Is Indiana Still Arresting Consenting Adults?

From infreenews.com comes a report of a "President Of Local Business Arrested For Incest"...

William Glen Davis, 54, 23095 Tyler Road, Lakeville, was arrested at 5:46 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18, on a charge of incest. Davis is president of Lake City Heat Treating Corporation, 2427 N. Boeing Road, Warsaw.

Why do they include a picture, name, address, and his business? How is that relevant??? Why not hand the bigots pitchforks???

Notice the charge is "incest" and not "assault."

According to information from authorities at the Warsaw Police Department, police were notified of a domestic complaint Thursday, Jan. 17, on West Point Drive, Warsaw.

These days, neighbors can call in a "domestic complaint" and the police are usually obligated to investigate. No proof other than what the caller says need be offered. On the other hand, it could be that someone inside the home was scared and called the police. We aren't given enough detail.

Detectives went to the scene and during the interview with an adult female involved in the domestic complaint, she told police she had been having sexual relations with a relative. That relative was Davis. 

Police report the relationship had been going on for some time and was confirmed by both parties involved. 

Davis was interviewed by police and arrested following the interview. Charges have been signed and filed with the prosecutor’s office.

A few things to say:

1) She is an adult.

2) Sexual relations and assault are two very different things. He was arrested for "incest" and not assault.

3) Indiana, like most states, doesn't criminalize sex between first cousins, so unless police acted outside the law, that means this relative is either his mother (or grandmother), daughter (or granddaughter), niece, aunt, or sister, because Indiana DOES still criminalize sex between those consenting adults.

4) Perhaps they didn't know that sex between consenting adults is still criminalized in Indiana, and so they had no hesitation to tell the police they have sex? Here's what consanguinamorous people need to do to protect themselves.

More charges are expected pending further investigation.

What does that mean? That the woman, who also broke the unconstitutional law, is going to get arrested and charged? THIS IS A WASTE OF PUBLIC RESOURCES! If he assaulted her or anyone else, charge him with that. If consenting adults are having sex, that shouldn't be crime. Consanguineous sex happens every day not far from where you are reading this, wherever you are. Thankfully, most of it never results in an arrest. Stop this senseless persecution. There is no good reason to deny them their right to be together. We need relationships rights for all, including full marriage equality, everywhere.

UPDATE: She was arrested, too.

Forget It, Jake, It's Florida

Jaya Saxena at dailydot.com debunked a story that recently made the rounds about a Florida man marrying his granddaughter...

Earlier today, sites like Cosmopolitan and the Sun aggregated a story credited to the Florida Sun Post, which reported that a 68-year-old man had married his 24-year-old granddaughter. Their biological relation was unbeknownst to both of them until, according to the story, they were flipping through a photo album together and she saw a photo of her estranged father, who happened to be her new husband’s son.

While this particular story appears to be a fake, something like this has probably happened more than once as far as marriage and has certainly happened many times with relationships that don't involve marriage, due to Genetic Sexual Attraction. There are grandparents and their adult children who've had flings and one night stands who never realized they were related.

How many people know the extended family of each person with whom they have sex? When it comes to flings, one night stands, and hookups, they sometimes don't even know the real name of the person their with, and it no doubt happens at swinger parties and other casual encounters. Who compares IDs, family trees, and DNA tests in these situations?

Unless you're positive a birth didn't result (which is not always so easy for someone with a penis), anyone younger than the time since your earliest experiences with intercourse (or sperm or egg donation) could be your genetic child. Add as little as 13 years between your ages and the person could be your genetic grandchild.

There are also people who don't know that the man they think is their biological father isn't, either because of sperm donation, or an affair, the conception being from a prior relationship, or ethical nonmonogamy. This also means they could have a genetic grandfather they don't know.

But let's get back to the article...

The Twitter account @_FloridaMan, which chronicles the weirdest Florida news, tweeted that floridasunpost.com was only registered three days ago, implying that there’s no way it could be a credible news outlet.

These sorts of things seems to be more and more common.

The Daily Dot has reached out to the Florida Sun Post regarding the story through a contact form on its website, which, after hitting “submit,” said “Thank you for contacting Boston Leader.” You may remember the Boston Leader for being the site that started the fake story about the baby gorilla named “Harambe McHarambeface.” So yes, this story is probably fake.

Probably.

And for now, we can all rest knowing that there is one less 24-year-old married to her grandpa. 

Although that was probably written in jest, there are some young women married to their grandfather, or at least in a relationship with him, whether they know of his relation or not. There are probably also young women with their grandmother, and young men with a grandparent. Some people say they are against adult intergenerational relationships, with "He's old enough to be your grandfather." Well, sometimes he is. And as long as they mutually agree to be together, that shouldn't be a problem.

Are Genetic Studies Revealing Consanguinamory is Common?

Someone commenting on this blog linked to this article at nature.com from the European Journal of Human Genetics, to which I only subscribe for the annual swimsuit issue. But seriously, the article is extremely technical. Those of you who are somewhat educated in the sciences, especially Biology in general or genetics in particular, may be able to decipher what's being said, but I think I understand what the Abstract said.

Abstract

Copy neutral segments with allelic homozygosity, also known as regions of homozygosity (ROHs), are frequently identified in cases interrogated by oligonucleotide single-nucleotide polymorphism (oligo-SNP) microarrays. Presence of ROHs may be because of parental relatedness, chromosomal recombination or rearrangements and provides important clues regarding ancestral homozygosity, consanguinity or uniparental disomy. In this study of 14 574 consecutive cases, 832 (6%) were found to harbor one or more ROHs over 10 Mb, of which 651 cases (78%) had multiple ROHs, likely because of identity by descent (IBD), and 181 cases (22%) with ROHs involving a single chromosome. Parental relatedness was predicted to be first degree or closer in 5%, second in 9% and third in 19%. Of the 181 cases, 19 had ROHs for a whole chromosome revealing uniparental isodisomy (isoUPD). In all, 25 cases had significant ROHs involving a single chromosome; 5 cases were molecularly confirmed to have a mixed iso- and heteroUPD15 and 1 case each with segmental UPD9pat and segmental UPD22mat; 17 cases were suspected to have a mixed iso- and heteroUPD including 2 cases with small supernumerary marker and 2 cases with mosaic trisomy. For chromosome 15, 12 (92%) of 13 molecularly studied cases had either Prader–Willi or Angelman syndrome. Autosomal recessive disorders were confirmed in seven of nine cases from eight families because of the finding of suspected gene within a ROH. This study demonstrates that ROHs are much more frequent than previously recognized and often reflect parental relatedness, ascertain autosomal recessive diseases or unravel UPD in many cases.

Taking a closer look...

"Parental relatedness was predicted to be first degree or closer in 5%, second in 9% and third in 19%"

Now, "parental relatedness" being "first degree" means someone's genetic parents were parent and child or full siblings. That's for 5% of the population, or, 1 out of every 20 people.

"Second degree" means uncle and niece, aunt and nephew, grandparent and grandchild or half-siblings. That's 9%, or almost 1 out of every 10 people having such parentage.

"Third degree" means first cousins or some similar distance. That 19%, or nearly 1 out of every 5.

"This study demonstrates that ROHs [regions of homozygosity] are much more frequent than previously recognized and often reflect parental relatedness..."

Unless I'm reading that wrong, these scientists are saying more people in the population have close relatives for parents than previously thought.

It is important to remember that these do not all reflect CONSENSUAL (to be redundant) sex. At least some are, no doubt, the result of rape. Still, the indication is that...

1) A significantly large percentage of the population has genetic parents who are first cousins or closer, and most of them do not have severe genetic problems, or a whole lot more people would have such problems;

2) Even if we only count consensual relationships that are producing children (and we know that many consanguineous relationships don't because either they can't or choose not to), there's a lot of consanguinamory going on out there.

We Get Letters

This blog is visited by people all over the planet, and welcomes comments and I also welcome your emails and private messages. Everyone once in a while I publish some of those messages in a blog entry, which is what I’m I’m doing here.

Responding to an entry on hostility towards as grandfather-granddaughter couple, Anonymous wrote...

I would like to see an unbiased discussion of the ethical issues involved in grandfather/grandaughter mutual erotic atttaction and expression. With the ready availability of contraception, the fear of consanguinous offspring being possible is set aside. The likely negative reaction from other family members is still a very serious issue as is that of friends, etc. If the granddaughter is at or above the age of consent, the "between consenting adults" rule s h o u l d reign, but the many negative consequences would seem to outweigh the "reward."

Serious study of consanguinamorous relationships would be great.

After "Intergenerational Relationships Can Work," Anonymous wrote...

My wife and I, both 62, are in a committed relationship with a 34 year old man. This has been the most energizing invigorating experience imaginable. Jealously has never been an issue, and my wife believes that she is the luckiest woman on the planet because we love spoiling the crap out of her. Although we two guys are not bi, we are completely comfortable hugging, kissing and cuddling in bed with my wife in middle.

I asked if Jenny Erikson was stir crazy after something she wrote at TheStir on polyamory, and IchigoRadiance wrote...

Hostility Towards Grandfather-Granddaughter Couple

I think this story is out of India. Perhaps something was lost in translation, or the article simply doesn’t have enough information.

A case of incestuous relation, 53year old man, who is related as a grandfather, has reportedly gone hiding along with a 33-year maiden.

How could he have become a grandfather at age 20? My guess is he didn’t, and rather is or was married to the woman’s grandmother, who would be older. Or perhaps the ages listed are wrong, but you’d think the news source would have caught that. It is also a possibility, I suppose, that the man’s daughter or son married an older spouse who already had this daughter. Either way, I’m thinking they are related through a marriage, not by blood.

Denouncing such relationship, which is considered to be against social mores, the local residents have decided to banish the couple from the locality.

Where’s the love?

Father of the missing maiden has lodged a complaint with the local club (United Pioneer Club) in this regard.

Local club? Poker club? Dance club? Service club?

Based on the testimonials of some eyewitnesses who saw them (grandfather and granddaughter) going together, the volunteers of the Club served an ultimatum to the family members of Ibomcha for producing the missing incestuous couple within May 11 .

As the missing incestuous couple could not be produced even after expiry of the deadline, a meeting of the locality has decided to banish them from the locality and taken up strong action against anyone found sheltering them, sports secretary of the Club RK Manisana has informed.

Sports secretary? The couple must have quite the sex life if this falls under “sports.” Seriously, I hope the couple is allowed their happiness.