when they are vulnerable and weak, becomes an impediment as they move into adulthood. So, a brother and sister who have been raised together to develop a romantic attachment may mimic that confine of familiarity beyond which they may not ever move or evolve unless they learn to extend themselves into the wider world. There is the danger of that same ossification which made those royal houses such a burden to their populations.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

There’s a certain thread in male homosexuality in certain parts of the East that slides into cross-dressing as well, which could possibly be what makes the concept of men with obvious male trappings somewhat different but then that sort of thing’s been sensationalised by things like Thai chick-boys as the term goes anyway so that really doesn’t help.

Honestly, I wasn’t aware so much of sibling incest amongst royal families but rather marriages between close cousins which at least would give some variation… before they were all too closely related for it to really matter. That’s a definite possibility though if the idea was breed more ‘pure’ offspring at a later date and not necessarily when both siblings first became sexually active. And as kintail has pointed out there’d be the whole ‘property value’ aspect to hold in reserve should the decision be made to trade, usually, a daughter for an alliance rather than keep her for breeding stock. As for the matter of their possibly never extending beyond the limits they’ve been taught, if the idea were to set up a relationship that would produce progeny then that also would definitely be a rather delicate situation, especially unless they’re taught that eventually they’re to actually push the boundaries of a romantic but non-sexual relationship, as you say, it’s possible that there they’d stay. But if that were the case then presumably if that kept happening with enough sibling pairs, eventually their line would die out anyway or at least necessitate outside genetic material being brought in.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

It seems so unusual in this age of population explosion to come across examples of true congenital illnesses caused by any limited pool, but royal houses would have to be the one exception and even that seems to be dissipating.

It seems to me that, if anything, the unknowns in this respect would come down to that sort of genetic homogenization or "washing" popularized in science fiction with such books/movies as "Gattaca" --- thinking of Dr. Suzuki's wonderful program "The Nature of Things" where he explored the dangers of the loss of biodiversity. There's quite a ways to go yet, in terms of actual technology and know-how before this could become an actual danger, I think. But I've observed that the instinct or cultural inclination of parents to create 'superchildren' is pretty strong and insidious, as demonstrated by the tendency in some societies to abort female embryoes. I wonder what would be lost with this quest for superhuman perfection.

[reichsfreiherr.livejournal.com]

I’ve not seen Gattaca but if I have the gist of it correct then there was a Stargate: SG-1 episode featuring a planet where the inhabitants were attempting to suppress randomised breeding since they’d carefully selected the traits that they wanted to keep. Actually making that level of homogeneity viable would be… well, seeing as the entire issue would be that you’re trying to slap two highly similar strands of RNA together and expecting them to stick; there’s not likely to be a solution any time soon. I was ranting only the other day about the media portrayal of things like Southern Blots too and it’s more the perception of the technology that’d be stirring up the problem really. If people believe that you can run DNA in a half-hour then they’re going to behave as if you can and that’s going to produce a similar result in society as if you actually could. Though the opposite to that sort of reaction would be from the people who believe that whatever may occur will be inevitable and as a result don’t actually do any of the necessary things to make it occur but now I’m rambling discourse theory and I shouldn’t when I can remember the terms for what I’m talking about. More to the point though, hopefully there’ll be mutations enough to carry through as long as those are viable and actually allowed to survive to propagate.