No Amount of Lipstick Will Help

I found a discussion thread at lipstickalley.com that got very ugly. It started when a user named sierra posted, disapprovingly, what appears to be someone else's account of experiencing Genetic Sexual Attraction...

I met and fell in love with this older man. Im 28 and he is 44. We were seeing each other for 3 years when I decided to introduce him to the family. We had a birthday party for a family member that I brought him to, it was more like a "reunion." Anyway as SOOOOON as we walked in my aunt screamed, "Oh My God, what is HE doing here? How did she find him?" Looked like she had seen a ghost. Im looking confused, my boyfriend is looking confused and then he says, "Hi Neicy, what's wrong with you, what do you mean how did she find me?" My aunt pulled him to the side, by now my mother has come over and she starts crying. Im SO confused, my boyfriend is SO confused and looks dazed. He and my aunt talk while my mother takes me in to the restroom and reveals that he is my dad. That they had gotten together one night after a game and that she became pregnant and never told him (she even transferred schools because she went to another state to live with my great aunt during the pregnancy).

After I nearly had a mental breakdown, I walked out the bathroom to find "dad" and he was gone. I tried to contact him to no avail for 3 months, I was confused but IN LOVE, we had 3 yrs together. After about 8 months he came to my house. He told me he had been receiving counseling but could not overcome his love for me as his girlfriend. Since we had no DNA to prove paternity, we got back together. My cousin "Q" continues to ask me, "Why do you want this man?" I get what he's saying but I DIDN'T KNOW...WE DIDN'T know. We did not, could not believe this was true so we decided to take a DNA test in July. I had the results sent to my sister "C" and it has showed 99.8% accuracy. We were devastated. But now we have had 3 yrs and an additional 9 months together (after the separation).

We practiced restraint since July and decided to try to have a dinner together a 2 days ago to discuss how we would move forward as father/daughter, but we slipped up and our passion took over. We dont FEEL like father/daughter. After the encounter, we even discussed moving to another state to be together, but it's not practical. I know we are wrong but HOW DO WE MOVE ON? We will always be in love. This is breaking our hearts and driving us crazy. Is it THAT bad to sleep with dad (since we didnt know)? HELP ME

I don't know where sierra got this account, but if this a real story, and I do believe it is possible and it appears to be credible rather than outlandish, then this sounds like Genetic Sexual Attraction.

The responses were the kind that sting people who have experienced GSA. They are highly phobic and prejudiced. Continue on and your own risk.



sunflowerz wrote...

sooo many questions. Something must be wrong with the both of them. My vag would have dried up the moment I came to my senses and learned he was my dad.

GSA is not an indication that anything is wrong with anyone. It is a normal, natural response to circumstances neither of them intended to create. They had three loving, happy years together already. That doesn't just disappear because they share some genetic material.

Justin's Heaux spewed ignorance...

nasty ass people.
nasty nasty nasty.
he is a pedo. i feel like he would have molested her.
and she has abandonment issues. she was looking for daddy in the first place...whatever.

A man who is attracted to a woman in her 20s is not a pedophile based on such an attraction. She accuses him of being a child molester based on... no evidence whatsoever. As far as abandonment issues, she make have had a stepfather or a man she believed to be her father with whom she had a great relationship. Either way, most women who've married older men have had a present father.

Echoing the judgmentalism of others, monie said...

Once you know that you're related there should be no excuse to be so disgusting.

Again, three years together before the discovery. To them, it isn't disgusting. He did not raise her. Why should they stop being together just become they have some strings of chemicals in their bodies that are the same?

Someone called KwisatzHaderach was confident that if the mother had told the daughter of her genetic parentage from the beginning, this wouldn't have happened. However, many people who have experienced GSA did know of their genetic relation.

reynac28 is apparently ignorant of how common sex and marriage is and has always been between first cousins and would be shocked if doing a little genealogical research...

I had a distant cousin that admitted to wantingvto marry her 1st cousin the guy wasvlocked up and was even gonna ask her dad (which is his uncle) for his blessing..I was sick for weeks I cant even fathom how that Convo went

Wow.

Five of Staves wrote...

The only answer is no contact and cutting all ties with each other.

Why? Because someone else is disgusted? So what? The original poster even checked back in on the thread to recall another account of a father-daughter GSA situation, so obviously it should be a clue to these people that it does happen.


Here's what I wrote in the thread as a response...

This is called Genetic Sexual Attraction and GSA is real and is a common, normal response to the circumstances involved. GSA is not an indication that anything is wrong with someone. Genetic Sexual Attraction happens in up to half of all situations in which pubescent or post-pubescent genetic relatives meet for the first time or reunite after having been separated since at least one of them was a child. That means 50% of the time, at least one of them experiences an overwhelming physical, emotional, sexual attraction. Sometimes the feelings are mutual. This has happened to people who knew they were closely related and to people who had no idea they were closely related, including people who have previously felt a strong revulsion to the idea of consensual incest.

Scientific studies show most people are attracted to people who look like them. Who looks more like you than a close genetic relative? However, something described as the Westermarck Effect overrides this in most (not all) circumstances in which one person raises another or they grow up in the same home. Close genetic relatives who were separated won't have the Westermarck Effect countering a powerful physical attraction. Add in emotional and psychological factors involved in reuniting with a lost family member, and you have something extremely powerful.

I realize that many people have a knee-jerk reaction of disgust. However, I know lesbians who are disgusted by any thought of people having heterosexual sex. The disgust of persons A and B should not interfere with a consensual relationship between persons Y and Z. Try to put aside your own turn-offs and think about this rationally.

I have interviewed people who are intelligent, educated, attractive, good citizens who have loving relationships initiated through GSA. There is no reason they should be discriminated against, treated like criminals, or bullied. They are not hurting anybody. GSA is only going to happen more in the future due to the realities of today’s world (broken/ended relationships, affairs, flings, one night stands, and hookups that have produced children, egg/sperm/embryo donation, social networking and increased mobility allowing for lost relatives to reunite).

I’ll go ahead an answer the typical attacks hurled their way:

It’s illegal? So was what Rosa Parks did when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white person. And actually, there are US states and many countries where such relationships are NOT illegal. They shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. That is the whole point. If we do not have the right to love each other as we agree, what rights do we really have?

Abuse? Uh, no. Just like consensual casual sex has nothing to do with rape, these relationships are not about abuse.

Making mutant babies? First of all, some of these relationships are between people who will not reproduce because they are infertile, or too old, or the same gender, or whatever. Secondly, most children born to close relatives are healthy. And yes, I know of some children from such relationships… beautiful, healthy, bright children. Actually, you do too, whether you know it or not. Finally, we do not prevent people from obvious, serious genetic diseases from dating, having sex, marrying, having children, etc. So why try to stop healthy people experiencing GSA from loving each other?

But they’re family members? Actually, many of these cases involve adoption or some other circumstance where they have families. For example, a woman who has an adoptive father who raised her. Her genetic father has not served in that role. To say "family members don't do that"... who says? 10-15% of people in their early 20s will confide in surveys to already having had consensual sexual contact with a sibling. That's just a sibling, not another close relative.

But isn’t there a power differential? Hardly, especially between genetic siblings close in age. Remember, one did not raise the other. But if power differences were a reason to ban a relationships MOST relationships would be banned. No President or billionaire or weightlifting champion would be allowed to have a relationship, and we could only date someone with the same IQ, same net worth, etc.

There is no rational reason for keeping laws or taboos against these relationships that is consistently applied to other relationships. Some people are disgusted by the thought of interracial relationships, gay relationships, heterosexual relationships, their own parents having sex. So what? Why should that have any control over anyone else? An adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion, should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any and all consenting adults, without fear of prosecution, persecution, or discrimination.