Sons and the Mothers Who Raised Them

Anonymous asked at this blog's sister Tumblr...

Is it possible for a son to be attracted to his mother and fantasize about her even though he grew up with her? Without the westermark effect?

Yes.

This happens quite frequently. You no doubt know multiple sons who have or had such feelings. And you almost certainly know some who’ve acted on them.

Not everyone experiences the Westermarck Effect with all people they were raised with. Sometimes the effect is very weak in comparison to their attraction. Also, some people are primarily consanguinamorous in their orientation.

Whether the woman who raised him is his biological mother, stepmother, adoptive mother, grandmother, aunt, etc., it happens.

It also happens to daughters who have attraction to women. And sons who are attracted to men might experience attraction to their father. And daughters who are attracted to men might experience attraction to their father.

In reunion/introduction Genetic Sexual Attraction situations, there was never any chance for the Westermarck Effect to be a factor. But when raised with or by someone, it still might not be present, or might not be strong enough to override attraction.

If you're experiencing such feelings and need to talk with someone, contact Keith.

Basic Facts About Sex

Based on some of the people who reach out to me, various places on this planet have an appalling lack of sex education. 

That is why I am posting this.

Others have already made basic information about sex accessible online, so I will be linking to them. But there are few things I wanted to stress below.

First, a couple of important links that can answer many questions.

WebMD Health and Sex Guide

Scarleteen

Spend time looking for answers to your questions at those links.

Now, some important things everyone should know...

NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #8

“Polyamorous and consanguineous marriages are not the same thing as same-gender marriage.” So what? We’re talking about consenting adults who want to be together, and there’s no good reason to stop them. Some same-gender relationships and marriages are polygamous and/or consanguineous. A man should not only be able to marry another man, but two or more other men or his brother.

Strictly speaking, whether a marriage is same-gender or heterosexual is a different category than whether it is monogamous or polygamous; or exogamous or interracial, endogamous, or consanguineous. Some heterosexual marriages are monogamous, some are polygamous. Some same-gender marriages are monogamous, some are polygamous. Bisexuals may be in monogamous marriages or polygamous marriages. Some monogamous marriages are consanguineous, some aren’t. That monogamous/polygamous and exogamous/endogamous/consanguineous are different categories from heterosexual/same-gender is not a justification to deny the freedom to marry to consenting adults, or deny them marriage equality. Relationship rights belong to all adults.

It should be noted that when there is a polyamorous relationship, whether a "V" or a triad or more, at least two of the people involved are the same gender, even if they are no more than metamours to each other.

Something does not have to be immutable or inborn, like sexual orientation, to be legal. However, there are people (especially with Genetic Sexual Attraction) who are in consanguineous relationships who would swear to you that they couldn’t love anyone as much as they love their partner(s). They were born into their situations. There are people who are obviously unable to be monogamous, to the point of being willing to suffer loss of job, loss of reputation, loss of wealth, and figurative and literal loss of life, and they should not promise monogamy nor be pressured to pretend to be monogamous.

Some people simply are polyamorous.

That these other categories are not the same thing as same-gender marriage does not explain why there are still laws against them or a lack of relationship protections in the law.


There is no good reason to deny an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, the right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (or any of those without the others) with any and all consenting adults without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

Feel free to share, copy and paste, and otherwise distribute. This has been adapted from this page at Full Marriage Equality: http://marriage-equality.blogspot.com/p/discredited-invalid-arguments.html

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #7

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #9 

I Enjoy Hearing From You

Over the years, thousands of people have reached out to me (Keith). I very much enjoy hearing from everyone (except the haters... although their lack of reason can be entertaining). Unfortunately, I often rely on the people who contact me to keep the conversations going, because there is one of me and many of you. Please don't hesitate to contact me, even just to say hello, even if it has been years since we communicated. 

Maybe you've been visiting this blog for years, maybe you're new, maybe you haven't ever reached out to me before. Please do! You're welcome to write to me, whether it is just to say hello, or ask a question, or update me on your life, or to tell me about yourself.

I never share what someone tells me privately with anyone else, unless they give me permission, so don't be shy.

Thanks!

Here are some of the ways to reach me.

Raksha Bandhan

One of my readers called my attention to Raksha Bandhan. 

According to the current Wikipedia entry as of this posting, it...

is a popular and traditionally Hindu annual rite or ceremony that is central to a festival of the same name celebrated in South Asia. It is also celebrated in other parts of the world significantly influenced by Hindu culture. On this day, sisters of all ages tie a talisman or amulet called the Rakhi around the wrists of their brothers. They symbolically protect them, receive a gift in return, and traditionally invest the brothers with a share of the responsibility of their potential care.

Raksha Bandhan is observed on the last day of the Hindu lunar calendar month of Shraavana, which typically falls in August. The expression "Raksha Bandhan" (Sanskrit, literally, "the bond of protection, obligation, or care,") is now principally applied to this ritual. Until the mid-20th century, the expression was more commonly applied to a similar ritual, also held on the same day, with precedence in ancient Hindu texts. In that ritual, a domestic priest ties amulets, charms, or threads on the wrists of his patrons, or changes their sacred thread, and receives gifts of money. This is still the case in some places. By contrast, the sister-brother festival, with origins in folk culture, had names which varied with location. Some were rendered as Saluno, Silono, and Rakri. A ritual associated with Saluno included the sisters placing shoots of barley behind the ears of their brothers.

Of special significance to married women, Raksha Bandhan is rooted in the practice of territorial or village exogamy. The bride marries out of her natal village or town, and her parents by custom do not visit her in her married home. In rural north India, where village exogamy is strongly prevalent, large numbers of married Hindu women travel back to their parents' homes every year for the ceremony. Their brothers, who typically live with their parents or nearby, sometimes travel to their sisters' married home to escort them back. Many younger married women arrive a few weeks earlier at their natal homes and stay until the ceremony. The brothers serve as lifelong intermediaries between their sisters' married and parental homes, as well as potential stewards of their security.

What do you think? 

Helping Your Family Members With Parenting

Life isn't neat and tidy. 

Even though there has been much pressure to force people into a heteromonogamous, single-race (but not consanguineous!) marriages and parenting in "nuclear family" homes, the majority of families don't stay with that construct indefinitely. 

Some parents don't marry, some divorce, some are widowed, some remarry, sometimes three or four generations are in the home, sometimes sons or daughters don't leave home until well into adulthood, if at all, sometimes they leave and come back, sometimes aunts and uncles live in the home, sometimes it's a home of a polycule, sometimes it's a couple of gay men, sometimes a couple of lesbian women, and on and on and on. There are adoptive homes, foster homes, homes with renters, homes with friends who live there, a bunch of roommates, on and on the variations go.

The point of this is that there may be someone in your family who could use some help raising their children, for so many different reasons, and it may be helpful if you lived together.

Especially if there is no other parent involved, it could be helpful if you could be designated as another parent to the child or children. Things that might help can include:

1) Being listed as another parent on any official paperwork.
2) Officially adopting the child or children.
3) Being married to the other parent.

There are sociologists who insist that it is best for a child to have parents married to each other, living in the same home. If that is true, isn't that another reason we should have full marriage equality? If a woman finds raising her children with her sister, mother, father, or brother, or a man finds raising his children with those family members to be the best option, why should they be denied their right to marry, if that's what they want? A single mother, for example should be free to marry her sister or brother, and that other sibling should be able to adopt the children, if that's what is wanted. This should be the case whether the siblings have a sexual or romantic relationship or not.

Wouldn't that be what's best for the children, if the adults want that?

This is another example of why the denial of full marriage equality needs to end. We need full marriage equality now.

Statistically, a relationship between two siblings on good terms will have more stability than with potential stepparents from outside the family.

Are you helping to raise your nephews or nieces or grandchildren? Might it be helpful if you were allowed to marry their parent?

Why? Many of the Same Reasons Anyone Else Does It

Vicky Wireko wrote at myjoyonline.com under "Reality Zone: Why would a father sleep with his biological daughter?"

Without yet getting to the text of the piece, the terms need to be defined. By "sleep," she no doubt means intercourse. But is she referring to rape or is she referring to consensual sex?  Rape and lovemaking are two different things. Rape should always be illegal. Lovemaking should never be illegal. But "biological daughter" can mean a woman the father didn't meet or didn't have a relationship with until she was an adult, or at least hasn't had a relationship with since an early age. Consanguinamory initiated through Genetic Sexual Attraction has a different dynamic than consanguinamory growing from an existing sociological relationship.

Why would a father make love with his biological daughter? I'm talking about CONSENTING ADULTS here.

For many of the the same reasons a man would have sex with any woman:

He's a heterosexual male and she's a receptive or initiating female he finds attractive.

They love each other.

It feels good and is fun. This is especially true when it comes to consanguinamory.

To bond.

To express love.

To have children.

Some of them have been brought together through Genetic Sexual Attraction, some of them haven't.

There are many reasons, but they shouldn't need to justify it to anyone else. Why is ultimately theirs to share, not anyone else's business. Perhaps a better question is why wouldn't/shouldn't he? Sex is not a bad thing. Those who think it is are probably doing it wrong.

What did Wireko have to say? Let's see...

Everything is certainly wrong with a father sleeping with his blood daughter.

 Does she give a reason?

It is repugnant apart from the fact that it is a taboo in our custom.

Ah, Discredited Arguments #1 and 2.

However, when a father’s love for his daughter straddles beyond parental love veering off to lust, to the extent of sexual abuse, it becomes horrendous.

Abuse and lovemaking are two different things. She goes on to write about abuse, without giving a good reason as to why consenting adults shouldn't be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage. Don't like it? Don't do it. But there ARE adult women in loving spousal-type relationships with their biological fathers, despite what prejudiced bigots think.

Please also see Intergenerational Relationships Can Work 



why would a woman sleep with her father why would a father and daughter have sex why would a parent have sex with an adult child why would a woman have sex with her father

NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #6

“Your relationship will hurt children.” This is usually said by people who themselves hurt children by denying rights to the parents of those children and telling the children that their parents are wrong for loving each other, perpetuating a stigma about the children and their families.

Don’t want children of these relationships to be hurt? Then stop hurting their families.

Adults having a relationship with each other, adults reproducing together, and adults raising children together are three different things. Adults can do any one of those without doing the other two, or any two of those without doing the third. Or, to put it another way, we’re talking about sex, relationships, and marriage, not about reproduction or adoption or parenting. Most sex does not result in a birth.

We don’t deny people their right to be together because they can’t or won’t reproduce. We don’t deny people their right to be together because they won’t be good candidates for adoption. We don’t test people on their parenting skills before we allow them to marry, but if we did, a lot of the prejudiced people who want to deny rights to others would fail, while many people who are still fighting for their relationship rights would pass with flying colors.

So this reason to oppose equality already fails. But for the sake of argument let’s assume there will be children.

Blog Housekeeping

A kind soul who has been friendly to this blog for a long time reminded me of some dead links and alerted me to others I hadn't noticed. Thank you so much for that! 

I appreciate help from you, dear readers.

This blog is a labor of love, in multiple ways. I do this out of love. I do not accept any money for this blog, not even through advertising. This is not how I earn income. This is how I help. This is how I contribute and give back. People need to speak up for equality, and I am someone who will.

I have no paid staff. I have limited time. So, it helps me when you point things out to me. Please forgive me for dead links. This blog has been around for over twelve years and having some links die is unavoidable. I'll try to fix important links when I can.

Someone else told me he was having trouble posting a comment. Since I didn't change anything, that might be a (hopefully temporary) problem with Blogger. You are also free to send me comments through contacting me and you can tell me to post them on the blog or not to post them. Something I recommend if you've written a comment here is to copy your comment before attempted to post it, so that if something goes wrong, you can paste the comment when you try again, or you can send it to me.

Always feel free to reach out to me, dear readers. And always feel free to re-establish contact if it has been a while. There aren't a lot of active "Consanguinamory Consultants," and there are so many of you, people who read our posts for any number of reasons, so it is usually going to be up to you to keep in touch.

You are welcome here and welcome to contact me regardless of your gender, sexual orientation, relationships, kinks, etc.

Missed Opportunities

Do you have stories to share about missed opportunities?

Sometimes, flirtation and other hints or what we call “testing the waters” are missed or misinterpreted. This is also, even especially, true when it comes to close relatives or family members, or others that might be considered “taboo” or “off limits,” such as:

• a sibling’s, parent’s, or son/daughter’s friend or lover (current or former)
• a current or past lover’s sibling, parent, son/daughter, or friend
• a friend’s sibling, parent, or son/daughter

And those situations could have been potentially cheating, or done with the agreement of all, or even an attempt for a threesome or moresome.

This applies whether you raised or were raised with or by your genetic relative or not; adoptive or step relatives also count.

1) Do you suspect or know you missed one or more opportunities with a relative or other “taboo” potential partner? (Hindsight can often reveal these, if not noticed or understood at the time.)

2) Did you miss an opportunity to make a move or a pass because you hesitated or didn’t work up the nerve?

3) Did you flirt, hint, or make a move but the other person didn’t catch on, or thought you were only joking, or rebuffed it?

Whether anything like the above delayed the connection and it eventually happened or denied it and it never happened, it counts for my query.

Comment below or contact me privately. I can be reached at fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com. I’m very responsive so if you don’t hear back from me after a day or so, check your spam or junk folder. I never share what someone tells me privately without their permission.

 
Maybe one of these things is going on right now or happened recently. If you need help with that, we can talk about that. 

Of course, if you eventually did get together I’ve long been encouraging people with experience to contact me. Now is as good of a time as any. But this post was mostly so I could read more about missed opportunities.

Need some examples?

Here are a few, but anything that might fit the above criteria is welcome.