interesting article

[paperclippy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,956454,00.html

A book-related mailing list I'm on was discussing incest in novels, and someone sent this link. It's about a phenomenon called "Genetic Sexual Attraction," which is basically where when people who are biologically related meet for the first time as adults, and are sexually attracted to each other. Apparently the phenomenon occurs in up to 50% of these meetings, both between parents and children (parent gave child up for adoption) and between siblings separated at birth. Anyway I thought it was really interesting. It's worth reading all the way to the end.

Comments

[kitty-tape.livejournal.com]

That was an interesting article. One thing I wondered after reading the article is what effect knowing you are related when you meet has. There was one example where the siblings did not know they were siblings, but most of the others occur after meetings. Of course, that data is probably much more available, so it is probably not possible to conclude one way or the other about the effect of knowing you are related.

It also seemed like the article was pointing towards, but never quite reaching the idea that many of the problems described are due to the fact that we (as a modern society? as a species?) do not know how to express non-sexual intimacy very well, especially between adults.

[paperclippy.livejournal.com]

I bet if you don't know you're related, you are probably more likely to enter into a relationship because there is no social stigma or inner turmoil stopping you.

I think you're right about the intimacy issues. We're generally taught that after you've reached puberty, cuddling your family members is inappropriate. Probably because in general we interpret touchy-feely behavior as sexual attraction. It's like how a father can kiss his infant daughter on the lips and have her sleep in his bed, but if he does the same thing when she's 15 it's really sketchy.

Another interesting thing is that while sexual relationships between relatives is generally considered unacceptable, in fandom communities for pretty much any tv series/book/movie/etc that has a pair of twins, there are loads of "twincest" fanfics. Like, if in general we think of incest as so bad, why are so many people attracted to the idea of Fred and George Weasley having a sexual relationship with each other? There are also quite a lot of anime series in which twins, siblings, or half-siblings have some sort of sexual tension.

One more weird thing: remember the movie "Clueless"? I was even a bit surprised by that movie to see a relationship between step-siblings. I mean, they have absolutely zero biological relationship, but for some reason having the title "siblings" in any way makes it sort of taboo.

[thumbie.livejournal.com]

That was interesting.

At one point, the article used the phrase "obsessive sexual obsession," and I'm like "Uh, is there any other kind?" =/

Perhaps we're all a bit narcissitic

[(Anonymous)]

... and finding a part of our genetic code is like finding a part of ourself to fall in love with all over again.

Very interesting article... thanks for sharing! - Anne