Remarkable Essay on Consanguinamory

Unfortunately, we missed this essay by Rudolf Mandelbaum when it was published at medium.com in January of 2018. In it, he argues that consanguinamorous people should have civil rights, too.

Whether you are moved by this essay or not, please consider taking this issue more seriously than most people today do, which means examining your position on it thoroughly, and being willing to discuss it as though it is not a settled matter with no effect on people’s lives. 

For my part, I intend to demonstrate that incest, that is, sex, romance, and/or marriage between family members, is not only not unethical, but that its stigmatization is unjustifiably bigoted. I also hope to prove to you why your position on it isn’t trivial, why this isn’t no big deal, or an abstract intellectual ideal deserving no present real world advocacy, why it is in fact a serious social justice concern worth holding a stance on.

Good!

He deftly dismantles the usual arguments people use to try to justify prejudice against consanguinamory, including Discredited Argument 19.

Have you ever had a family member whose political ideals were abhorrent to you for example? Whose personality was just unpleasant, so that it was uncomfortable to see them? What about family members who start businesses together, surely that’s another instance of a degradable bond that leaves awkwardness in its wake. How about friendship. You can deny it all you want, but nearly everyone has entered into and left friendships with family members, a kinship and mutual connection that was more than just the ambient family love you feel for other family members, friendship is another more degradable and awkward bond. 

If you continue to insist that romance is so different from every other weird thing families go through because life doesn’t stop for the purported sanctity of these bonds, even then, I don’t think there’s very much ethical reason why, after the age of consent, two family members couldn’t just decide to cut it off entirely between each other. They’d have mutual family members still, making the split imperfect, but most people have mutual connections with lovers that make break ups messy and uncomfortable, once again, life goes on.

This type of split doesn’t sound too essentially different from divorce either. You promise to be eternally loving, you legally enter the same family, and bond in distinctly familial ways, come to love your in-laws as though they were your own family as they in turn love you, and then break it off. It’s tragic, but is it reason for preventing either marriage or divorce between consenting adults? Because it can lead to misery or complication when it’s ended?

You can say it’s flawed, even uniquely so, such that you wouldn’t recommend it, but if you’re not the one taking that leap, making that dangerous but potentially rewarding investment in love with the intelligent consent of someone else willing to take the risk, can you justify the powerful taboo you reinforce against it? Can you imagine, for example, if the same stigma was applied to long-distance relationships that’s applied to incest? If for the small crime of doing something some people would advise against as romantically risky, you were thought of as a hideous pervert?

Very thoughtful.

The “family structures” line of argument also fails to recognize that stigmatizing the fulfillment of incestuous urges doesn’t make these urges go away. Leaving a relationship with someone is awkward, but so is spending time with someone you are attracted to, particularly if the feelings are mutual, while feeling that you aren’t allowed to be in a relationship and that you have to repress your feelings. If you feel incestuous attraction, there was always going to be discomfort in the conventional family. Either it will be uncomfortable to be around each other whenever you spend time together, or you will have to avoid seeing each other anyway. Both of these are the classic ways you might act after a break-up, responses that people would use as an argument against incest. The difference is you will also lose the chance for positive fulfillment of these feelings, and will be made to feel deep shame for the feelings on top of it in the case of incest being taboo. You can’t remove the presence of incestuous urges, even if you think removing these urges would be more convenient. All you can do is either criminalize their existence, or allow the best to be made of an inherently difficult situation, either through possible fulfillment if the feelings are mutual, or simply through lack of shame in an otherwise unchanged situation if they are not.

Very well said. There's a lot more to it. Click through to read it.

It's one of the best essays I've seen addressing the topics. I would very much like to be in contact with the writer.

There's no good reason to deny consenting adults the relationships to which they mutually agree. Solidarity and allies are needed to secure rights, including full marriage equality.