Is the Connecticut Father-Daughter Case GSA?

Is the Connecticut criminal case, which I previously blogged about here, a case of Genetic Sexual Attraction? More details are in this report at courant.com by David Owens.

George L. Sayers Jr., Tiffany L. Hartford face sexual assault charges (Bethel Police Department / December 5, 2012)

One relative, when asked about the relationship between Sayers and Hartford, told detectives: "Tiffany is his girlfriend, but we also think that she is his daughter," the warrants say.

Doesn't sound like the relative was concerned, and thus might not have been aware that the statement was implicating George and Tiffany in a what is still, stupidly, a crime in the state. Next time, read this.

A short time later, police confronted Hartford and Sayers with the same question, and Hartford said Sayers was her boyfriend, the warrants say. When an officer asked if he was her father, she responded that she did not know.

When police asked Sayers his relationship to Hartford, he said she was a "friend," but added that he had been told she might also be his daughter, though he didn't believe it, according to the warrants. When asked if a paternity test might show he was the father of both Hartford and their child, Sayers said there was a possibility, the warrants say.

A short time later, as Sayers was questioned further, according to the warrants, he told officers that any number of men, including him, could have been her father. He also told police that Hartford's mother allowed her to be sexually abused and that's why Hartford moved to his home in Bethel, the warrants say.

That's a lot of additional information. Not that it matters to law enforcement, but it would help determine if this is a case of Genetic Sexual Attraction instead of Familial Sexual Attraction if he had little contact with her from a young age until after she went through puberty. Also, regarding the alleged abuse in her mother's home... that can often prompt people to act out, but again, it isn't illegal if a stranger "takes advantage of it." On the flip side, if she found living with George to be pleasant and found George to be someone who was giving her the love she was previously denied, and finally had a happy life, how cruel is it to take that away from her?

Police then asked Sayers why Hartford would move in with him if they were not related, and he responded that Hartford's mother knew his mother, the warrants say. Pressed further on Hartford's paternity, Sayers said no one "legally" proved to him Hartford was his daughter, and he also suggested that the father was his deceased brother.

In either case, police said, the situation would violate the third-degree sexual assault statute that bans related people from having sexual intercourse.

That's a stupid law that needs to be abolished.

Questioned later about the video, Hartford acknowledged that before she became pregnant she aspired to be a porn star, according to the warrants. During their search, police recovered a CD labeled "Tiffany Love" that featured two minutes of pornographic images of Hartford shot within the Sayers house, the warrants say.

Of course they tacked on additional, bogus charges...

The obscenity charges relate to the allegation that Sayers and Hartford made the video of Hartford and her former girlfriend having sex available for sale.

Uh, have these law enforcement people ever be on the World Wide Web?

Sayers and Hartford are both in custody. He was held on $100,000 bail and Hartford on $25,000. Both are due back in court Dec. 21. The state Department of Children and Families is overseeing care of their child.

WHY? Drop the charges, let them out, and let them raise their child! They aren't a danger to anybody, at least not based on the information provided. What century is this again? What are they going to do, burn the lovers at the stake?

In response to a string of ignorant, bigoted comments after the article, I wrote this...


Wow, look at all of the people ridiculing and condemning CONSENTING ADULTS for having sex with each other. I wonder what everyone else would think of YOUR sex lives, if any of you bigots have one. It would be perfectly legal for her to have group sex with a group of strangers, all of them old men, but she is arrested for this? CONSENTING ADULTS. Are we going to take that concept seriously or not? Their problem was not being in a state like Rhode Island, which has no stupid laws against relationships like theirs. This was a business dispute that should have been settled in small claims court at worst. It should NOT be a criminal case. And obscenity? Please. Bogus charge that is being selectively applied. Most of the law enforcement personnel involved have probably watched two young women in home-made videos.

There is no rational reason for keeping laws or taboos against consensual incest that is consistently applied to other relationships. Personal disgust or religion is only a reason why one person would not want to personally engage in what I call consanguinamory, not why someone else shouldn't do it. An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with ANY consenting adults. It isn't for everyone, but we're not all going to want to have each others' love lives, now are we? If someone thinks YOUR love life is disgusting, should you be thrown in prison?

Some people try to justify their prejudice against consanguineous sex and marriage by being part-time eugenicists and saying that such relationships inevitably lead to “mutant” or “deformed” babies. There's no report that anything is wrong with their child. Of course NOW the poor child will have a broken family thanks to people who still think it is a good idea to stick their noses in the sex lives of others. But MOST children born to close relatives are healthy anyway, and if that was really a justification against consensual sex, then we'd ban people with serious diseases like Huntington's from having children. But this is really about the disgust of other people, nothing more. Well lots of people are disgusted by lots of relationships that are perfectly legal. This relationship shouldn't be illegal, either.

Don't start in with "It's just wrong." That's not a rational reason to deny other people their relationship rights.

Don't start in with "there's a power imbalance." It would be perfectly legal for her to have sex with President. Who has more power than that?

Some will say “There are so many people outside of your family." There are plenty of people within one’s own race, too, but that is no reason to ban interracial marriage. So, this isn't a good reason either.

Face it, there's no good reason they should have been arrested. Wag your fingers at them all you want, but I doubt you can give a good reason why they shouldn't love each other as they see fit.