This is just nuts.Thank you!
Collectively, the two siblings now have an arrest record and will have over $20,000 worth of debt to the state. They may have to register as sex offenders. Even though I, like many Game of Thrones fans, think that incest is unnatural and unhealthy for any future offspring they might have, I don’t think having consensual sex with your brother or sister should mean that the state has license to effectively ruin your life.
While incest occurs frequently in nature, Nathaniel Wheelwright, an evolutionary biologist at Bowdoin College in Maine, aptly notes that, “Sex results in… diverse offspring and maintains a diversity of genes.” Having sex with one’s siblings—with whom you share over half your genes (and in this case, the half-siblings would share up to a quarter of the same genes), completely negates that point.Ah, but if your goal is to further your genes, this can be an effective way of doing that, as "your" genes have a greater chance of being carried on.
As we all know, children that arise from incest run the risk of greater genetic mutation which can significantly decrease their quality of life.Yes, there is a greater risk that problems in the family gene pool will be expressed or carried, but also an increased likelihood that genetic advantages in the family gene pool will be expressed or carried. Again, MOST children born to close relatives are healthy. More on this issue here.
But when having sex without intent of having children (which sounds like the kind of sex Buckner and Timothy were having), there really isn’t any problem. For me, this is a morally neutral issue. When procreation is involved, the waters may get murkier, but I believe that that’s the parent’s issue, not the state’s.
Thanks!
In this case, two consenting adults decided to have sex with each other. There was no coercion involved and no loss of property, so far as we can tell. This is a victimless crime and the state has no business regulating it.It's a waste of resources for a state to prosecute consenting adults for having sex, and those resources could be better spent protecting people, especially children, against abuse.
![Non-Monogamy Diagram [I:FV]](http://www.obsidianfields.com/lj/nonmonogamy2.5.1.gif){kind=link}
This always gets to me. Whenever consanguinamory is discussed, childbirth is a frequent topic. It is to be expected I know, because sex is involved. But at times, I find the opposition's reasoning to be inconsistent. I am largely referring to abortion, though I do not intend to turn this into a debate on abortion. What I am getting at is how a lot of the people I've debated on the issue of consanguinamory always bring up childbirth as if it is an absolute. Sure, a pro-life's reason could be somewhat consistent with a negative view of consanguinamory, but I find even that unsatisfying, which I'll get to in a minute. For the pro-choice people I've talked to, whether or not a person intends to have a child or if they intend to abort or even if no child results at all, they considered consanguinamory to be harm done to the child. I've seen a lot of angles that pro-choice people take, but a common one is that the rights of the mother of her body trumps the child's right to life. But that seems thrown out of the window when consanguinamory. I've seen a similar stance when drugs are the topic, that a mother who does not intend to keep her child is still in the wrong if her child was to be born and had drugs in their system. Tbh I think I see the problem, because if the couple was free to go if they had an abortion, then wouldn't the crime then shift to childbirth. I don't think they want to be associated with a prison or abortion choice. Pro-life seems more consistent, they say they support the life of the child, but essentially the issue then becomes is having a child with some disorder or defficiency to be illegal? If not, then it is just this one issue, which science is even now proving is blown out of proportion. Why not other more dangerous things? If they don't ban them, then it really can't be about "the children". If however they do ban the other things, then essentially they support eugenics at least on some level. It also ignores same-gender consanguinamory and other situations where having a child would not occur, such as if birth control and other forms of safe sex werre taken, or where other forms of sex were done as well, and lastly if one or more of the couple were sterile. Add in the part where many of them do support abortion in cases of consanguinamory All in all, my debates with many of the opposition has shown me most were neither pro-choice nor pro-life. Those are labels they carry with them and use when it is convenient for them, but they throw them out for "exceptions". But these exceptions reveal just how little they actually believe in those terms. Certainly, I'm not saying that all pro-life people or all pro-choice people are anti-consanguinamory. I think it is perfectly possible to hold either view and still be pro-consanguinamory. I was referring specifically to the ones that were anti-consanguinamory, not in general. And as I said before, this was not intended to start another debate on abortion. As a libertarian, I find that banning behavior that one doesn't like is wrong. Live and let live, I certainly would like to go about my life unimpeded, provided I harmed nobody's life, liberty, or property. So I advocate for not impeding others in the same. And impeding in a couple's (or triad or quad or whatever other polyamorous types there are) just because they are related violates their natural rights in my view. They aren't harming anyone. Even if dating each other was a bad idea, they would only be hurting each other mutually, and with full knowledge and consent to their fates. Maybe that latter part gets to some people, that some could hurt themselves in a relationship, but it counts for all relationship types, and yet they are not banned. And we've got too many laws that imprison people "for their own protection".
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