A Cautionary Tale of Polyamorous Consanguinamory

This wont be an easy or quick read. [Note: This was originally published several years ago. I’m bumping it up because it’s tied to this season. I’d very much like to publish an update on this family.]

This is an in-depth recounting from a woman who was in a polyamorous consanguinamorous triad of her own initiation. It has been several years since it ended.

It’s a cautionary tale, though, unlike most of the interviews you'll find here, because they didn’t ever *talk* about it. They never discussed anything about it. They just did it. That, along with feeling isolated because of societal negativity, made things stressful for this woman.

Communication is important in any relationship. It is especially important in polyamorous relationships, and especially polyamorous relationships that were already established before they became sexual. It’s vital when three or more people are involved. If you can’t communicate about what's going on, you shouldn’t really be attempting an ongoing relationship. Consanguineous sex is almost always explosive. The intensity is unlike anything else. There’s a reason we call it double love or a double bond. Some people liken it to an addictive drug, and this woman does, too.

Communication is important. Reaching out to others is important. Reading the whole account will take a while. As you read this, notice how things could have turned out differently if they had talked things through, and didn’t have to hide.

I present her experience in her own words below. I have organized what she told me, but these are her words. If you contact me about her, refer to her as Zoe.

PLEASE NOTE THAT SOME OF THE NARRATIVE BELOW RECOUNTS EXPLICITLY SEXUAL SITUATIONS.


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I’m a mid-to-late twenties female and I was in an extended sexual relationship with both parents. For a long time I've felt really isolated, and if there's someone out there that can read what happened to me and say, "Yeah, I feel that too," that's a good thing. It started when I was 18 and ended when I was 22.



A Good Family

My family was ridiculously, disgustingly normal in every other way, seriously out of some 1950s television show.

My parents never argued. They were totally best friends. My big brother ran away to college as soon as he could, and from talking to him that was mostly because my parents were so ridiculously normal. He said he needed to get out of Ward and June's house. All of the kids were normal growing up.

I was always pretty socially awkward, but that probably stems from the family bouncing around so much because of my dad's job. I was always making and losing friends, going all the way back, so I guess I kind of retreated into my shell and that's probably where a lot of my anxiety came from. The social anxiety, I guess, kind of morphed into just plain old anxiety, and there was a little bit of depression. But that had nothing to do with the family, and really just from not having regular friends and social circles, and then feeling weird about that, and then kind of crawling into my shell.

But the family was pretty perfect. My parents were my best friends as far back as I remember.

There were stupid family movie nights, and game nights, and we'd cook together, and have stupidly perfect vacations together. I don't ever remember either of my parents losing their temper with me, or getting yelled at, or any of that happening to either of my brothers. Not that we were perfect as kids, but they talked through problems and steered us instead of coming down hard and angry or flipping out.

My mom was super outgoing, super charismatic. She just exuded confidence and warmth. Everyone wanted to be around her all the time, and she made you feel like a million bucks. Not in an insincere way, either.  he's just an awesome person. She's just off the charts gorgeous, too. My dad's an ex-Marine and a hunk, but he's a lot more conservative than her. How they ended up together I'll never know. They met early and just clicked and stayed together. Maybe their different personalities complimented each other? We joked about them being Barbie and Ken they were so perfect.
I think my mom's upper-middle class, socially liberal views on life is what inspired everything to begin with. So, yeah, we were pretty 100% normal in literally every other way.

My parents were nuts about each other and had, as far as I could tell, a fabulous marriage.

When I say my mom had my dad and I wrapped around her finger, I don't mean that in an evil way.  She's just so... incredible. She's beautiful and energetic and vibrant, funny, caring. Every time you were with her she made you feel like a million bucks. And not in an insincere way, either. She'd tell me I was everything to her and... yeah, I could feel that. She would make everyone around her feel important and special. And I know my dad felt the same way about her. Everything about her is so intoxicating.

Growing up, I was kind of a socially awkward nerd. I was always a bookworm, kind of kept to myself.  I was pretty, but never had any boyfriends. It was all made worse by my dad’s job, which kept us bouncing from state to state, so I could never put down enough roots to really overcome my awkwardness.

My parents were always super chill, especially my mom. I guess they were almost hippies? At least as much as upper-middle class capitalism allows. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t consider them my best friends. We talked about everything, shared everything. I think I was mostly happy with my social anxiety no matter how many times we picked up and moved because my best buds were always moving with me.

From the outside, we were this super normal family. I had an older brother away at college, and a younger brother that was too young to know what was going on.


A Liberated Daughter

When I hit puberty, I think my mom wanted to raise me without social rules and requirements weighing me down. I think she was raised pretty strictly by her parents, and didn't want to do that with me. She had a good relationship with them, but I think they were hard on her. When my parents had my older brother, they raised him mostly normally, but liberally. I know he had his first drink with them. I'm pretty sure he smoked weed with them. If he wanted girlfriends over for the night, I think that was OK, but I'm pretty sure he never did. He probably thought that was weird. Things never crossed the boundaries with him that they did with me, but I think a lot of Mom's views on things were kind of forming with him.

I think when she had a daughter she suddenly saw herself in me, or something like that. She wanted to raise me the complete opposite of how she was raised, because she thought that wasn't healthy, I guess, and wanted me to be body-positive and sex-positive and carefree and not repressed by societal norms. I was never touched or coerced and they never did anything that made me feel like I was being manipulated or molded. But when puberty hit, she made it clear I wasn't supposed to be embarrassed by my body or sex or anything like that. It was all normal and natural. I was supposed to take care of myself, and I received plenty of toys and instruction. She has a strong libido, and to her physical pleasure is really important, and she just viewed that as making sure I was being raised right, like it was no different than teaching me how to cook.

I'm pretty sure none of this happened with my little brother, either. Like, she connected with me, and saw herself in me, so this was how she felt a daughter should be raised. And the family kind of came apart before my little brother hit puberty, so all of this I'm pretty sure just involved me.

She wanted to make sure I didn't grow up thinking my bits were naughty and needed to be covered up. So, I was becoming more sexually aware and growing into my body and I just started pushing the boundaries around the house. It's weird, because outside of the house I was the complete opposite. I was all huge sweaters and baggy jeans and stuff. But inside the house I felt I was with my best buds, and by that point I had started fantasizing about them pretty heavily, so a big part of that was trying to get noticed sexually. I suddenly had big boobs and a butt and I was starting to figure out what everything was for and how it worked.

Don't get me wrong. They weren't encouraging anything sexual with me, but at the same time they wanted me to feel totally free about my own body and sexuality. They made it clear that there was a difference between adults and children, and didn't want me going nude around my little brother, but if it were just the three of us I didn't really have restrictions.

This was mostly from my mom, and my dad was pretty weirded out by it. When I blossomed, I blossomed, and I spent a lot of time trying to get a rise out of him because I didn't know any better. From my mom's perspective, I could do whatever so long as my little brother wasn't around. It was all normal and cool to her.

Some of this is so hard to explain. Like, now it sounds as if the house was twenty-four-seven nudity and craziness, and that wasn't the case. Mostly the house was perfectly normal. But I was growing up, becoming more sexual, being given more freedom, pushing the boundaries more and more. A lot of this I think contributed to what eventually happened. There was just this air of openness and sexuality that was growing. My mom was always so focused on physical pleasure, and there was a lot of frankness about getting off, and I was becoming bolder and bolder. By the time things happened between all of us, stuff had just built up to the point where I'm kind of surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

My parents were not nudists. I saw my mom in a bikini and flirted with her and stuff, but until it all happened, I don't think I ever saw her in much less than that. I saw my dad in shorts. I can't really explain it. Like, it felt as if there were adults and children and I was in this weird middle stage where I could get away with the sexual aspects of being an adult without having to be responsible about it like my parents were. I was trying to be provocative in an effort to cross into that adult phase, but my parents were saying, "No, not just yet, but we'll allow you to experience part of this," like when your parents give you watered down wine or something.

I always feel I don't do a good job of explaining things. Everything felt perfectly normal, but trying to explain it to someone who didn't experience it is so tough. Like, I'm sure it sounds like, "Oh, so your parents encouraged you to run around naked all the time, huh?"  But that's so not what it was like.  My mom legit believed she was raising her daughter right, and that involved being uninhibited and not being crushed by societal expectations. I don't know if she expected things to end up where they did, but I'm 100% certain she felt she was raising a healthy daughter.

They were also really progressive in their attitudes toward raising me. They were pretty open about their views on societal rules and stuff. Not really crazy, but they made it clear I should live my best life and not be held back by what society thought I needed to be or do. I had my first drink with them. Got high for the first time with them. I was raised to be very body-positive and sex-positive.


How She Came to Want It

As far back as I can remember, I had this intense attraction to them. I started fantasizing about my dad because he was the coolest, hottest guy I knew. I was never into girls, but at some point I distinctly remember thinking, "Well, why not mom, too?" So, I tried that out and I liked it. I think this had to do with not having any real social circles outside of the house. They were both smoking hot, but I think whatever normal fantasies I would have had were just intensified because not only were they physically attractive, but I was so connected to them emotionally.

I’m sure all kids grow up fantasizing about stuff, and a lot, or most, probably involve something with their parents? I don’t know. Maybe most kids think its weird. But I was into them right away. A big part of that is probably because I was so socially isolated. We were bouncing around constantly, so by the time I reached puberty, I was already kind of a social wreck and in my shell. I didn’t really have other outlets for my fantasies, I guess. Second, I was super close with them. We were legit best friends. Third, they were just hot. I hate to be superficial, but I wouldn’t have been so obsessed with them if they were much older and just out of shape and stuff.

At some point, pretty young, I kind of realized that I was having all these fantasies about them, but they were like, real people, and living in the same house with me. I remember this distinctly, too. It was just some epiphany I had out of nowhere. I started thinking, "Why am I just fantasizing about this? Why couldn’t this happen in real life?"

I was raised to be open about stuff, so I wasn’t shy about telling them. I knew the societal prohibitions against this, but I was just, "Everyone’s dumb, you guys are so hot, let’s just do it." They mostly humored me, but I was always there with compliments for my mom in her bikini, and my dad was an ex-marine and was always working out, and I would roll in and watch. He’d shoo me away but I’d get my point across.

I think that the whole situation with me being a social mess and having no friends just led me to being obsessed with them to an unhealthy degree. They were, like, all of my fantasies. Constantly.

Another really clear memory I had was when I was about sixteen, and my mom and I were having some chill conversation about something. I brought up sex with family. How that gets thrown into a conversation, I don’t know. I think we were talking about the Bible, but I can’t remember. But I totally remember her answer. It was like, if people love each other, and care about each other, what’s the difference?  And, people have all these hang-ups about sex and it’s so stupid. That just knocked me over.  Even then I knew she was open about stuff, but I thought, I guess just by osmosis from living life in regular society, that would be something she would think was off limits. But she was really clear that was no big deal to her. And I was like, Oh.

That legit ramped up my fantasies and obsession into overdrive. I was already obsessed with them, and then I find out the incest thing is no biggie; now I definitely couldn’t get it out of my head.

I think I processed what I wanted to out of the conversation, so the fact that it ended up not happening frustrated me to no end. I had thought I was hearing that she was cool with it, but when nothing came of it, I couldn’t figure what I wasn’t understanding. Being too young didn’t enter my mind. I didn’t look too young, and I definitely didn’t feel too young. I was nothing but raging hormones. So I was totally confused by what I needed to do to get this to happen.


Trying to Make It Happen

It started as awkward flirting. I got pretty bold and aggressive.

I had no idea what I was doing, but I sure knew where I wanted it to go. Yeah, there was goofy, “Wow, you’re smoking hot!” and stuff like that. My dad was always working out somewhere, and I’d be like, “Muscles!” I was embarrassing.

I started using the casual nudity thing to get attention. Even though my social anxiety outside the house was way up here, I knew I was attractive, and if I couldn’t figure out how to put what I wanted into words, I could at least show them what they could have. That sounds really crass but that’s what was going on in my head. It wasn’t even sexual, really. I mean, it was, but I was too awkward to make it sexual.

Looking back, they both knew what was going on in my head, but I thought I was being pretty saucy. They just humored me and let it slide. I was being stupid and a child and overly forward, but it wasn’t… creepy?  I don’t know. In other families it probably would have been creepy. But in our house it was just us being best buds and me being awkward and trying to be sexual but having no idea how. So they just put up with me.

This phase, just before things actually did happen, I was seriously a handful, to put it mildly. I had become super obsessive about this. I was a raging bundle of hormones, I legit thought I had heard her give her approval, I was super frustrated nothing was happening, and my brain was going to explode. I was doing crazy things.  Like, one morning at breakfast I demonstrated what I wanted to do to my dad with a banana I was eating. I was constantly telling my mom I wanted her and weird stuff like, "Come on the house is empty, you won’t bother anyone with all the screaming I’m going to make you do."

My parents were just super chill, awesome people. My mom would think it was hilarious because I was being so awkward and my dad would roll his eyes and shake his head. We were totally normal, but we were weird and goofy and crazy normal. I’m sure some families would completely melt down if their daughter did some of what I did. But we were just cool like that. When I was doing the banana thing, my dad just told me to stop and my mom burst out laughing.

At some point I was getting bolder and pushing the envelope more and just came out and told my mom I wanted to sleep with them. I remember we had a semi-serious conversation about it. She asked me about stuff and seemed totally cool with everything, and I was like, "Hell yeah," but in the end it was just a really ambiguous conversation that didn’t go anywhere. There wasn’t actual planning or anything. I guess it was just an acknowledgment from her about my feelings and that it was OK to have those feelings.

For people that were super open and honest about everything else, looking back it was super weird that there was no discussion about this. I’m kind of surprised they didn’t sit me down earlier and, I don’t know, say no?  Or if it was a maybe, say maybe?  Or develop a roadmap or something? Like, "If you’re still serious about this when you’re 18, or 21, or whatever, then we’ll talk."

I didn’t give any room for misunderstanding. I want to make it clear I knew what I wanted and I was letting them know what I wanted. So when it finally happened it definitely wasn’t this poor child being manipulated by her parents. They were the ones trying to discourage me, mostly.

I didn’t leave my dad out of it, either. He was more stern and I knew I didn’t have the leeway with him that I did with my mom, but I asked him why we couldn’t, if it wasn’t a big deal, what was holding things up, stuff like that. I even tried to guilt him with the whole, "So, you don’t think I’m pretty, then?" angle. I tried to pull all my tricks out. But it just seemed like a brick wall. They were different kinds of brick walls, but still brick walls.

This wasn’t twenty-four-seven craziness. The house was still mostly normal. I was totally obsessive, but I wasn’t naked everywhere. My parents mostly humored me. If I was trying to be naughty with my mom, she would smack my butt and shoo me away. She was totally unfazed. Sometimes we would have quiet moments where I would try to bring it up again, but she’d kind of dismiss me by saying stuff like, "I didn’t know what I wanted when I was your age, I’d change my mind about things every day." Or she’d joke like, "Yeah, your dad and I are pretty hot, I can see why you’d want to."


Getting What She Wanted

I wasn’t sure what was going on and I was super frustrated. Somewhere in here I think I’m starting to get hints. There’s touches and stuff where there wasn’t before, especially from my mom. She’s playing with my hair, rubbing my shoulders, caressing my back. We were never physically distant, but there wasn’t this stuff going on. One time we were on the sofa together and she was playing with my hair and I started touching her fingertips and caressing her arm. Another time in the morning I was wearing a bikini top and she spent forever running her nails all over me.  That totally drove me nuts.

The really weird thing was internally I wanted to just be crazy and throw my naked body at them. I came up with these ridiculous, porn-novel scenarios where I would just march into their bedroom late at night and rip my clothes off or maul my dad when he was working on his desk at home.

What really happened was when my mom started the touching and the caressing, I kind of dialed things back. I didn’t change my mind, but maybe the realness of it kind of surprised me? I don’t know. But the casual nudity pretty much stopped and so did a lot of the crazy boldness. I could tell something changed, and I liked it, but my reaction was nowhere near what I would have expected.  Maybe with the intimate touching and staring into each other’s eyes and stuff, it started to feel serious? Maybe I felt like I shouldn’t be acting like a child anymore?  I don’t even know.

I don’t know if it was a conscious decision, but at some point I became aware of the touches and stuff becoming more… intimate?  Suggestive?  Especially from my mom. Suddenly there were back rubs and she would play with my hair and the back of my neck and stuff like that. There was one morning I recall in detail where we were chilling at the kitchen island together with some coffee, and I was wearing something kind of skimpy, and she was running her nails all over me. I was like, "Whoa, this is new. "

The reality was way more complicated than I can communicate. I think my mom was definitely down a lot earlier, but things held her back. Probably, she was more working out the how and not the if. My dad took some convincing, but how that happened I don’t know. But she had already made her decision long before and it was just a matter of when, really.

We never had any discussions about the hows or the whys, really, but my mom was a lot more out there than my dad.  He was a lot more conservative, but he was crazy about her and she had him wrapped around her little finger. So, looking back, I definitely think she was down with the idea right off the bat, and either couldn’t figure how to take the next step, or was afraid to, or was testing if I really wanted to, or something.

I started reciprocating and touching back more.  You’d think with all my previous bluster, I would have been more aggressive. I was excited, but scared crazy. I thought I was getting signals, but maybe that was just my mom being my mom?  I had no idea.  I spent a good couple of months just a confused, anxious mess as the touching escalated slowly and I tried to figure out what was going on.

So it’s more than a week before Christmas and the four of us are chilling on a Sunday night doing Christmas things. We’re all watching goofy holiday movies together, baking cookies. It was really warm and comfortable and wholesome.

Later, my mom and I are in the kitchen making hot chocolate for everyone and working on some peppermint liquor together and listening to Christmas music. We’re feeling pretty festive.

Some song came on and she grabs me and we start giggling and dancing. It starts out cute, and pretty soon it’s slow and close and I’m feeling something. She’s touching my hair and holding me and the slow and close turns into me grinding on her. She starts grinding back and kind of nuzzling my neck.
It was absolutely the most inappropriate time and place for anything like this, but for me it felt safe and warm and right. I didn’t know what was going on, or where anything was headed. Maybe I was thinking too much or not enough.

I leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. She didn’t freak out, and we just started kissing right there in the kitchen. Real kisses. It was awkward and my head was swimming, but I loved every second of it.

After a bit, she pulled away, said "Oh my god," and grabbed her drink and hustled out of the room.

I was left there freaked out. It took me a long while to pull myself together. I finished the hot chocolate and eventually brought everything into the family and we all sat together watching movies like nothing had just happened. My heart was going a million miles an hour, and I tried to communicate with my mom through eye contact, but she was deliberately trying to not pay attention to me or my gestures.

We just kind of sat in nervous silence for more than an hour while my dad and little brother chatted and enjoyed the movie.

We rolled into another movie after that, and I really needed to breathe, so I finally got up and collected the mugs and stuff and went back to the kitchen to decompress and pull my hair out.

I’m taking care of stuff in the kitchen and my mom swoops in and takes me by my waist and pulls me into a side room, and legit is just all over me. We’re not all out in the open this time and end up making out really, really hard in the dark.

It was such a rush.

Earlier, it was just hard kissing. This was a lot more intense with a lot of groping and hands all over. I remember she was pulling at my top and kind of trying to get stuff off, but I’m guessing it was just happening and she wasn’t really thinking it through. I wasn’t either. Things were just happening.

I could feel how much energy we had, and how much she must have been restraining herself up to then. I didn’t say a thing. I was so overwhelmed and turned on. I ended up with these crazy scratches from her nails on my side and back. I remember looking at them later in the mirror all excited like it was some trophy I won.

I never wanted it to end, but we were in there way too long, and she was like, "We need to get back," kind of in a panic. I was shaking like a leaf but got myself together again and followed her back to the family room. It was obvious she was as shaken as I was, and it took every bit of strength to make the rest of the night appear normal. It was one of those things I wanted, but having it actually play out in real life is too overwhelming to process.

And after that? Nothing happened. The night ended up with zero indication anything had occurred.

The rest of the week was like that, too. I’m totally confused, and I legit start to question if I had imagined everything. I intentionally avoid spending time alone with my mom, because I have no idea what’s going on. I went from being thrilled, to being in this anxious state, constantly on edge, feeling like I had done something wrong. The time we were together as a family she was obviously avoiding me, as well, and I just assumed it was my fault and that I had screwed everything up. I dipped into this deep funk. I wanted to talk and find out what was going on but didn’t have the courage, and the vibes I was getting made it seem like I shouldn’t.

Looking back, I don’t know how long it took for her to tell my dad.  And I don’t know what the conversation was like. I don’t know if it was like, "I’m so sorry this happened!" or "Let’s make this happen." The little bit I could piece together later made it seem like he was really not happy. It makes me feel weird knowing I had time with him that week where he already knew what had happened, but I didn’t realize it.

Christmas Eve hits.

We do another family night which is only just bearable because I make sure I never leave the family room and there’s no chance of any time alone with my mom or any conversations or awkward intimacy. It gets late and my parents shoo my little brother to bed because Christmas morning and Santa and stuff.

Not wanting to be there alone with the two of them, I just say I’m heading to bed, too, but my dad stops me and is like, "Don’t be boring. We’re going to have some wine and chill."

I feel a heavy weight on my chest, but I end up going along.

There’s wine. We’re enjoying the fireplace. My mom is sitting next to me. I feel the tension in me, but it’s not completely overwhelming. There’s some chit-chat.

My mom starts playing with my hair. I look at her like, "What the f--k?" But she keeps right on, and then she starts playing with the back of my neck. I’m about to crawl out of my skin.

It takes a while, but she pulls my hair aside and leans in and starts kissing my neck.

I immediately look at my dad, and we lock eyes, but he’s just relaxing like there’s nothing going on. I mean, it’s obvious something’s happening here, and I like it, but I have zero idea what to do.

She kind of pulls my face towards hers and kisses me on the mouth, and I don’t kiss back, but I feel the intensity from that previous night. I mean, I seriously have no clue in the world what’s going on, but she’s legit trying to make out with me right in front of my dad. I’m totally petrified.

There wasn’t anything ever that I both wanted and didn’t want so much at exactly the same time. But she’s not being bashful, and definitely doesn’t care that my dad is three feet away, and he doesn’t seem to mind either, and so I start kissing back a little bit.

But he’s just sitting there with his wine looking at me.

I swear my heart was going to explode. It’s not as rushed as before, but we start making out again. It was wild. My brain kind of switched off. Stuff was just happening. She starts unbuttoning my pajama top, and I don't have anything underneath, and I turn to my dad. I don’t know if I was looking for help or permission or what. I didn’t want it to stop, but it was still too much for me.

I don’t really know what was going on between them. By then I guess they had talked and agreed to things and figured stuff out. I say stuff as if I know, but in a lot of it I don’t, really. It obviously wasn’t a surprise to my dad. Maybe he just needed to make sure in his own head about stuff?

I’m beyond nervous, no idea what’s going on, but I’m 100% in at that point.

Her and I end up making out pretty hard right there on the sofa, like some continuation of where we had left off that previous night.

I remember my mom rubbing my back and saying something like, "You should probably cover up baby, because we were going up the stairs" and I was just hanging out of everything.

Eventually, she gets up and takes my hand, and I’m absolutely scared stiff and turned on beyond belief, and they just take me up to their room together.

That first time was intense.

It was the pinnacle of my fantasies, but even better.

I had zero experience, but they totally knew what they were doing, and it was mind-blowing and obviously completely changed my life. The entire time I was shaking like a leaf and couldn’t stop telling them how much I loved them.

I didn’t know what I was doing. Stuff was just happened to me.

The door locked, I remember the blinds were all open and we had light from there, from the Christmas lights.

They undressed me, they undressed each other.

There were no rules, it was just craziness. They knew what they were doing though, that’s for sure.

That first night was pretty much all about me, and I was definitely cool with that. They kept telling me to just relax and enjoy it, and I kept telling them how much I loved them and I couldn’t believe it was happening. It went on forever, a ton of different positions I didn’t know could happen.

At first I was pretty terrified. I was pretty terrified through all of it. The first time we were naked, the first time we started touching—I seriously almost died. I totally wanted it, but there was this loud voice in the back of my head screaming that she was my mom and she shouldn’t be doing that to me.  Or I shouldn’t be doing that to her, or my dad.

They were reassuring through the whole thing. Somehow it was ridiculously wild and totally calming and intimate at the same time. Nothing felt like an attack or too aggressive, even if it was too much for me.

I had never been with anyone before, so it was total sensory overload for me. They were super loving and intimate and wonderful.

It kept going until almost morning. I was a total mess. I remember my dad running his fingers through my hair telling me we were going to have to be downstairs before my brother woke up. So we stopped before it was completely light out. 

I was legit just a quivering disaster, but my parents were just like totally chill and like the biggest thing in the world hadn’t just happened.

I remember begging for it not to stop, like some child in a candy store.

But they went off to shower and stuff and I went off to my room, too.

I didn’t want it to stop, but when it was over I was such a physical and emotional wreck.

My brain was just a mess of things that first night. Well, most of the nights. I kept thinking even while the craziest stuff was going on, that we were still this normal family. We were naked and doing everything and just one door down the hallway was my little brother. That totally blew my mind.  They were aware of it too, but didn’t seem… worried?  I was way too loud, and they kept playfully shushing me, but it didn’t seem like they were too concerned. I don’t think they expected a knock on the door or him telling us to keep it down or anything. He was too young to have any idea, anyhow.

I locked myself in the bathroom in my room. I was just shaking and shaking, and I felt like I was going to just pass out. The first thing I did was throw up in the sink. I showered and came out and threw up again. I spent a long time sitting on the toilet seat covered in a towel and puking and shaking. It was all physical exhaustion and emotional exhaustion and spending the last whatever number of hours just a nervous mess and my stomach doing flips.

It took me a long time to get myself together and head downstairs. My brother was up and I could hear him and I just didn’t have the courage to go through my bedroom door. I couldn’t face him and I couldn’t face them. There was this huge weight of embarrassment that just crushed me all of a sudden. Completely out of the blue it was like, "What the f--- did you just do?"

Everything was just replaying over and over in my head, and I kept thinking, "Who does this? What the f--- kind of a whore are you?" The guilt set in right away.  I just had sex with my parents, and part of it was like, ecstasy, and part of it was just, "What’s wrong with you?" Even though I grew up in this really chill household, totally open about this stuff, and I was pushing for it forever, I guess I had this innate sort of, I don’t know, revulsion?  I can’t explain it. But afterwards it was just panic attack central.

Finally I head downstairs.  Everything was just business as usual. Christmas morning, and there wasn’t a hint of anything that had just happened. My brain was doing 300 miles-per-hour loops. Part of me thought the family was finished. Like, you legit can’t just do all that with your parents, right?  Some weird part of me thought that they weren’t talking about it because they were disgusted with me for doing that with them. Another part of me thought it was like, "Whoop, that’s your Christmas present! Now don’t talk about it again!" How do you even process this stuff?  I sure couldn’t.

For me it was crazy, because I had zero experience before this, and making out with my mom was crazy, and then making out with her in front of my dad was crazy. It was great, but my brain couldn’t process any of it. That whole first night—first week or so, really—was like stepping on a rollercoaster. It was this crazy rush, all breathtaking and intense, but once you were on it there wasn’t any stopping it. Things just kept going faster.

Christmas day was all about make-believe, pretending we were still the Brady Bunch while having all those emotions and sensations and tingling from head to toe. We didn’t talk about anything. It was weird. The day just kind of went on. I was blown away by how unaffected they were. I was barely able to keep myself together and they were going about business as usual.

My head was a mess of emotions and anxiety. I really just wanted to disappear in my room, but I didn’t know what the “right” thing to do was, so I just hung out with everyone pretending I was cool and that nothing had happened. I remember the whole day being constantly panicked about why no one mentioned anything.

One time my mom found me and squeezed my sides and kissed my cheek and asked me if I was good. Really?  How do you respond to that?

Then at night, after all the pretend, my little brother went to bed and my mom just kind of squeezed my waist from behind and asked if I was going to join them again. Just like that. All I said was, "Sure."So that’s how things went. We had zero conversations about anything, and more or less just rolled into sleeping together every night.

I don’t know if I said yes because I wanted to or if I felt I had to or what, to be honest. My rational brain still hadn’t recovered, and my lizard brain just wanted it all again, and my lizard brain won out.  Maybe I should have said no? Maybe I should have insisted on talking? Lizard brain was just like, "Don’t be stupid, you want that again, don’t ask questions."

So it just happened again.

I was a little less nervous, but only a little. My brain still couldn’t wrap itself around what was going on. They were super cool and reassuring about everything. It was practically all about me. I got off like you wouldn’t believe. 

Even though we never talked it out, it just became normal.

My brain was a confused disaster for a long while. How could this happen without even talking about it, you know?  I really wanted to get everything out and talk. Everything changed between us in one night, and even if it was good, it was a confused good.

But there was this unspoken vibe from them that it was just sex. We all still loved each other just like before, but now there’s this new dimension, and it kind of makes things even better, but let’s not blow it out of proportion. So I kept things bottled up inside. The good was too good to rock the boat. It seemed to be our regular life, and now there’s this really awesome crazy stuff, but in a lot of ways the two sides didn’t interact.

Eventually, my nerves faded. Eventually ,I kind of learned stuff. Early on it was just like, "Relax and enjoy."  After a while I figured stuff out and participated more. I was never super aggressive in bed, mostly because they were so good and everything they did to me resulted in fireworks, I was just like, "Yeah, do whatever to me." I was super aggressive about getting it, but they were so wild I didn’t really worry about the details.

There were no rules. No, "You can’t touch her or do this or that." It was pretty much a free for all.  They were both comfortable with everyone enjoying everything. There was some stuff I didn’t want, like anal or some extreme things, but outside of that they introduced me to a lot of stuff. They weren’t shy about things.

At the start, the only real rule they kind of worked out was that anything that happened was going to be the three of us. I don’t really know why that was a thing. Maybe they wanted everything out and open above board with everyone involved? I kind of found out about that after the fact, and it was never really discussed, so I don’t know what prompted that. But it went out the window pretty fast, anyhow.

After those first nights it was a daily thing. More than daily.

Maybe it was how I was raised, or genetics, or whatever, but I needed it all the time. It was ridiculous. Maybe being taught at an early age that sexual pleasure needed to be a priority just got me wired in that way?  But our drives just kind of meshed right and made this a focus of our lives. To me it was like, "Would I rather be doing this or knitting?" It sure seemed like a great hobby. I wanted it constantly and they were happy to help me out with that.

We kind of had these windows. Before my little brother came home from school there was about an hour where it was just the three of us. Then, when he came home from school, we did normal family stuff. After dinner and family time, my brother ran off to do homework or play or whatever, and there was another window. Then, after he went to sleep we had another window. Weekends when he got sent to my grandparents’ was definitely a window. It was daily, and a lot of times in multiple windows. I kept them busy, that’s for sure.

Sometimes it was two of us, sometimes all three. My mom and I were especially crazy. My dad couldn’t keep up with us sometimes. It seriously wouldn’t be unusual for my mom and I to do stuff before my little brother came home, and then after family time, and then late at night. Sometimes mornings, if we could. We were always running off together for this and that. Part of it was our insane sex drives, part of it was just the whole thing being wild, but it always seemed to be happening. Like I said, it seemed like a good hobby.

They had a fantastic sex life, and just seemed to kind of bring me into it. They were energetic and completely uninhibited, and for me every time was a toe-curling, white-knuckle experience. I had no idea physical pleasure could be that intense, and I think the intensity of it kind of warped my view of things.

I did a little digging with my mom. I guess they were blown away when I opened the door and started pushing for it. I was giving them this opportunity that couples just never get, she said. She was like, "Everyone wants to, but no one has the balls." Maybe. I don’t know.

I think how it happened was she was gradually working on getting him on board. He probably resisted, and then when her and I finally got physical that week before Christmas, she went to him and said, "Hey, she’s 18, I want this to happen," or something like that. Or, "Hey, I’m sorry, but I’ve got something to confess." I’m 100% sure she laid a lot of groundwork before he gave in.  I wasn’t an overnight decision. They were super open and honest with each other, so I kind of think it ended up mostly as a confession. I also kind of got the vibe that he got pretty mad about it. I totally don’t think he was cool with hearing about his wife and daughter making out, even though my mom was probably trying to sell it long before that even happened. But he was nuts about her, and she was always super persuasive, and she probably went full-throttle on her sales pitch.

My dad isn’t some meek, submissive guy, but he had this weak spot for my mom, in a really cute way. I have no idea how she finally convinced him, but it happened. He’s got a wild side, too, so there’s that. A lot of things I was doing to be provocative worked on him, but he was too good of a father to give in, if that makes sense. I have no idea how fathers view their daughters, but me doing what I did worked, but he felt he would have been a bad father to just go ahead and do that, you know? But me being so out there, and being old enough finally, and my mom working on selling it, and then what finally happened between my mom and I kind of smashed down those walls. I don’t think he was convinced to do something he didn’t want to do, I just think he had to be convinced to do something he did want to do, I guess.

It took me a long while to sort through what was going on in my head, but once I got used to things, it felt like a honeymoon. We got along perfectly. My mom and I connected like never before. It felt like the whole world was just this giant, warm, bed.

I had no experience before this, so going from that to threesomes with your parents moved you into a different headspace fast, and it took me a little bit to sort things out. But I was definitely 100% into it. My confidence shot through the roof. I always thought I was pretty, but now I was raging hot. I felt like a rockstar in that house. Everything revolved around me. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world.

Outside of the house there really weren’t close calls for being caught. In the house we were pretty discreet, too. There were some close calls around the house, though. Sometimes stuff would happen and I guess it wasn’t thought through or whatever and made for a couple of awkward almost-disasters.

I think it was that first week, but late at night after my little brother went to sleep, they brought me downstairs to the rec room we had and my dad had set up this table with restraints on it. I didn’t know these things even existed, and I was surprised. But I was down and got strapped in and they ended up playing with me forever. Like, everything happened. Oil, wax, toys, feathers, the whole menu. Forever.

I was being just too stupidly loud, and I think my brother woke up and I guess they heard him wandering through the house and everything ended up in a panic. Buckles were getting pulled apart and clothes flung around and it seemed like some police raid. This caused my dad to start installing locks. They didn’t want that to happen again.

Sex completely took over my life.  To the point where it was more important than pretty much everything and inspired a lot of bad decisions on my part. It wasn’t just boring stuff that happened for fifteen minutes every other Saturday. It was legit off the hook stuff. Most of the time stuff was happening to me that was so intense I could barely take it. I tried to get on that table as often as often as I could, and it would seriously be hours of everything happening. And being handcuffed to the bed, and in the shower, and just crazy stuff all the time. How do you go back to normal after this? That’s how it was every day. There was no, "One and done" going on in that house with us. When that becomes just the routine, how do you just turn around and give that up?  I mean, I couldn’t. The emotional highs, the physical, everything, it was all so addicting even when I saw things begin to come apart, I wasn’t able to make smart decisions. The intensity of it all and being the absolute Rockstar in that house; everything revolved around it.  Like, f--- the real world. I didn’t want to even deal with that when I had all this going on.

There were other times when close calls happened, too.

My parents could be full of contradictions sometimes, but I guess everyone can be. We were all about 98% discreet and about 2% not. One night my mom got frisky while my dad was away and it just ended up being the two of us on a comforter on the living room floor while my brother was upstairs. We just fell asleep like that. That would have been tough to explain if my little bro woke us up. Sometimes things would just happen out of the blue. Once, I came downstairs after a shower in the morning and they were there, and my dad just flung my towel away and flung his shorts away and it just happened right on the kitchen island, right in front of the stairs. I would have been horrified if my little brother wandered into anything. But I was like, "Okay, you guys know what’s going on."  If they suddenly had to have a birds and bees discussion with their youngest, that wasn’t because I was the one being irresponsible, you know? This was definitely not a regular thing, but looking back it’s like, wow, super happy no disasters happened. I don’t even know what inspired it. Maybe just the risk?  But they were pretty discreet almost all the time otherwise. I guess everyone can be stupid sometimes, especially when it comes to sex.

My dad installed locks in a bunch of doors to give us more freedom and security doing stuff. We would sneak off to the shower or bedroom or wherever and try to keep things down when my little brother was on the prowl. At night we had a little more freedom. At lot of times one of them would just keep an eye on him while two of us were occupied. Things just kind of worked out.

After the new year when my dad was really worried about privacy. We didn’t have any locks on our interior doors before that and he was constantly worried about my little brother popping in unexpectedly. My dad starts installing a bunch of locks on doors, just in case. My little brother asked about all of the locks, and my dad says it’s because the doors aren’t closing right. And I’m like," Ugh… OK." It seemed so small at the time, but that was a sign of how much secrecy and walls were going to take over my life.

Another thing that happened pretty quickly - there wasn’t a conversation about it, but I sort of knew - they had an agreement that anything that happened with me was going to be together. Maybe they were worried that me vying for someone’s attention over the other would cause problems?  But my mom broke that rule almost out of the gate. We were spending a lazy afternoon shopping downtown, and there was a lot of touching and kissing and whatnot, and she just asked if we should hit a hotel. I knew they weren’t supposed to do that, but I figured she knew what was going on, and I was always down.

I really, really liked it being just the two of us. It was a lot slower and intimate and not this frenzy of stuff going on. And that started to happen a lot, where we would sneak away to a hotel or something, or find private time together. It felt more than a little sneaky, but I was having fun and she told me it was cool, so whatever.

Well, I guess at some point she used the wrong credit card, because my dad found out about the hotels. There was a big fight about it.  But she had him wrapped around her finger, so nothing really came of it. It actually resulted in even more sex, if that were possible at that point. Now we were all doing whatever we wanted instead of just together.

It became crazy. I felt I needed a separate schedule just to squeeze some free time in. Especially with my mom. Her and I both have ridiculous sex drives, and after that it seemed like we were always in bed together, or somewhere. She didn’t need to wait for all three of us, so it turned in to all the time, almost. I wasn’t complaining, though.

A lot of my self-esteem got tied into how much sex I was having with them. The more, the crazier, the better. If we weren’t having sex, my ego wasn’t getting its kick. I didn’t recognize it at the time. I was in Heaven, because I was getting all I wanted, the kink was incredible, and we were all happy and intimate.


The Downsides

So what happened?

Well, sometimes it takes some reflection to see what’s going on and even now, thinking back, I see things in a new light and understand things differently.

There were a lot of things going on under the surface that I see now, but didn’t have a hint of them then.

There was this constant tension between how I wanted things to be and how they actually were.

My mom started to drink more. Not like some raging alcoholic, but more. I don’t know if she was going through the same weirdness in her head, or things with my parents were breaking down, or what. This caused some issues.

We would go out as a family and a few times my mom would have a little too much, and ended up getting pretty frisky with me. Stuff like her tongue in my mouth and reaching into my sweater. Around my little brother, that was unacceptable and even I knew that. My dad snapped at her more than once over what she was doing.

We were pretty super discreet around the family, at least until much later when my mom started drinking a little more and I think part of her, "To hell with everyone" urge kind of kicked in. There was one family occasion, which we rarely attended now, where she had a few too many, and had her hands all over me, and was nibbling on my neck, all kinds of in front of everyone, and I had to keep pulling away because everyone felt how weird it was. She wasn’t grabbing my boobs or anything.  But it was a more than you’d expect to see going on between a mom and daughter. Maybe this was her screaming to let out all the secrets? I don’t know.

It definitely raised eyebrows. I know my grandparents kind of asked some questions, but I think it might have been more about my mom drinking than them thinking anything was going on, but my dad still got pretty fierce about it. I do know they had some massive fights over how open she was starting to be about stuff. There were times when, even without alcohol, she was being over the top with stuff in public, and I wasn’t sure I really cared, but my dad would rage about it.

Slowly, I started to distance myself from everyone else even more, and that included the rest of the family. I had a great relationship with my little brother before everything started, and that gradually changed. Number one, there were all these secrets. Obviously, no one wanted him aware of anything, but there was a lot of it going on, constantly, so he really just got pushed out of the picture, usually getting shuffled to my grandparents’ place. From my perspective, it seemed weird even trying to relate to him now. It felt like there was this enormous wall between us all the time.

Even back then, I felt a little guilt, because I was aggressive about the sex and I knew that kept him from being a part of anything, really. But the sex was more important to me. My parents introduced me to some things that I really liked, but weren’t super practical in the bedroom, and definitely something he couldn’t be wandering around the house during. So, if that was something I wanted, poof, away he went, like some UPS package. These days, I feel I was totally selfish about that, because it happened a lot, and at my request. I think I realized even then I was being selfish, and not a good big sis, and that helped some of those walls develop.

I also felt guilty because I felt things would have been so much cooler without him around. I seriously came up with scenarios where he could stay with my grandparents permanently so there weren’t so many restrictions around the house. If I wanted to be loud, I wanted to be loud. I wanted to do whatever, wherever, whenever.

When he was away were the best times. We had the house to ourselves, and it was no inhibitions are pure craziness. I suck. I know.

The same with my big brother. I used to keep in touch with him through text and email and then suddenly, I couldn’t. It was impossible to relate to him. What were we going to talk about?  What’s going on in my life? What’s going on is I’m banging our parents. How do you even get past that?

I’ve never had any sexual feelings toward my big brother, but he’s a gorgeous guy. When he was home and we’d hug or touch me or something, I’d catch myself thinking, "Meh, why not?" I mean, I didn’t even want to. But if life is all about the kink, it’s all about the kink. If I have no boundaries, I have no boundaries. What’s to stop me? I felt super weirded out by that, and then confused by being weirded out by that.Were there lines or not? I crossed all those lines, so…?  I kind of felt my thoughts were becoming twisted, like my whole life was some free-for-all with no rules, and I wasn’t sure I was happy about that.

The few times he came home were stupidly awkward, and I barely said a word to him. I didn’t even want him around. Some part of me thought for sure he could just sense everything, like any second he was going to confront me in a back room and demand to know why I was carrying on with our parents like this.

One weekend my little brother was shuffled away with the grandparents. When he was back, we found out he was being grilled about what was going on, and if my mom was OK, and did he notice anything strange. You can imagine the red alert went off. Panic central. My mom was my mom, and was like, "Who cares what anyone thinks?" And my dad was raging at her because if there was one thing she promised him, it was that everyone was going to be discreet, and obviously no one was being discreet, because now the whole family was talking.

Then there were my grandparents. I couldn’t even look them in the eye.

The few friends I had I closed off. Again, was there anyone I knew that could relate to me or my life?
I always had this feeling hanging over me that everyone knew, or I had a big sign on my forehead, or that any moment I was about to slip up and say something that would bring the whole world down on us.

At home I was still the Rockstar, but was that what I wanted?

Slowly, I was questioning whether even my home life was the real me, or if that was a performance to feed my ego.

I know this put a ton of pressure on my parents' relationship. Just like the rest of my family, my dad was kind of getting pushed aside. After a while, it seemed like my dad was just around to watch my little brother and free my mom and I up to get together. A lot of times after work he’d watch my little brother so my mom and I could do what we wanted. A lot of weekends, too. When my little brother was sent off, that would be different, but otherwise she seemed to expect him to shoulder the babysitting duties. Once, I asked my mom if he was OK just watching my brother while we disappeared yet again, and she just kind of dismissed it by saying something like, "He has work to do, he’s fine." But I knew he wasn’t.

Over time, it was obvious my dad was pulling away. I can put all the pieces together now, but at the time it was in slow motion. I had this connection with my mom. I was definitely her daughter. We were super tight before things started, and after even more. We were so much alike it was nuts. We both had this raging sex drive, really uninhibited, and we were best friends outside the bedroom, adding these other elements to it just made it seem like we were soulmates, at least to me. We were constantly disappearing to be together any chance we had. Any excuse, any free time, even the slightest glance between us, we seemed to end up in bed.

I’m pretty sure they had fights over it, too. Sometimes things were legit nonstop between her and I for days or weeks, and then there’d be this total one-eighty where she’d go out of her way to include him, and then gradually it would go back to being her and me constantly. You could feel the tension sometimes. He’d make comments to her like, "Again, seriously?" But I didn’t really get it at the time. I thought things were fantastic. Wasn’t this the whole idea?

I don’t know when exactly I realized it, but after a long while I figured out they weren’t having sex together, either. If it wasn’t with me, it wasn’t happening. Part of me was just fine with that. I thought I was enough for both of them, but I didn’t know what it was doing to their marriage. I can imagine what it must be like to have someone come between you and your wife. I can’t imagine what it must be like for that person to be your daughter.

For a long time I lived in blissful ignorance. I loved where things were, and even if I knew inside that it was causing some problems in the family, like with my little brother, I wasn’t willing to give anything up. By the time I was willing to acknowledge that there were real problems, it was too late, probably.

By now I was going to the local college. We hadn’t had to pick up and move in a while, and I was kind of starting to grow some roots.

College was a revelation to me, because I had this new self-confidence and I was, in a way, not feeling as socially awkward as I had in the past. Talking to people no longer made my spine shrivel.

But now I had this new set of problems, because while I was superficially more confident, I had this huge pile of secrets and these walls up to protect me, so I could connect on the most basic level, but you’d better not try to get to know me better than that, because I’d push you away at the first sense you were trying to scratch under my walls. There were a lot of good people I met that were trying to be my friends but I kicked away because I felt I had to.

I started to feel broken again. Part of my life I was a Rockstar, part of my life I was just some actor with a mask on.

I did a lot of thinking during this time, and pretty much thought myself into anxiety and depression. I wanted to live a normal life, and I envisioned myself getting married some day and having a family, but how was any of that going to happen? When it all started I wanted to have fun, not to have it define my entire existence. But pulling back at all terrified me, too. The intensity of it was addicting. I wasn’t prepared to dial back the sex at all. That and the ego rush and the intimacy with them seemed to be all I had.

My constant mental state is anxiety and doom. My life is a lie. I’m addicted to the sex and the ego pump, but that’s starting to fade, too. I begin to feel super guilty enjoying what I’m enjoying, because it seems like that’s keeping me from living a normal life. I don’t talk to my little brother any more. Or my big brother. Aside from the physical, which is less and less, I don’t really have a connection to my dad any more because he’s been pulling away, too. The relationship with my mom is starting to break, because she’s acting weird and I know I’m acting weird because I’m a mental mess again, and every time I’m with them I feel like I’m just making things worse.

I got to know this boy in one of my classes. He was legit awesome. Chill and confident and gorgeous and super sweet. For some crazy reason he was into me. And it crushed me knowing how we connected and that nothing was going to happen. I kept telling him I was a mess and he didn’t want to know me like that, but he was really insistent and kind and kept trying. I finally ended up kind of ghosting him, and I spent a long time crying about that. This wasn’t what I wanted out of the rest of my life, you know? He was super awesome, and liked me for me, and I knew right away there was no chance I could let it happen.

Before I cut it off with the boy, my mom started to show these weird jealous tendencies. She was totally cool with me having friends, and encouraged me to get out more and blah blah blah, but if there was even a hint of anything possibly beyond that, she’d drop these hints. Nothing happened with me and the boy because I kept him at arm’s length, but I was into him and tried to see him as much as I could. My mom would be like, "Who is this? Who’s taking you away from me? Who are you spending so much time with?"

One time I remember I was seeing him for the third time in the week, and we were hanging out late, and my mom grabbed me and was like, "I know it can’t be better than it is with me." And I was just like, "What?" She played it off like a joke, but I could sense it wasn’t, really.

I’m at a party and I end up having a little too much to drink. There’s this cute girl there I don’t know that starts hitting on me. This is totally not me, because I’m such an introvert, but I’m like, OK, whatever. We hook up right there at the house. It was legit awful. By this point I’m super experienced, but not really, if that makes sense. It was my first time really, kind of. Afterwards we exchange numbers, but I’m just knocked over by how awful the experience was.

She texts me the next day saying how fantastic it was and she’d never had anything like that before. OK. We hook up again, sober, and it’s even worse the second time, if that’s possible. She confesses to me it’s the first time she’s ever gotten off with someone, and more than once, too. She wants to keep seeing me, but I’m not really into girls romantically, and she’s already got a boyfriend, and I mostly feel like I’m just a hookup to her, so I just let things drop.

The whole thing makes me feel even more broken. Apparently it was great for her, but it all was awful for me. I got absolutely nothing out of it. I start to figure that not only can’t I have normal relationships, but I can’t have normal sex, either. I definitely wasn’t prepared to live with that being great sex. I started to feel that going forward I didn’t have anything to look forward to. My best life was already behind me, and starting to come apart. No relationships, no family, no sex. I pictured my life was going to end up being nothing but my career and cats.

One day I broke down sobbing in class and couldn’t stop. Having bad sex with a random hookup seems like a crazy thing to break down over, but there I was.

I was petrified of losing the sex I was getting because I kind of lived for that, but I was starting to feel that was a big part of the problem. Plus, I was so depressed all the time that I was mostly empty when it was happening now anyhow. With my dad it had started to feel like I was kind of just a receptacle. He was so emotionally distant by this point, he would just kind of work and occasionally needed to get off, so there I was.

I spent most of my time being sullen and depressed. I spent lot of time away from home. I still didn’t have any friends, and now I didn’t want to be home, either.

Of all times, my dad felt like we should talk. He saw that obviously something was up with me, but I had learned a long time ago to keep everything inside, so I just blew him off when he showed concern. My mom mostly respected my space, but just like my dad, she had me wrapped around her little finger. Even though I wanted to, I never had the strength to say no. I could be at the bottom of my emotional well, sobbing all day, and somehow still end up in bed with her for hours because she wanted it. And then I’d end up crying like a fool afterwards because I still enjoyed it like crazy and didn’t want to.

I found a place on campus to live because I was an emotional wreck and needed space. At home I was feeling less like a Rockstar and more like a toy that got wound up when it was needed. My dad actually encouraged it, but my mom was shocked. For her, sex was the answer to everything, and she couldn’t comprehend why dialing things back might actually be good for me. I wasn’t with my dad at all after this, because I think he kind of understood. I tried to stay away from them more and more, but like I said, she was hard to say no to, and somehow when we were together things just kind of happened.

We’re in the entrance of the house and my dad is there to greet me, and she’s just really aggressively undressing me and kissing me. I honestly don’t even remember her saying "Hi" to me at all. I’m just kind of standing there passively while she’s pulling all of my clothes off and mauling me.

I tell my dad it’s cool, and just give in. She pulls me upstairs, and I get into it because I’m dumb and always do. She’s got a lot of pent-up energy and so do I, and we’re there for a ridiculously long time, and it’s pitch black and super late by the time we’re done.

I get dressed, find my dad, kiss him on the cheek. I said something really miserably passive aggressive to him about if he wanted his turn now because they couldn’t be in the same room together anymore and that’s all I was for, or something like that. I don’t even remember what it was, but years later I still feel awful about it. He tries an apology, but it’s like, what is he apologizing for?  So I leave.

And that was that.
.
There was one time I was visiting and she was being really insistent and I was obviously about to give in, when my dad cornered me and was like, "Are you sure?"  And I was like, "Yeah, I’m good." I wasn't, though. But seeing my dad feel the need to intervene, and then I still couldn’t say no, helped me see things differently again. I stayed away as much as I could, because I knew otherwise I couldn’t prevent things.

Finally, after not seeing them for weeks, I think, my mom asked me over one Saturday to spend time with the family. I was nervous but I wanted to see them because still loved them more than anything in the world and I wanted a normal life. I get there, and I’m not joking, as soon as I get through the door, she’s all over me. She’s unbuttoning my top and I’m like, "Whoa, what about my little brother?" She says they shipped him out, and I’m super sad about that, because for some reason I thought this was going to be a nice evening with the family. And he’s not even there.

I’m getting these looks from my dad, and I think it’s obvious I’ve just kind of zoned out, because he says something like, "She just got through the door, why don’t you let her breathe?"

My mom kind of jokingly says, "I’ll let her breathe when I’m done with her."

This soul-crushing guilt sets in, because I enjoyed it way too much. I realize there’s not going to be any family time, either. I start feeling really hostile inside. She’s getting dressed and I joke about her leaving money on the nightstand before she goes. She half laughs at that and disappears. I remember lying on the bed wanting to cry but not being able to.

The number of times I talked to either of them after that I can probably count on two hands, even though that might be exaggerating a little.

My mom left a lot of texts trying to figure out what was up, but I just said I needed my space and left it at that.

My dad reached out once, let me know he loved me, and that when I felt comfortable just being his daughter again all I had to do was pick up the phone. I told him I was always going to be his daughter. I cried like a child after that. But we still never talked.


Where Things Ended Up For a While

When I finally started to pull away from the family, it seemed like it was that last block in the Jenga tower. No one was really all that connected now.

They separated, and eventually divorced.  I feel like a monster for not being there for the family during this, but I legitimately couldn’t. There was no way. I was barely keeping my head above water and being near them again would have sunk me.

I kept to myself, concentrated on school, and tried to get my head right for a long time. I spent a number of months seriously depressed.  I took some time off school and life and gradually kind of came out of it. My mom would contact me periodically and I would spiral back into depression, but I kept going.

My dad respected my privacy. I think he understood, because his head was probably a mess, too. I’m sure he had lots of guilt and resentment. He mostly looked after my little brother, because I think my mom didn’t want too much interference in her living her best life.

My big brother and I have gone our separate ways, because of me. I’m sure he’d be happy to talk, but I just shut things down because I can’t look him in the eye, either. I’ve built up too many walls that I might not be able to climb over ever.

I’m at the point now where I almost think things are better and will be okay going forward. I’m kinda sorta in a stable relationship for the first time in my life. Kinda. He’s great, but I don’t know if I’m ever going to be normal. I think sex is just always not going to measure up, so I just deal. I’m not sure it’s even enjoyable enough to be worth it.

He says he loves me and wants a family, when I’m ready, but I don’t know how to tell him I don’t think I’m ever going to be ready, because then he’s going to want to know why. So, I care a great deal for him, and I think he feels the same, but I’m ready for it to come off the rails any second, just because. I’ve got so many secrets and issues and baggage and I can’t open up to anyone, I just assume every relationship, no matter how good, is going to have an expiration date.

My mom still messages occasionally. I guess she started dating some girl and she sent me a picture of her and she’s super young and cute and looks like some adorable elf. I couldn’t process that. Just thinking of this destroys me inside, for a bunch of reasons. I honestly prayed every day for them to break up. That wrecked me again, and sent me back down some more.

I don't know all the details about my little brother. I'm too out of the loop. He's still a minor. As far as I know,, my dad has custody.  My mom, when they were splitting up, kind of wanted to live her life, I think. Or maybe even more than that my dad just wanted him and she didn't fight about it, or maybe he just put his foot down about it.

At some point I’d like to reconnect with my little brother, but I don’t know if that’s ever going to be possible.  I literally blew up the family around him. It’s not something I can apologize for, because how can I apologize for something I can’t ever talk about? Also, I know he was getting vibes about how weird the family was, but I don’t think he ever picked up on what was really going on. He was too young. It would absolutely destroy me if I knew he put two and two together somehow, or saw something he shouldn’t have. How can I ever look him in the eye with that in the back of my head?

My dad wanted to do coffee once, but I couldn’t. There’s no way I could see him again, or hear his voice, without my thoughts turning sexual. Even worse with my mom. I just feel so warped now I don’t see a way to fix myself and go back. I even worry about trying to re-establish with my big brother. For literally zero reason, I worry that if I start talking with my big brother, that will turn sexual too, even though there’s no reason to think that, and I wouldn’t want that. But I guess when your brain tears down these huge boundaries it has a hard time rationalizing where the new boundaries should be. Even going forward is something I have a hard time dealing with in my head. What if I had a daughter down the road and she was like me? I don’t know how I could handle that.

I’m not going to lie, to this day I have super strong sexual feelings for them, especially my mom, and I’m terrified of seeing her, having her be aggressive, and giving in. Because I would. Or maybe I would end up being the aggressive one. My brain does crazy things sometimes. When I say that I couldn't not give in to her, it wasn't because she's twisting my emotions. It was because just being near her filled you full of energy. And a lot of her love was expressed physically, so even when I was trying to pull back, and especially when I was feeling empty, I needed that fix of being with her.


Reflections

Looking from the outside in, I guess the main question is how does something like this happen?

For me, it just seemed to be this perfect storm of different things lining up, for better or worse. I was raised in an environment that was super open, body positive, sex positive, pleasure positive. I was taught early on that society’s rules shouldn’t hold me back in anything. We were all best friends and all had this strong mutual physical attraction. My parents definitely didn’t have any boundaries against it, or at least my mom didn’t. It's kind of hard looking back to see a way that this wasn’t going to happen.

My parents were even against it initially, but I was pretty out there about insisting on it. Part of me is even angry at them for not being more adult and just standing firm, but I can’t for a second deny I was the one pressing for it and that I made it 100% clear it’s what I wanted. I feel even more guilt because it was all about sex. I already had a fantastic relationship with them, so there was no improving on that.

When it comes down to it, it’s really just about sex. For my parents and I, that’s all it was. We were already best friends. We just all had this sexual fantasy we wanted to experience and no reason not to.

But I’m coming from a place now where I think that just being a good, loving, intimate family is better than rolling the dice and trying to make all your fantasies come true. A lot of bad things can happen.

Most days I feel like some mutant with a secret identity just dropped in to the world.  It's so hard to relate to anyone, because they're all doing their Regular thing, and I'm just this ball of abnormality trying to scrape by and pretend.

It was super intense obviously because of the circumstances themselves, but also because these were two people that I absolutely idolized. There was this connection. Now, I can't connect on that level, or any level it seems, with anyone, so not only isn't it as physically intense, but there's nothing there emotionally, either. There's just the mechanical aspect of it, and that's just not even worth it.

I can't express how much I love these people and how perfect they are to me, but I'm just trying to describe how things fell apart and why.

One of the biggest problems was that over time, the sex completely took over my life. At the time, I didn’t see it, or care, because I wanted it literally constantly. It fed into my ego, it was almost a replacement for what I was lacking socially. My parents were super hot, and being the center of this all the time was a drug. This is going to sound awful, but it was a power trip, too. Like, screw all of society’s rules, I know you want me. You know?  A huge part of the thrill was knowing they’d throw all the rules out just to have me. Yeah, we’ve got this perfect family, but you’re OK with upending it all just to f--- me. That felt super powerful. It makes me sound like a terrible person, but that’s what I was feeling.

I started to feel like I couldn’t be me around anyone. Outside the house, obviously not. That was turning into a performance, no one could know the inner me, both because of the secrets and their inability for them to relate in any way to my life.

I’m still working through an enormous amount of guilt. Obviously, I pretty much feel I destroyed the family and wrecked my parents’ marriage. I was absolutely the initiator, and pushed hard for it to happen.

I also don’t want to make it seem like my parents are bad people or I dislike them or something. I felt I had to distance myself from them because all of our interactions had become super toxic. I think my mom and I especially just kind of had this toxic side we helped fuel constantly in each other. They’re good people and I love them more than anyone in the world, and won’t ever stop. I think we all just made some bad choices for bad reasons, and now we’re in a place we can’t come back from.

The communication thing was so weird.  Like, we were totally open and honest about everything else. When I say we were all best friends, I'm not kidding. And I was never told not to talk about it.  But it was just something that wasn't talked about. And I didn't want to mess anything up, so I just followed along.

For my mom, I think she just never had that, Ew, I can't touch my daughter like that, boundary, so for her everything wasn't as dire, I guess. She loved me and this was fun, so it didn't really require evaluation and explanation and forms filled in triplicate. I always got the feeling she felt my dad was silly for always being on edge about this stuff.  She was more like, This is cool let's go with it. So... maybe she felt like talking everything out wasn't necessary? And until the very end I never made it seem like that was important, so I can't really fault her.

For my dad, I think he maybe didn't want the introspection?  I know 100% that if it had just been him and me, none of this would have happened, no matter how forward I was. She could be super persuasive. My dad definitely has this crazy side to him too, so I'm not going to say she twisted his arm, because that would be unfair, but I know she had to use her charm on him to get him onboard stuff.  So at the end of the day maybe he didn't want to think too much about it? If I had given any signal that I was unhappy or that there were problems, he would have put the brakes on immediately, and my mom would have, too. But aside from my own problems, which I hid pretty well, right up until all the wheels came off I was mostly ecstatic about my relationship with them, so they didn't have any negative signals to worry about, really.

As far as how they communicated as a couple, I always sensed it was open and honest. I know once my dad started feeling pushed out of the marriage, and resentful of that, that all started to come apart.  But before that, and growing up, we always got the feeling it was perfect between them. I honestly don't even remember a single argument. I know that before everything started, they set down some ground rules, so they communicated with each other, I guess.

The communication was really weird. In the house it just felt like it wasn't necessary. You don't sit down and have a three-hour-long conversation about having eggs for breakfast. It just kind of happens. That's what it felt like. It was like, "Okay, sweet, this is happening."

Before it happened they just kind of dismissed me, even though there didn’t seem to be any logical reason they wouldn’t do it if I was down.

When it was going on, we didn’t discuss anything.

After everything went haywire we didn’t discuss anything.

The three of us ended up being just crazy wild and uninhibited together, but actually talking about it?  Nope. That just blows my mind. I don’t know, can you compartmentalize your life in such a way where you have ridiculously kinky sex with your daughter but not be able to talk to her about it?

Mom was was crushed by what happened. The texts, calls, messages after, she was really pouring her heart out. I feel really bad, because when I disappeared I pretty much blindsided her with it. I hadn't been up front about how my head was all over the place with things. It was just that things felt so toxic at that point, and that everything I was enjoying with her and the both of them was a major factor in all of the reasons I couldn't get my head right, I felt I had to just cut them off. She felt if there were problems I didn't give her a chance to fix them. And that was true. But by then I literally couldn't even be near them any more.  If I wanted to talk things through at that point, I probably could have. So that's on me.

I'm less certain about how she felt about my dad.  I know they loved each other, 100%.  I think that when I opened the door to things their motivations kind of went in different directions?  I have to be careful how I say this because I'm not sure I know what I'm saying.  My mom wanted to have fun.  Like, not at the expense of her family, but she didn't think that was going to happen, you know?  My mom was more physical, didn't have those boundaries, wanted to enjoy every aspect of life. I think my dad was more concerned with keeping his family cool. Like, he had this crazy side to be sure, but he wanted his family cool.

So, I come into the picture, and she's all about the fun part, and he's the more responsible part. I think she felt he was being too... stuffy, about things sometimes? She just loved me and loved the experience, and I think she felt he was being too conservative. He was probably always the word of warning in her ear. So, as time goes on these problems start cropping up, maybe he's trying to dial things back,her and I are crazy close, this train is just kind of roaring down the tracks, and I think he starts pulling away. The more he pulls back, the more she doesn't feel they're on the same page, maybe? There's more tension. The more he pulls back, the more I'm there to fill that gap, kind of. He literally starts getting pushed out of the relationship, almost. He feels more anger and resentment about where the family is heading. He pulls back more. Everything's just snowballing.

What I guess I'm saying is it wasn't her that ruined anything. Honestly, I think that's me. For a bunch of reasons. But at the very best, we all kind of brought our own toxicity to the table.

Stuff happened between them that I'm sure I know nothing about. Like fights about stuff. I'm sure.  But at the end, I kind of think he just wanted his family, and I think he felt a lot of resentment about what was going on, and she was pretty insistent that this is how she wanted our relationship, and she wasn't going to stop being her or ask me to stop being me. They weren't seeing eye to eye at all on the family or what was going on at that point. I think they both blame each other for the direction things took. And I know my mom loved my dad to death, and if I asked her now she'd still say that, probably, but she's also not one to be held back by anyone, you know? Like, that's how he feels, it's over, she's moving on. Maybe she feels that way about me, too?

I don't really understand everything that was going on. I just guess and piece things together, so it's hard to explain to someone else without seeing everything.

I was old enough to make adult decisions and this was what I wanted.

I was absolutely 100-percent clear this was what I wanted. This wasn't something I mentioned once.  I made it really, really clear I was cool with this, repeatedly. We were all super attracted to each other, we all wanted to see where this would go and knock down those walls, and we were all super stoked about the idea itself, we were all adults capable of making adult choices.

When I was pushing and they were just kind of humoring me at first, I was crushed. It wasn't like I just mentioned it and it happened. I opened the door, I pushed really hard for it, they were even kind of reluctant at first.

And as far as the problems in the family, yeah, that's on all of us, kind of. Once everything started the secrets started to snowball, and it's hard getting away from that. I didn't know or care at the time, and I think my parents kind of underestimated how big of a problem it would be.

Even when I kind of saw some of the problems developing around us, I was always more concerned about getting what I wanted and staying the Rockstar than making sure the family was cool. I was a socially awkward mess outside the house, but inside the house I was pretty aggressive about insisting everything revolve around me and my enjoyment. It's so hard describing all of the weird, ugly dynamics going on to someone who wasn't there.


*****


I thank "Zoe" for letting me share her story. I think it is an important one to tell.

I apologize to the reader for the length. I didn't want to break it up and publish it in parts. I probably could have done so and drawn it out for hits, but that's not what this blog is about. This blog is here to help people. I also didn't want to remove any of Zoe's statements for the sake of brevity. I wanted her story told.

It is my hope that Zoe finds lasting happiness and peace and that her relationships with her various family members become fulfilling. Having some time to experience life away from the situation she was in will likely help. When someone had an intense relationship for three or four years, it can often take several years to adjust after it ends or changes.

I'll have so more thoughts below, but I wanted to draw the reader's attention to what might be of help of you can identify with any part of Zoe's story.

This is how you contact me, Keith. If you need help, you might want to see here.

Here is where you can find interviews with others who've had consanguinamorous relationships.

The consanguinamorous and allies do have a supportive place to communicate with others.

You aren't alone! There are others, probably closer to you than you think.

Consanguinamory is not sick.

If you're having feelings for a family member or relative.

If a close relative or family member is having feelings for you.

Should you do it? This might help. If you want to do it, and are trying to figure out how, this might help.

If you've done it but need to make sense of things, this might help.

Taking things slowly might be better for you.

When an older partner struggles emotionally.

Intergenerational relationships can work.

The intersection of consanguinamory and polyamory.

Tips for switching to polyamory.

Dating outside the family when you're consanguinamorous.

Keeping the closet door closed.

How to live together.

How to avoid trouble.

It would help if all consenting adults had their rights. There's no good reason to deny rights. Here's how you can help.

This is for family and friends, and this is how they can be allies to consanguinamorous people they know.

Consanguinamory FAQ

More thoughts from me...

It's possible, given the personalities involved, this situation was never going to last and not going to end well. Such is the case for many, many relationships, whether they are widely accepted and supported by society or not. Most sexual relationships in general do not last, at least not as sexual relationships. This one lasted several years, which is more than many "regular" relationships. But societal taboos and condemnation make things worse, and often prevent what otherwise would have worked well from doing so. With communication, with being able to reach our to others and, if needed, the same kind of supportive therapy and counseling other relationships can access, a relationship like this, and so many others like it, might have progressed more positively.

Most people who experience consanguineous sex will tell you there's nothing that compares. In addition, some people are consanguinamorous in orientation, meaning consanguinamory is going to be a better fit for them than "regular" relationships. Some others are on a spectrum that also allows them to enjoy "regular" relationships, even as much as a consang relationship. When someone in a consanguinamorous relationship feels a need explore "regular" relationships, there are healthy ways of supporting that.

Of course there are some who say this was doomed to fail because these were her parents. Clearly that isn't the case, because may other adults have pursued one or more parents and it has worked out well, even until natural death. With the right communication and community, it is possible this would have lasted or changed in a way that wouldn't have put so much strain on the relationships.

As liberated and rational as Zoe saw herself, she might have still let societal prejudices bring negativity to her. That might be why she had difficulty with her relationship with her grandparents.

It might have helped if things had ramped up more slowly in this relationship. It was a lot for Zoe to absorb in a short amount of time, whereas if what happened in the span of a week had instead taken even just a month, she might have been able to process things better.