Genetic Sexual Attraction on Talk Show Television

I’m finally getting around to the recent discussion of Genetic Sexual Attraction on the Dr. Drew show, and what response there has been to it. The discussion certainly wasn’t balanced, but discussions often are not balanced on shows like this.

Here’s where I found the transcript for the show that aired May 10, 2012.


Dr. Drew Pinsky cited the Mistie Atkinson and Amy Sword cases, both of which involved minors.

Joining me are two women who had intimate affairs with their fathers after reuniting as adult. Carly and Julie say, what we`re calling, or has been called genetic sexual attraction, or GSA.

His phrasing implies there was sex.

Julie reunited with her genetic father last year.

PINSKY: Is there a sexual component to it now?


JULIE: Oh, there wasn`t at first.


PINSKY: But then there was?


JULIE: Well, exactly.

This implies there was sex, but I’m not sure there was.

What happened was I actually said to my husband, I said, I feel the same feelings that I felt when I fell in love with you. I feel like I`m falling in love.

So Julie was married, presumably in a marriage where monogamy was the expectation.

JULIE: No, because our daughters 3 and 4 years old at the time want to marry my husband. They come down in dresses, daddy, marry me. They have this heroic awe for their father. And so, I never got to do that with my father. I started to feel that. But I`m an adult. So I was really confused.

Julie is comparing herself, a grown married woman with children, to 4 year-old girls.

JULIE: Well, I kind of kept it to myself mostly, but, you know, I was definitely more needy. You know, I constantly wanted to talk to him. I wanted to be in his presence. I wanted to hold his hand, be under his arm and all that kind of stuff.


And what happened was there started to be some tension. I could tell that he, too, was struggling with feelings of attraction for me.

No sex mentioned.

PINSKY: Do you understand that feels a little gross?

Thinking about different sexualities feels “a little gross” to different people. For example, there as lesbians who think heterosexual sex is gross, heterosexual men who think that gay sex is gross, people who think BSDM is gross, people who think swinging is gross.

CARLY, HAD INTIMATE AFFAIR WITH HER FATHER: It`s supposed to feel gross.

Not to everyone.

CARLY: It was more of a very quick emotional bonding of emotional need to connect with him. I and Julie both sought help as soon as we realized --


PINSKY: Oh, good.


CARLY: -- something was really off here. You know in your head, this is not right.

Not right why?

JULIE: The important part is we want to prevent this.

Prevent what? Adoption? Sperm or egg donation? Consensual sex? Feeling an attraction?

JULIE: But the thing is, if we can get people support, and say, listen, when you reunite with the loved one --


PINSKY: Something`s going to happen.


JULIE: -- you may feel sexually attracted to them. It`s misplaced bonding. Don`t go there, because you will wreak havoc on your whole family.

She’s talking as a married woman with children. She’s talking about avoiding cheating. Of course cheating wreaks havoc on the whole family. But what about where there is no cheating?

CARLY: No, what`s happening is the imprinting we have in our family systems, when we`re growing up in very primitive parts of our upbringing, we get an aversion against anyone who`s in that surrounding.

That doesn’t happen to everyone.

PINSKY: It`s more than shocking, though. It`s a little mind bending. First you get disgust and then you get kind of a dizzy feeling.

Pinsky deals with people who drug themselves to slow, painful deaths and he’s up there “protesting too much” about this.

There`s nothing logical and reasonable with the experiences these women are having. That`s the whole point.


If they were logical and reasonable, they would dismiss it and carry it on.

It is logical and reasonable. People are attracted to people who look like them. There was something missed out on by not being together before. An attraction is logical and reasonable. A mutual attraction is logical and reasonable. Lovemaking between consenting adults who are strongly attracted to each other is not unusual.

PINSKY: Carly, the same experience no you have a husband?


CARLY: Also, yes. And also, he also felt like, I should have protected her, in a sense. I should have stepped in and protected me from my father.


PINSKY: He felt like he shouldn`t have allowed that -- he felt responsible.


JULIE: He felt a level.


PINSKY: That`s an interesting element to it, too.

So Carly was married, too.

CARLY: Unfortunately, what happened with me and my father, we have no more relationship whatsoever right now.


PINSKY: It fell apart because of this?


CARLY: Yes, not only that, I have lost all connection with my biological family.

Ah yes, the picture becomes clearer.

They had Julie’s husband on the phone, and then they talked with Barbara Gonyo, godmother of GSA awareness.

JULIE: It`s the darkest moment of my life.


CARLY: I never would relive it again.


PINSKY: Depression?


CARLY: Depression.


PINSKY: Despair? Suicide?


CARLY: Suicidal.


JULIE: Yes.

Contrast that with this.

It would have been nice to have some calls from people who are in happy relationships initiated through GSA.

Notice there was no actual admission that there was actually any sexual contact, and that the two women featured are married, and they are not happily with their GSA partners.


Comments were left here.

Forbiddenflavor Flavor...

sick...........................

George McCasland...

So, do you also believe Gays are sick?


GSA is a recolonized sexual orientation by the APA using the same clinical standards in determining that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. If we are to reject this, then we must also reject to standards by which it was set, and go back to the belief that homosexuality is nothing more than a mental disorder. You cannot have it both ways. Either you recognized the existence of sexual orientation not perceived as normal, or you don't.

Marchel Eason-Apparel...

Real simple any man or woman who has this PROBLEM is SICK in the head! They have mental issues that need to be addressed! Give them HELP DR> DREW don't just ferakin' talk to them! That's disgusting for them to have that attraction they need help!

I do think that person doth protest too much, and so did the first person. They both wrote multiple adamant assertions that this was disgusting. Makes me wonder about them.

This blogger assumes that Julie’s relationship was actually sexual, and wrote of her husband ”Greatest Beta Ever? Incest and Cuckoldry,” despite that fact that a child has to result in order for it to be cuckoldry.

Dr. Drew (no, it's not him) had a program last night about "genetic sexual attraction", which is probably exactly what you're thinking - estranged fathers having sex with their daughters upon reuniting as an adult.

Yes, only fathers and daughters having sex. Not just having feelings, and not mothers and sons, siblings, or anyone else. Sheesh. This person didn’t pay attention.

The comments left on that blog are full of homophobia, racism, sexism and other ignorance.

The Lioness wrote about this at her blog…

Former members of a GSA forum created the site and I was a member of that forum until the creator shut it down to make me pay for the new forum being a part of the new SOAR site (which I am not paying to be a part of).

And they went on TV and got a lot of publicity for their paid forum.

So, now to give out my response to the clip and how I would have spoke about GSA, since I think the two women are in complete error of their definition and their interpretation that it is something that victimizes others.


First, under Julie’s name when she is introduced it says she was in an intimate affair with her father… MAYBE EMOTIONALLY. Her persuasive personality makes you believe she actually shared a GSA relationship with her father. There was no sexual component between the two as far as I am concerned and if you straight out ask her, I figure she will deny ever having sexual intimacy with her father. I would have been honest about the means of which my relationship actually steeped to. AND because I am in a GSA relationship with my father, I am not going to subject myself to the public because unlike her and Carly, I have something to treasure and guard.

Go read the whole thing. She links to the FREE, positive GSA Forums (and to me!)


It would be nice to get better descriptions and depictions of GSA on television, but people who are in ongoing, happy relationships still have much to lose by coming out of the closet. People do not want to subject themselves to hatred and prosecution when they could spend their time enjoying their partner(s) instead.