Genetic Sexual Attraction STILL in the News

The book(less) tour continued, at least virtually, for the women who took over the original Genetic Sexual Attraction forums. Here's my most recent previous entry on this. Dailymail.co.uk had an article by Olivia Fleming...

A woman who had an 'inappropriate' relationship with her estranged biological father has launched a counseling website dedicated to the relatively unknown phenomenon called genetic sexual attraction (GSA).

To be accurate, she started a blog at URL "A", then added forums, behind a paywall. She then shut down a long (long before she was involved) established free forum, found at URL "B," appropriating the content from those free forums for her pay forum. Finally, the appropriated URL B. So, if someone had been familiar with URL B and had participated or at least found help by reading the free forums there, and they came back to them after being away a while, they'd find a redesigned site with forums they'd have to pay to see.


Meanwhile, veterans of the original forums have started another free forum here:
http://www.gsaforums.com/

In an effort to help others like her, she launched a website called Genetic Sexual Attraction two weeks ago, dedicated to educating and intervening when newly reunited family relationships fall into the same dangerous emotional trap of GSA.

No everyone who experiences GSA finds it to be a dangerous emotional trap. Some find it helps them bond in a good way with their long-lost genetic relative.

The phenomenon was first identified by Barbara Gonyo in the Eighties, after she a wrote book called I'm His Mother, But He's Not My Son, which recounted her personal story of reuniting with the son she placed for adoption at 16.

A sexual relationship with her son ensued, and Ms Gonyo says she fell in love - a byproduct of delayed bonding that normally takes place in infancy between new parents and their child, according to psychologists.

One, as I recall, Gonyo did not have a sexual relationship with her genetic son as he was not reciprocally attracted. Two, I'm not sure Gonyo was first to identify the phenomenon. She was, I understand, the person who coined the term Genetic Sexual Attraction. It has probably been noticed before, but if you think about how life has changed, it is happening and being noticed more now. In the past, more of the population lived in small towns and farming areas. There were children given up for adoption or abandoned, but chances are they were either raised in the same town, or were raised elsewhere with little chance of ever seeing genetic relatives again. There were also children from affairs, and no doubt some of them grew up to have sex with, marry, and have children with someone from the same village or town, with the "neighbor" really being a half-sibling. Now, we're a more urbanized, more mobile, and more connected (networking-wise) population, with more ways to adopt, with divorces or other relationships with children that don't last, one night stands that result in pregnancy, and sperm, egg, and embryo donations, and more ways to reunite.

Together, the two women created an interactive online forum for others on their website, hoping to give them the tools to intervene before it is too late.

Yeah, wouldn't want anyone to actually end up happy and together in every sense of the word, would they? At least not the way this article presents their view.

And there were ignorant, hateful comments after the article, of course.

What a load of rubbish, we are not animals, these people need to get a grip and stop trying to justify or find excuses for bad behavior,what's next ?

This person figured it out...

Did you just summarise an episode of Dr Drew and sell it as an article in a newspaper?

Another ignorant comment...

Please don't excuse low intelligence, anti social, abnormal and disturbed sexual behaviour as being a byproduct of delayed bonding because it is not.

Some reality...

I'm an adoptee (age 47), adopted @ birth. While I always knew I was adopted & had contact, through open adoption, with my birth/biological mother, I had an older brother, also relinquished for adoption, that I didn't know about. We met when I was 16 & he was 18. He, on the other hand, had never known he was adopted & this was all very new to him. Not only was he attracted to our birth mother, he was also attracted to me. He was internally & emotionally confused - he had these feelings of connection to women he hadn't previously known & he didn't understand how to process them other than basic sexual attraction. The structure of family is certainly real with regard to how it determines and confines our emotions and where/how attraction fits in. My adopted mother had always been concerned that I'd meet my brother and be inexplicably drawn to him - she was worried that she'd have to tell me that the man I loved was my long-lost brother. Clearly her concerns were based in reality after all

A blog called China Adoption Talk picked up the ABC News article.

Genetic Sexual Attracion is a real, normal, natural reaction to the circumstances postpubescent people find themselves in due to adoption, abandonment, secret affairs, divorce, one night stands, an sperm/egg/embryo donation... which one, both, or all of them had no control over. These two women getting all of this attention only represent one type of experience some people have with GSA. Some people who experience GSA are free to have sexual relationships; they are not cheating.

Some don't have sex and the result is bad. Some do have sex and the result is bad... just like with any other relationship.

Some do have sex and the results are good, whether the sexual aspect lasts or ends. Some don't have sex and the results are good, after a struggle.

Adults should be free to  deal with GSA, have sex or not, speak out, and get help and advice without the interference of stupid laws or prejudices against consensual sex. Stop the hate, stop the ignorance. stop the sex-negative attitude.