A Tale of Two GSA Situations

Genetic Sexual Attraction is back in the news. This time much of it is about Shane Burke and Rose Bestall. For example, see this report at thesun.co.uk from Sarah Barns...

A 19-YEAR-OLD man has confessed to being sexually attracted to his long-lost mum.

Shane Burke, who lives in Manchester, used Facebook to track down his birth mother Rose Bestall, 35, after being apart for 13 years – and he ended up falling in love with her.

Generally, if there is negligible contact from age 7 into puberty, the Westermarck Effect doesn't develop, meaning there could easily be attraction, even intense attraction, when they reunite.

After an emotional reunion, Shane became “confused” about his feelings towards Rose and “developed romantic feelings”.

Rose, who gave Shane up for adoption when he was five, revealed the declaration of love left her with a “massive dilemma”.

She told the Sunday People: “I knew Shane’s feelings were completely inappropriate but I had searched for him for so long and I didn’t want to push him away again.

What is inappropriate about adults being attracted to each other? That's a natural thing.

Rose, from Ashford, Surrey, became pregnant with Shane by accident aged just 15, with then boyfriend John Smith, who was also 15.
Social services took Shane into foster care because she was “too young” to look after him, and he was later adopted by a couple in Manchester.

Rose, who has four other children and is married to Darryl, 33, eventually took a custody battle to the High Court, but a judge held that Shane was already settled with his adoptive parents.

A rough situation.

The pair bonded in the pub over their “shared love of karaoke” but their relationship was placed in jeopardy when Shane admitted his romantic feelings.
Rose told her son the relationship “could never be romantic” but that she would not “push him away”.

Shane told the Sunday People: “Now I love Rose because she is my mum, nothing more. I call her Rose as we’re all still adjusting but maybe in time I’ll call her mum.”

If this is true, it is entirely possible that he is dealing with his attractions some other way, or perhaps the feelings have diminished. For others, the feelings stay, intensely, even though there is no sexual interaction. Regardless of what boundaries people want in their life, this should not be a criminal matter if there is no harassment, stalking, or assault. If they had engaged in consensual (to be redundant) sex, there's no good reason to criminalize that. It is actually preventing people from getting the help they want.

The same story made it to various news outlets.

Meanwhile, Cassie Delaney at her.ie had another article on GSA, one in which a mutually attracted pair got together and stayed together.

A sufferer of the condition has opened up on Reddit about what it’s like to be affected by the attraction.

Sufferer. For some, the only suffering comes from the bigotry of outsiders interfering in their relationship. People don't "suffer" from GSA like it is some disease. It is natural, normal reaction to the circumstances. The suffering comes from, as we noted, discrimination, but also from negativity from family, friends, and others, as well as jealousy and envy.

My biological mother was a teenager and did not have the means nor support to raise me. My adoptive parents had her name from some paperwork that had come from the hospital.”

When she managed to track down her mother, she was able to get in contact with her father. That’s when the attraction began.

“When I first saw his photos and read what he had to say, I put the feelings off as just being mere excitement,” she says.

“He is a very handsome person, and extremely well spoken. We hit it off immediately. Even without any contact or knowledge of each other for two decades, we had nearly identical senses of humor, similar interests, tastes in music.”

This sort of thing is common with GSA.

“We would stay up all night talking on the phone or chatting on IM. I was living with my boyfriend at the time, and my biological father had been married for almost 20 years at this point. My boyfriend became very jealous even early on, and so did his wife, as we were just pouring tons of attention into each other.”

GSA can prompt people to cheat who never would otherwise.

After visiting her biological father, things intensified.

“By the second visit, after a month or so after the first, things took a turn and got out of control. It is extremely nerve-wracking to talk about this, but he and I were talking at night in the dark. I don't know what I was thinking, but as we were talking I just instinctively leaned over and kissed him. And I didn't stop, and it didn't stop at just kissing. At that point, we put ourselves into a very complicated and difficult situation that would unfold over many years,” she admits.

As happens often, her marriage failed.

And while the relationship isn’t without is complications, the two are now openly a couple.
“We still live together. When we meet people now, we portray each other as boyfriend/girlfriend. Sometimes I forget that we are related because a lot of time has passed since the above events happened. We both have good jobs, we both are very committed to each other, and in a weird way we are closer than we were even at the beginning. We love each other very intensely and I can't imagine ever being with anyone else” she reveals.

They should be free to live openly and to marry if they want, free of prosecution,  bullying, or discrimination. People who want to be open usually have to move away from people who know their genetic relation.