Forget It, Jake, It's Florida

Jaya Saxena at dailydot.com debunked a story that recently made the rounds about a Florida man marrying his granddaughter...

Earlier today, sites like Cosmopolitan and the Sun aggregated a story credited to the Florida Sun Post, which reported that a 68-year-old man had married his 24-year-old granddaughter. Their biological relation was unbeknownst to both of them until, according to the story, they were flipping through a photo album together and she saw a photo of her estranged father, who happened to be her new husband’s son.

While this particular story appears to be a fake, something like this has probably happened more than once as far as marriage and has certainly happened many times with relationships that don't involve marriage, due to Genetic Sexual Attraction. There are grandparents and their adult children who've had flings and one night stands who never realized they were related.

How many people know the extended family of each person with whom they have sex? When it comes to flings, one night stands, and hookups, they sometimes don't even know the real name of the person their with, and it no doubt happens at swinger parties and other casual encounters. Who compares IDs, family trees, and DNA tests in these situations?

Unless you're positive a birth didn't result (which is not always so easy for someone with a penis), anyone younger than the time since your earliest experiences with intercourse (or sperm or egg donation) could be your genetic child. Add as little as 13 years between your ages and the person could be your genetic grandchild.

There are also people who don't know that the man they think is their biological father isn't, either because of sperm donation, or an affair, the conception being from a prior relationship, or ethical nonmonogamy. This also means they could have a genetic grandfather they don't know.

But let's get back to the article...

The Twitter account @_FloridaMan, which chronicles the weirdest Florida news, tweeted that floridasunpost.com was only registered three days ago, implying that there’s no way it could be a credible news outlet.

These sorts of things seems to be more and more common.

The Daily Dot has reached out to the Florida Sun Post regarding the story through a contact form on its website, which, after hitting “submit,” said “Thank you for contacting Boston Leader.” You may remember the Boston Leader for being the site that started the fake story about the baby gorilla named “Harambe McHarambeface.” So yes, this story is probably fake.

Probably.

And for now, we can all rest knowing that there is one less 24-year-old married to her grandpa. 

Although that was probably written in jest, there are some young women married to their grandfather, or at least in a relationship with him, whether they know of his relation or not. There are probably also young women with their grandmother, and young men with a grandparent. Some people say they are against adult intergenerational relationships, with "He's old enough to be your grandfather." Well, sometimes he is. And as long as they mutually agree to be together, that shouldn't be a problem.