France Must Move Forward

The laws and people of France must move forward, not backward, when it comes to the rights of all adults to share love, sex, kink, residence, and marriage as they mutually agree.

This means consanguinamory must remain decriminalized. Furthermore, consanguinamorists should be free to marry.

Liberty demands this.

Equality demands this.

Fraternity demands this. (HELLO! What could be more fraternal than consanguinamory???)

Let's check in on what is going on in France right now, with this report at connexionfrance.com from Emma Morgan...

A new report aimed at improving the French state’s response to childhood and incestual sexual abuse does not include plans to ban incest in all its forms in France.

In France, there is no law in particular against two adults (those aged 18 and over) engaging in a consensual incestuous relationship or having children.

However, it is illegal when anyone under the age of 18 is involved, under a law which came into force in April 2021.

Adults should be free to have their relationships. Consenting adults having their freedom is an entirely different think that child abuse. The two should never be conflated!

In January this year, the French government announced that it intended to criminalise all incestuous relationships, whether those involved were children or adults.

That would be a a terrible injustice. Stick to going after child abusers, not people who are loving each other.

The state Commission indépendante sur l’inceste et les violences sexuelles faites aux enfants (Ciivise) has now collected 16,414 testimonies from victims of sexual violence over a year, and outlined five areas of improvement for authorities. 

Again, abuse and affection are two different things. How about collecting testimonies of love, joy, pleasure from consanguinamory? Abuse is a horror. Love is wonderful.

The resulting final report does not contain a recommendation to ban all forms of incest, but instead outlines plans to remove parental authority from parents who are convicted of having committed incestuous sexual violence on their child.

Again, two different things.

“[A sexual relationship] between a parent and a child always involves a form of control even when the child has reached adulthood, which is why incest is a specific act that requires specific legislation."

Oh really? When a 30 year-old man who is doing well in life meets a 55 year-old woman and they find each other irresistibly attractive, and they later realize he resulted from an egg donation by her, exactly who is exerting the control???

Let's be clear. Abuse, especially of children is a horror and resources should be directed at stopping it. Love and play between consenting adults is an entirely different thing. It's not a horror. It is delightful.

It is certain that right now, as you are reading this, there are close relatives in France who are making love. Ordinary French people. Extraordinary French people. Accomplished French people. Admired French people. Consanguinamorous people are everywhere, and always have been. Do not spit on their self-determination when it comes to their relationships.

They should be free to live their lives quietly, or come out of the closet, and to marry if they want, without being criminalized, bullied, harassed, or discriminated against.

We support love. Don't you?

The French Connection

People in polyamorous relationships are everywhere, as are people in consanguinamorous relationships, though consanguinamorists are more likely to be closeted. Fortunately, some are willing to be interviewed for this blog. And sometimes, people in what amounts to a polyamorous consanguinamorous marriage are willing to be interviewed. As a result, Full Marriage Equality has featured scores of exclusive interviews with lovers are denied the freedom to be open about their love and are, by law, denied the freedom to marry and have that marriage treated equally under the law.

The woman interviewed below should be free to legally marry her spouses, yet they can't, and people in many countries could be harassed, persecuted, imprisoned, and stripped of their children if they were open about their love. They are consenting adults who aren't hurting anyone; why should they be denied their rights? In much of the world, including all but a couple of US states, they could be criminally prosecuted for their love. Fortunately, in France, they are safe from criminal prosecution.

Read the interview below and see for yourself what this woman has to say. 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 these lovers be denied equal access to marriage or any other rights?


*****

FULL MARRIAGE EQUALITY: Describe your background.

Morag: All our family are white British, although now we all live in France to be safe. I am a woman of 52 years, I am a full time mum and housewife, although I occasionally consult with my sister as an experienced pediatrician.

My sister-wife is 51 years old and runs our GP practice.

Our husband and son is 33 years old and is a software engineer for one of the big tech giants.

Raise Awareness By Signing These Petitions

If you believe all consenting adults should have their rights, there are some petitions you can sign to help raise awareness, especially with the people in power.

In New Mexico, it's illegal for certain adults to simply be affectionate with each other, so please sign this petition now!

France doesn't criminalize consanguineous relationships, but it still needs to be more egalitarian in marriage laws. As Jane has noted on her blog, there is a petition we urge you to sign that calls for this.

Now there's also a similar petition for The Netherlands.

The same situation exists in New Jersey. Please go sign this one for New Jersey.

The same situation as France, The Netherlands, and New Jersey exists in Rhode Island. Please go sign this petition for Rhode Island.

Share the links with other people who want to support civil rights and human rights in general, who think it is outrageous or just plain wasteful to prosecute and imprison adults for loving each other or to deny them the right to marry.

More Petitions Now Available

If you believe all consenting adults should have their rights, there are some petitions you can help raise awareness, especially with the people in power.

France doesn't criminalize consanguineous relationships, but it still needs to be more egalitarian in marriage laws. As Jane has already noted on her blog, there is a petition we urge you to sign that calls for this.

The same situation exists in New Jersey. Please go sign this one for New Jersey.

The same situation as France and New Jersey exists in Rhode Island. Please go sign this petition for Rhode Island.
In New Mexico, it's illegal for certain adults to simple be affectionate with each other, so please sign this petition now!

Share the links with other people who want to support civil rights and human rights in general, who think it is outrageous or just plain wasteful to prosecute and imprison adults for loving each other or to deny them the right to marry.

Sign These Petitions to Support Equality

If you believe all consenting adults should have their rights, there are some petitions you can help raise awareness, especially with the people in power.


France doesn't criminalize consanguineous relationships, but it still needs to be more egalitarian in marriage laws. As Jane has already noted on her blog, there is a petition we urge you to sign that calls for this.

The same situation exists in New Jersey. The latest petition is now online. Please go sign this one for New Jersey.

In New Mexico, it's illegal for certain adults to simple be affectionate with each other, so please sign this petition now! Share the link with other people who want to support civil rights and human rights in general, who think it is outrageous or just plain wasteful to prosecute and imprison adults for loving each other.

ICYMI: Sign These Petitions for Civil Rights

If you believe consenting adults should have their rights, please sign this petition now! Share the link with other people who want to support civil rights and human rights in general, who think it is outrageous or just plain wasteful to prosecute and imprison adults for loving each other.

France doesn't criminalize consanguineous relationships, but it still needs to be more egalitarian in marriage laws. As Jane has already noted on her blog, there is a petition we urge you to sign that calls for this.

Move France Forward

France doesn't criminalize consanguineous relationships, but it still needs to be more egalitarian in marriage laws. As Jane has already noted on her blog, there is a petition we urge you to sign that calls for this.

Update on Consanguinamory in Media

Glenn Kenny at nytimes.com reviewed "Marguerite and Julien" and called it "distressing."

­Jérémie Elkaïm and Anaïs Demoustier as siblings who are a couple in “Marguerite and Julien.” Credit Sundance Selects

“Marguerite and Julien” transposes the factually based, centuries-old tale of incestuous French lovers to a not-quite-modern setting (much nostalgia is expended depicting one of its characters developing photographs in a darkroom) that could be called “Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola Land,” only it isn’t as attractive as that sounds.

The real-life counterparts of this sibling couple were compelled to dissolve their association in 1602, when Julien de Ravalet was 21 and Marguerite was 17. Anaïs Demoustier, who plays Marguerite, is in her late 20s, and Mr. Elkaïm, who plays Julien, is 37, and looks it. (A well-maintained 37, but still.)

So in the movie, they are well into adulthood.

I make this complaint not out of prurient interest, but because I believe there is a distinction between teenagers pursuing incestuous relations and adults doing so. The sight of these two enacting what amount to children’s games before getting down to sex is frankly off-putting, and not in any usefully provocative way. The colloquial term is “icky.” This goes double for the wide-eyed delivery of dialogue like “If we got married, I would be your wife and your sister.”

Oh, come now. Finding the love between others to be "icky" is no reason to dismiss it.

Kenny goes on to explain "contrivances" in how the movie is put together. You can watch a trailer on YouTube.

The trailer actually reminds me a bit about the couple in this interview.

And here's coverage we had of another new movie dealing with these topics.

It's good to see more movies dealing with these issues. Hopefully we'll see more realistic and overall positive portrayals.

Meanwhile, Victoria Irwin wrote at dirgemag.com about "Five Incestuous Relationships That Make Us Want to Keep it in the Family."

How many of us discovered the idea of incest thanks to V.C. Andrews? While Flowers in the Attic was careful not to show too much in 1987, we were all pretty sure that hitting on family meant instant arsenic cookies and lashings.

Want a better read when it comes to sibling consanguinamory? See here.

History has a wealth of family members keeping it close. The Ptolemy and Julio-Claudian dynasties were full of siblings bumpin’ uglies. In the Bible, Lot’s daughters got him drunk and rode the old bone burro to Pound Town to repopulate what they thought was an empty world. European royalty married so many of their relatives that Queen Victoria was the grandmother to half of the Western world.

Yes, there's a long and widespread history of this.

Of course she lists Jaime and Cersei Lannister, somewhat approvingly. To read about that and the four others, go to the site.

Our stories have always had consanguineous sex and consanguinamorous relationships, because life always has had these things.

Congrats to Elisabeth Lorentz and Eric Holder

Although the "reason" usually brought up to keep ridiculous laws against consanguinamory is Discredited Argument #18, some places lump in steprelations, who are not closely related, into laws against consensual "incest." A Friend of FME and Friend of Lily forwarded me this article from dailymail.co.uk by Damien Gayle, about steprelations who had to fight for their right to marry.

A woman yesterday tied the knot with her stepson - after fighting for months with French authorities for the right to marry.

Why did there need to be a fight in the first place? Let consenting adults marry each other.

Elisabeth Lorentz, 48, finally married Eric Holder, who is three years her junior, in the parish church in the small village of Dabo in Alsace-Lorraine, north-east France.

Good for them! They first met when he was 21 and she was 24.

Ms Lorentz married Mr Holder's father in 2003, but they separated three years later. Ms Lorentz told French media her former husband instigated the break up.

That shouldn't mean she and Eric had to stop associating.

With Mr Holder and Ms Lorentz's friendship soon developing into a love affair, it wasn't long before he proposed.

But quickly they ran into trouble with French law, which prohibits all unions between stepchildren and step-parents - even former ones.

Ridiculous.

They finally obtained the right to marry from a local court in north-east France in June. The prosecutor's office opposed the decision but did not appeal.

Good for that court!

The ex-husband of the bride, who is also the father of the groom, was to be among the 100 or so guests at the civil and religious ceremonies in Dabo.

'He has always supported us,' Ms Lorentz said.

Well good for him, too.

Let consenting adults marry.

Support your family members in their relationships, unless those relationships are with toxic people.

Wouldn't life be so much better???

Maybe you're someone who can't stand your (former) stepparent, stepsibling, or stepchild, and you couldn't even think about wanting to marry them. But not everybody has the same stepfamily, and not everybody feels the same. You should be free to have the relationships you want, and so should people like this couple.

France Needs to Keep Evolving

Here's an example of why France, which recently embraced the limited same-gender freedom to marry, needs to evolve to full marriage equality sooner rather than later.

Two adults, in the 40s, are being denied their right to marry.

Why?

Because many years ago, she was married to his father.

It doesn't matter that the hopeful groom was well into adulthood when she married his father.

It doesn't matter that the marriage only lasted three years.

It doesn't matter that she was left by that husband.

It doesn't matter that they are close in age.

The ridiculous laws say she is a stepmother to him, that such a relationship means they are to be denied their right to marry, and even the President can't do anything about it until the law is changed.

France has been friendly to consanguinamory, but when it comes to marriage, even though there is no blood relation, the discrimination continues.

As the law stands now, this couple can only marry if the hopeful groom's father dies/

How stupid is that?

Liberty? Equality? Hardly!

Lawmakers in France and just about every other country need to remedy the inequalities and inconsistencies sooner rather than later. It is simple, really. Rather than quibbling over which adults get which rights, just adopt a blanket approach: an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion, should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any and all consenting adults, without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

By the way, the article gives no indication of what the hopeful groom's father thinks of all of this. At some time, he wanted this woman. Why is it surprising his son wants her now?

Polyamorous in Paris

Karthick RM remembers the highly influential Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and their relationship, noting their graves…

It’s a place where famous personalities are buried. A renowned writer and his, if I may take the liberty of using the term, ‘soul mate’ were also interred there. Rebels throughout their lives, they challenged established norms of relationships and family. Probably, they were the most famous polyamorous couple in modern times. They felt that the ‘normal’ monogamous relationship restricted individual freedom, lovers of the concept that they were when they were alive. When the female died six years after the male's passing away she was buried together with him. Posterity would care less for their other relationships. The grave makes us ponder the intensity of the love and respect they had for each other (that far surpassed the feelings they had for other people in their lives). That is how I shall remember Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, as theorists of freedom who were bonded to each other in life and in death. Sartre said that the living choose the dead. So do we choose the images of death and give it meaning. The stone grave of Sartre and Beauvoir reminds me that love, freedom and responsibility are not empty terms, not matter how hard cynics may try to conceive of them as such. They are lifestyles.

Read more about Sartre and his diverse array of critics.

France's First Lady Carla Bruni

I have to confess I hadn’t given her too much notice before. I knew she’s beautiful, but it sounds like she’s a generally interesting person.

Bruni's porcelain skin, slender frame and feline gaze helped make her one of the world's most successful models in the 1990s. As her modeling career waned, she turned her hand to music as a singer-songwriter. She has three albums under her belt, and said last February she planned to make a cover version in her native Italian of one of France's most patriotic songs.

But that’s not the information I found most interesting. This is…

Bruni has been linked to a string of famous men, including British musicians Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, U.S. property tycoon Donald Trump and former French Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius.

She is also widely reported to have dated the French publisher Jean-Paul Enthoven before starting a relationship with his son, philosopher Raphael Enthoven, whom she married and with whom she has a son.

Bruni has not always been a fan of marriage. "I'm monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polygamy and polyandry," she told the Figaro Madame magazine in 2007, adding: "Love lasts a long time, but burning desire -- two or three weeks."

I would not classify that as her not being a fan of marriage. Polygamy, which may mean polyandry, can be marriage. Journalists should not fall into the trap that marriage = monogamy. Even when it is legally that way in places like France, it is common for politicians and others to openly have lovers, and their spouses to have lovers.

Anaïs Nin's Sex With Father Gets Theatrical

Louis Andriessen's new theatrical production about Anaïs Nin gets a look by Marshall Marcus in the larger context of the erotic in music and theatre.

Wagner's Die Walküre goes still further. It opens with a violent storm in which siblings born of an adulterous relationship meet, fall in love, and eventually bear a child together. There is almost nothing normal about the implied sexual relationships of any of the characters within the opera.

Later...

Which brings us to Louis Andriessen's Anaïs Nin, which the London Sinfonietta perform at its UK premiere next week. Andriessen, the Netherlands' greatest living composer, has been an astute chronicler of society since he burst onto the scene in the 1970s with his spectacular tour de force about Plato's Republic, De Staat. In Anaïs Nin – a 30-minute monodrama for singer-actress, film and ensemble – he explores the writings of the famous diarist of sexual liaisons in 1930s Paris, focussing on her incestuous relationship with her composer father. The role of Anaïs Nin was written for Andriessen's muse, the Italian singer, dancer and actor, Christiana Zavalloni. So does Andriessen feel himself to be part of a tradition of erotic writing?

Later...

And how did he feel about working with a taboo subject such as incest? "Well, I don't call it a taboo subject. Like other subjects of sexual morality, I don't have much of a moral standpoint about it, but it's a controversial subject certainly."

It sounds like it could be quite the show. If you go, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

UPDATE: Here's a review.

Louis Andriessen's "Anaïs Nin" to Receive UK Premiere

Details are here…

Louis Andriessen's monodrama Anaïs Nin will receive its UK premiere at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on April 14 in a staging by the London Sinfonietta, with Cristina Zavalloni in the title role. The London Sinfonietta co-commissioned the work, which explores Nin's erotic memories of 1930s Paris, and will perform it in an all-Andriessen program alongside his minimalist classic from the 1970s, De Staat, conducted by the ensemble's co-founder David Atherton and featuring Synergy Vocals. The composer will be in attendance for the performance.

In case you don’t know…

”In the ’90s the unabridged version of Anaïs Nin’s journal Incest was published, covering the period 1931-33 when she lived in Paris with her mother. The sexual relationship with her father, who showed up after an absence of about 20 years, was clearly to be central to my piece, and this particular part of her journal has lots of beautiful and poetic writing about this. It also provided the necessary context with material about her other lovers at that time, the actor Antonin Artaud, the psychiatrist René Allendy and the writer Henry Miller."

If you go to see it, please let me know what you think.

French Movies

From Breakstudios comes “10 French Movies’ Hot Scenes.”

Yes, another movie list. Here are the descriptions relevant to this blog…

1. "Ma Mere". “Ma Mere” tops our list of 10 French movies’ hot scenes. It features a racy scene between mother and son. The film is based on a novel by transgressive French author Georges Bataille.

That film always seems to make these lists.

8. "Pola X". Have you ever been curious about incest? This movie explores the theme deeply and contains several hot scenes between brother and sister!

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that one before. Have any of you seen it?

French Films

From a list claiming to be the “10 Best French Adult Movies,”and I think they simply mean "films for adults" rather than the other use of the word…

2. “Beau-Père” Released in the 80’s, this erotic movie definitely stirred up controversy. Before her mother’s death, Marion begins to develop romantic feelings for her step-father, Remy. It’s a movie about the incestuous romance between an old man and a young girl.

Step-parent/step-child, step-sibling, or in-law sex (between adults) is sometimes classified in law or culture as “incest” even though the relationships are nonconsanguineous. To me, rather than being strange, it make sense that if someone is attracted to one person in a family, they may also be attracted to other members of that family, and, in turn, for family members to have similar tastes in lovers. As always, I discourage cheating and so in films I generally don’t want to see cheaters rewarded. But when it isn’t cheating, then it is all good.

9. “Ma mère” This is another film that deeply explores the topic of incest. It tells of a romance between a son and his mother, with an age difference of over twenty years.

That, of course, would be consanguineous sex within the context of consanguinamory.

I was aware of “Ma mere,”, but I haven’t seen it. If you have seen these films or others, what did you think? Any recommendations?

Royal Lovers

I don’t recall hearing before that Napoleon Bonaparte and his sister Pauline may have been lovers. If they were, they would have been among plenty of royal company.

Check out this blog for more.

French Official is Anti-Freedom

France’s interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, wants to take citizenship away from immigrants who have more than one spouse. It is bad enough when a government doesn’t honor the freedom to marry by recognizing marriage, but it is even worse when it actively persecutes people for their polyamorous orientation.

French Law Changes

According to this story by Henry Samuel, French law has been updated.

The new law defines incest as rape or sexual abuse "within the family, on a minor, by a relative or any other person having lawful or de facto authority over the victim". This includes parents, siblings and partners of family members.

So I take it to mean that consanguineous sexuality between consenting adults remains legal? If so, essentially this law is adding a degree to child rape and abuse charges.

"To be almost obliged to prove that no, one wasn't OK about having sexual relations with a member of one's family was an extra (form of) suffering," said Miss Aubry.

Isabelle Aubry is right to fight abuse against child abuse. However, this quote makes no distinction between consensual adult behavior and child abuse, when there should be a very clear distinction. Love between adults is a beautiful thing.