A Young Italian Man in Love

We have another exclusive interview to bring you. 

People in consanguinamorous relationships are everywhere, though consanguinamorists tend to be closeted. Fortunately, some are willing to be interviewed for this blog. As a result, Full Marriage Equality has featured scores of exclusive interviews with lovers denied the freedom to marry and have that marriage treated equally under the law. Most can’t even be out of the closet or they’ll face prosecution under absurd incest laws, which, instead of focusing on abuse, also target consensual relationships.

The man interviewed below should be free to legally marry his lover, or simply to be together as a couple without having to hide, yet they can’t. Prejudice can be deadly. They are consenting adults who aren’t hurting anyone; why should they have been denied their rights? In much of the world, they could be criminally prosecuted for their love, and might be persecuted severely in addition.

Read the interview below and see for yourself what this man has to say about the love he shares with his partner. You may think this relationship is interesting, or it might make you uncomfortable, or you might find it ideal, even highly erotic and romantic, but whatever your reaction, should lovers like these be denied equal access to marriage or any other rights simply because they love each other this way?

Also please note that someone you love, respect, and admire could be in a similar relationship right now. Should they be attacked and denied rights because of the "incest" label?

This man primarily speaks Italian and we are very fortunate to get this interview in English.

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FULL MARRIAGE EQUALITY: Tell us about yourself.

Enrico: There's not that much to say about me. I consider myself relatively ordinary. I'm twenty years old, studying medicine at university. I have a good average but it's also true that I spend practically all day on books. My family is undoubtedly well off, I've never had any particular economic problems, but that doesn't mean I'm rolling in money.

FME: Are you married or have you ever been married?

I have never been married. In general, I consider marriage something strange, something that if all goes well in a couple does it does not serve to be married, and if something goes wrong it only creates extra problems.

FME: How would you describe your sexual orientation and your relationship orientation?

A banal hetero like many others. I never had homosexual or polyamorous fantasies, which of course I do not criticize, they are simply not mine. In all honesty, I am absolutely convinced that I want. and feel better, in a monogamous relationship.

FME: You currently live with... ?

I currently live with my mom, although it would be more correct to say that I have always lived with her. I should point out that my parents separated by mutual consent when I was three years old and my father had always been there when I was growing up, but for work reasons he lives outside of Italy, so I rarely see him, but I hear from him every day. Not having an income yet, this is inevitable, but I plan to graduate as soon as possible and at least get around the income problem.

FME: What was your childhood like?

Normal, if not banal. I had the normal childhood of a child of serenely separated parents. I lived with Mom, heard from Dad every day, and stayed at his place when he was in Italy, which is still the case now. I had lunches and dinners at my grandparents', cousins, birthdays, and everything normal.

FME: Is she your biological mother?

Yes, absolutely.

FME: Tell us more about your relationship with her while you were growing up.

It was normal. Of course my mother has always been very affectionate, but speaking with various foreign friends, it is a common trait of many Italian mothers, nothing that exceeds normality. Obviously, living alone with her, we have always been very close and confidants within the limits of the mother-son relationship

FME: Did you have any attraction to her while growing up?

Except for some obvious interests close to the discovery of sexuality, I would say no, but I was not interested in her specifically but in women and having her at home, some glimpses were there, especially about breasts.

FME: How did sexual affection become a part of your relationship?

Sex entered the relationship with mom as something goliardic, instinctive; not a real relationship, but a game born from the confidence developed in a moment of particular understanding. In winter, Mom and I found ourselves confined to the beach house for four months in an area not far from the city, but not close enough to allow for easy travel outside work and school, which was obviously necessary and inevitable. So in essence we experienced a sort of forced isolation that changed sociality by contracting it to just the two of us and bringing out, from my point of view, more affinity than I thought. While from her, I started to seem less like a child than I thought she believed.

This did not directly lead to sex, but it gave birth to a beautiful friendship right from the start which formed the basis, along with the isolation, for the possibility of going further as friends. It seems reductive to define it as a "friendship with benefits" but I would not find a better way to describe it since we treated sexuality as any subject, joke about it, discuss my adolescent curiosities, in short, breaking down the barrier of embarrassment imposed by roles and topics. At that point, to realize that sex could be considered a purely physical gesture and therefore released from morals and judgments between consenting persons was inevitable if you add the fact that Mom was rediscovering it after having avoided some relationships from the separation with Dad so many years earlier.

FME: Can you describe your feelings during that process?

I was absolutely ecstatic, over the Moon to the limit of understanding what was happening. For a few months of isolation I had come out with the possibility of having sex with a woman who I consider very beautiful, regularly, with whom I had become super friends and with I was fine and all this as a teenager! An absolutely unthinkable luck. Yes, incidentally it was my mother but it was not something that worried me too much at the time, taken as I was by the context. Later, I thought better about it to clarify and clarify if I was really starting to feel something and if this was right or not, moral or amoral and if I really wanted to feed this nascent feeling.

FME: Before this had you ever thought this would be possible or enjoyable; did you have any opinion one way or the other about mothers and sons being together?

Before this, I knew incest only for extreme cases studied at school, like Caligula with his mother, some Greek myths, but everything had been studied for other reasons and incest was always was considered something amoral and bordering on the absurd, so not only had I never thought it could happen, but honestly I didn't think it would happen in general. It was a taboo like many others, taken for granted and never considered.

FME: Describe your relationship now. Is it family-with-benefits, an affair, girlfriend-boyfriend, a marriage, what? Do you see each other as family or lovers, or are those two roles inseparable at this point?

Now, to all intents and purposes, a relationship. I would define it as a particular coexistence; particular because despite being a couple, recognizing us as a couple, part of the original roles has remained. Also, because I am still studying and I have not yet undertaken a independent road, but I think that the role of son and that of mother will always remain and cannot be eliminated in any way, at least for us.

FME: This is a closed relationship? Neither one of you is looking for others?

Absolutely yes, over the years I have had some flirtations here and there, also encouraged by Mom, who logically wanted me to have my experiences, but over the years this road has slowly gone, dying naturally because simply it wasn't interesting for either of us. I'm not going to look for something I already have, I'm not looking for a relationship if I'm satisfied with mine. At the same time, the relationship evolved from a purely physical nature to something more concrete, aware and mature

FME: How do you describe the lovemaking now? Taboo? Natural? Especially erotic?

It would be foolish to deny that a hint of weirdness is an integral part of such a relationship. Although it is not a fantasy prior to everything, incest has now partly become so I am making love with my mother, penetrating my mother, she is feeling her son inside, not a random person and this has, undeniably, a burden as arousal, albeit less than we think since for the most part it is a normal relationship.

But this is true for now, especially at the beginning there were moments of disturbance and a particular sense of guilt in the elaboration of the gesture due to the common thought of society and the influence of Catholic culture, which in Italy, is particularly rooted. The dependence it gave in the initial stages helped normalization but slowed the acceptance and internalization of the gesture which required a lot of self-analysis on our part over the months and sincere confrontation between us.

FME: Does anyone in your life know the full, true nature of your relationship and how did they find out?

Nobody knows and nobody should know. I don't think anyone would accept it under any circumstances. Yes, Italy is particularly bigoted in many respects, but we were prepared from the beginning for this aspect. What has remained between us, remains between us and will remain between us, at home or on holiday in foreign states among strangers. It is just a little bit of commitment. For the future it will be a bit more complicated but it is not so absurd for a child to build a semi-detached house on his parents' land, thus maintaining domestic intimacy.

FME: Having to hide the full nature of your relationship from some people can be a disadvantage. Can you describe how that has been? Are there any other disadvantages? Conversely, do you think consanguinamorous relationships have some advantages and some things better than unrelated lovers?

Undoubtedly it requires commitment. I would not speak of disadvantages but of work. You have to be careful, create habits, patterns and behavior screens that in the long run can be heavy in certain circumstances if combined with the stress of everyday life. But yes, get used to it, it's something as inevitable as paying taxes as far as we are concerned. Obviously, in an ideal world all this would be useless and one could live peacefully in the light of the Sun, but that world does not exist, at least for now, so one adapts to it.

As far as the advantages are concerned, we fundamentally find one that can be summarized in the word: confidence. Being comfortable on a completely different level from any relationship. A mother is in no way ashamed of her child or herself in his eyes and a child has nothing to hide from the mother who literally raised him, so that even the minimum level of embarrassment present even in the most lasting relationships is lacking.

FME: What do you want to say to people who disapprove of your relationship or disapprove of anyone having this kind of relationship? What's your reply to those who would say that this is one of you preying on the other?

It is simply a preconception and nothing more. Every relationship must be evaluated case by case whether it is between strangers or relatives. Applying a canon to something like a relationship is practically always wrong because it imposes a standard that is not necessarily valid for everyone. It is obvious that a relationship born between an adolescent and the mother gives more room to doubts, and related and legitimate concerns, than a relationship between two peers but not for this reason one is always wrong and one always right, exceptions exist and lately the world is realizing that there are many more than one might think between polyamory, gay relationships, fantasies concerning domination, the transfer of the partner.

Toxic relationships in which negative codependency is present exist and will always exist and in the case of large age differences it is only relatively more likely that the older part will prevail but it is not fair to take it for granted as this is not always the case. There is a risk but it is not a risk only in this kind of relationship, so to consider them wrong a priori seems ridiculous to me.

FME: If you could get legally married, would you?

Yes and no, in the sense that we morally consider binding us to a person as a beautiful thing if we find the right person for whom we made our choice from this point of view. The problem lies in the legal part of the thing. What good is kit to put the law in the middle? For us we are already a married and indissoluble couple.

FME: What advice do you have for someone who may be experiencing these feelings for a relative or family member?

Reflect very well on yourself, on the other, talk, think for a long time about pros and cons, they are complex relationships and should not be taken lightly as the "normal" ones because they bring with them secondary problems, even important ones derived from society and from social and religious heritage. A lucky case like mine is not an example of anything just as an unfortunate case is not. So I just invite you to reflect on one thing: how often does a relationship end badly? By bad I mean that you end up not talking to each other anymore and in the end you leave angry. Often, and if the person you leave is your mother or your father and you live in the same house and you will have to do it again for several years? Not a very nice situation, and this is just an example, but hey, if after careful consideration the pros outweigh the cons it is a potentially wonderful and unique relationship.

FME: What advice do you have for family members and friends who think or know that relatives they know are having these feelings for each other?

Talk, speak, sincerely, without embarrassments or false moralisms, better a fool than repress something. The sooner the better and the more thoroughly you dissect what you think or feel the better it is, at least among you that everything is out in the open without secrets, then it will go as it should go.

FME: Any plans for the future?

Graduation, work, home. For the relationship it is now is an integral part of my life, it is also complex for me to talk about it because I take it for granted as an indissoluble part of my life. I wake up next to my mom, I fall for the evening, we celebrate birthdays, Christmas, it is difficult at this point to discern between single life and life as a couple, as on balance it is in every marriage that works.

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Clearly, these lovers are consenting adults who aren't hurting anyone, and yet they can't even exercise their basic human right to marry as things are now. They love each other and are happy, yet they are denied fundamental rights. They can't even be open about their love without risking harassment or much worse.

Why should they be denied their rights? There’s no good reason. We need to recognize that all adults should be free to be with any and all consenting adults as they mutually consent, and part of doing that is adopting relationship rights for all, including full marriage equality sooner rather than later. People are being hurt because of a denial of their basic human rights to love each other freely.

You can read other interviews I have done here. As you'll see, there are people from all walks of life, around the world, who are in consanguinamorous relationships.

If you are in a relationship like this and are looking for help or others you can talk with, read this.

If you want to be interviewed about your "forbidden" relationship, or that of someone you know, connect with me by checking under the "Get Connected" tab there at the top of the page or emailing me at fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com or see here.

If you know someone who is in a relationship like this, please read this.

Thank you, Enrico, for telling us about your intergenerational, consanguinamorous relationship. We wish you well in your relationship!