szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) (04/03/91)
In article <1991Apr2.035304.11461@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes: >[Structuralist et. al. schools of anthropology theory] >some still hold to socio-biological explanations, which I find, um, uncon- >vincing. Whoa, that went by a bit fast. Slow down here. "Still"? Sociobiology, at 16 years old, as far newer than Structuralism and most of the other schools you describe. I would bet most anthropologists have not read the works by any of Wilson, Dawkins, Symons, et. al. even by 1991. Also, you failed to describe the sociobiological explanation, which is as follows: The proximate cause of the incest "taboo" (more properly called incest avoidance) is the behavioral development, upon sexual maturity, of sexual avoidance between children who shared proximity and a common caretaker between the ages of 2 and 5. This has been confirmed by observations of various human societies, both where the caretaker and/or children are related by genetics and/or adoption. The ultimate cause is the harm caused by inbreeding, as has been discussed. Genes which produce the above behavioral development tended to perpetuate themselves more often than their alleles through human evolutionary history. Note that evolution does not require the behavior to be perfect, any more than evolution designed bipedal creatures with a perfect back (ouch!). It just has to benefit the encoding genes more than its bad side-effects hurt them. The theory is further confirmed from behavior of other primates, which develop a similar incest "taboo" without the accompanying cultural structures required by the Structuralist, Symbolic, Interpretive, and other pure-culture schools. If sociobiology theory is right, Heinlein is fighting not only human cultural prejudice, but prejudice encoded in our genes. No wonder so many people hate him. :-) Taboos involving cousins, et. al,, are more sophisticated, and the various cultural schools have more relevence for these, though it is not clear that biology is totally out of the picture. (If anybody interested is not up on sociobiology theory, I'll be happy to explain further proximate vs. ultimate causation). -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with.
sbishop@desire.wright.edu (04/05/91)
In article <21487@crg5.UUCP>, szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: > In article <1991Apr2.035304.11461@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes: > >>[Structuralist et. al. schools of anthropology theory] >>some still hold to socio-biological explanations, which I find, um, uncon- >>vincing. > > Whoa, that went by a bit fast. Slow down here. > > "Still"? Sociobiology, at 16 years old, as far newer than Structuralism > and most of the other schools you describe. I would bet most anthropologists > have not read the works by any of Wilson, Dawkins, Symons, et. al. > even by 1991. > > Also, you failed to describe the sociobiological explanation, which > is as follows: > > The proximate cause of the incest "taboo" (more properly called > incest avoidance) is the behavioral development, upon sexual > maturity, of sexual avoidance between children who shared proximity > and a common caretaker between the ages of 2 and 5. This has been > confirmed by observations of various human societies, both where the > caretaker and/or children are related by genetics and/or adoption. > > The ultimate cause is the harm caused by inbreeding, as has been > discussed. Genes which produce the above behavioral development > tended to perpetuate themselves more often than their alleles > through human evolutionary history. Note that evolution does not > require the behavior to be perfect, any more than evolution designed > bipedal creatures with a perfect back (ouch!). It just has to benefit > the encoding genes more than its bad side-effects hurt them. > > The theory is further confirmed from behavior of other primates, > which develop a similar incest "taboo" without the accompanying cultural > structures required by the Structuralist, Symbolic, Interpretive, and > other pure-culture schools. > > If sociobiology theory is right, Heinlein is fighting not only > human cultural prejudice, but prejudice encoded in our genes. > No wonder so many people hate him. :-) > > Taboos involving cousins, et. al,, are more sophisticated, and > the various cultural schools have more relevence for these, > though it is not clear that biology is totally out of the picture. > > (If anybody interested is not up on sociobiology theory, I'll be happy to > explain further proximate vs. ultimate causation). > > > -- > Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com > "If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty > The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any > organization I may be affiliated with. Seems to me that Goodall also observed this taboo in our relatives....
herbach@informix.com (Martin Herbach) (04/06/91)
Has any discussion appeared about the correlation of incest-avoidance and beauty-perception? I am referring here to the perception of sexual attractiveness in humans. I read recently of a study (sorry, no citation) showing that a "beautiful" feature (e.g. nose) is one with "average" characteristics. Average in size, shape, position, etc., and average with respect to the population of the beholder. Could this be the incest-avoidance mechanism at work. If quail are known to prefer cousins over siblings or strangers, could they be selecting "not-too-familiar but not-too-strange" with respect to whatever characteristics code for quailness? It would seem that a biological explanation of beauty should be a big deal, but no one seems to have connected the two. Anyone seen any such rantings in print? Does this make sense to anyone else? Do I need lithium?
repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) (04/06/91)
In article <21487@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >In article <1991Apr2.035304.11461@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes: > >>[Structuralist et. al. schools of anthropology theory] >>some still hold to socio-biological explanations, which I find, um, uncon- >>vincing. > >Whoa, that went by a bit fast. Slow down here. > >"Still"? Sociobiology, at 16 years old, as far newer than Structuralism >and most of the other schools you describe. I would bet most anthropologists >have not read the works by any of Wilson, Dawkins, Symons, et. al. >even by 1991. You're right. I should have phrased it differently. But while the particular theoretical position known as Sociobiology is relatively recent, the general idea that some forms of social behavior can be explained biologically has been around far longer. The explanation you describe below, for instance, is similar to the Westermarck hypothesis; unfortunately, I can't find the ref- erence for this, but Westermarck was pretty early in this century. Please note that I am not trying to present this as an argument against the theory! I'm just pointing out that while Sociobiology as a school is relatively recent, it has its history in older theories, as do Structuralism, etc. > >Also, you failed to describe the sociobiological explanation, which >is as follows: > >The proximate cause of the incest "taboo" (more properly called >incest avoidance) is the behavioral development, upon sexual >maturity, of sexual avoidance between children who shared proximity >and a common caretaker between the ages of 2 and 5. This has been >confirmed by observations of various human societies, both where the >caretaker and/or children are related by genetics and/or adoption. Do you know about the traditional Chinese practice of young men marrying an adopted sister (who was adopted specifically to be his wife? I don't know much about this practice - how young the girls are adopted and so forth. Do you know of any recent research on this? (This question is a request for information, not a challenge.) > >The ultimate cause is the harm caused by inbreeding, as has been >discussed. Genes which produce the above behavioral development >tended to perpetuate themselves more often than their alleles >through human evolutionary history. Note that evolution does not >require the behavior to be perfect, any more than evolution designed >bipedal creatures with a perfect back (ouch!). It just has to benefit >the encoding genes more than its bad side-effects hurt them. > >The theory is further confirmed from behavior of other primates, >which develop a similar incest "taboo" without the accompanying cultural >structures required by the Structuralist, Symbolic, Interpretive, and >other pure-culture schools. Do species of different genuses (or whatever the appropriate taxonomical category is) have similar problems with inbreeding? Has there been any research on incest avoidance behavior among non-primates? Do you know of any results from this? (Again, I'm curious.) > >If sociobiology theory is right, Heinlein is fighting not only >human cultural prejudice, but prejudice encoded in our genes. >No wonder so many people hate him. :-) > >Taboos involving cousins, et. al,, are more sophisticated, and >the various cultural schools have more relevence for these, >though it is not clear that biology is totally out of the picture. Where would you place parent/child incest in this picture? One of my problems with sociobiological explanations for incest is that if there's a biological avoidance mechanism in place, why do we have codified taboos (e.g. as in the Bible)? Would we need to codify something that was instinctive? BTW, I don't hate Heinlein. I have problems with a lot of his views (inso- far as they can be determined), especially regarding women. But I've en- joyed many of his books and find him interesting, if often infuriating. Please note. I'm not, repeat _not_, interested in getting involved in a flame war. I have tried to make it clear in this posting that I'm respect- fully differing with you. If I get flamed, that's the end of my partici- pation in the discussion. /Janet -- send mail to: repnomar@leland.stanford.edu (In answer to your first question, Repnomar is a character in M.J. Engh's The Wheel of the Winds.) ----------------------
gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) (04/09/91)
In article <21487@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >Taboos involving cousins, et. al,, are more sophisticated, and >the various cultural schools have more relevence for these, >though it is not clear that biology is totally out of the picture. I read somewhere of a study of "attraction" (sorry don't remember any details), that showed a preference for cousins (I'm pretty sure it was first cousins, but it may have been second cousins). The evolutionary force involved here is that cousins are likely to share genes, so the behavior would benifit a gene pool, not an individual. If I've got my facts right, this would fit with the "incest avoidence". That is, since there is are definite (potential) problems with siblings, and a selection pressure for relatives, there is even more reason for evolution to select for some type of incest avoidence. Gerry Gleason
mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr5.102746.3111@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes: >> The proximate cause of the incest "taboo" (more properly called >> incest avoidance) is the behavioral development, upon sexual >> maturity, of sexual avoidance between children who shared proximity >> and a common caretaker between the ages of 2 and 5. >Seems to me that Goodall also observed this taboo in our relatives.... Also, the woman who was teaching two gorillas sign language (the female was named Koko -- she has appeared in National Geographic a couple of times) discovered this. She was hoping to breed the gorillas and see if they would teach sign language to their offspring. But the gorillas apparantly consider themselves siblings, and show no interest in mating with each other. Oops. -- Mike Van Pelt "I hate trolls. Maybe I could metamorph it into Headland Technology something else -- like a ravenous, two-headed, (Was: Video Seven) fire-breathing dragon." -- Willow. ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp
cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr5.213834.13967@informix.com> herbach@informix.com (Martin Herbach) writes: >Has any discussion appeared about the correlation of incest-avoidance >and beauty-perception? I am referring here to the perception of sexual >attractiveness in humans. I read recently of a study (sorry, no citation) >showing that a "beautiful" feature (e.g. nose) is one with "average" >characteristics. Average in size, shape, position, etc., and average >with respect to the population of the beholder. > >Could this be the incest-avoidance mechanism at work. If quail are >known to prefer cousins over siblings or strangers, could they be >selecting "not-too-familiar but not-too-strange" with respect to >whatever characteristics code for quailness? > >It would seem that a biological explanation of beauty should be a big >deal, but no one seems to have connected the two. Anyone seen any >such rantings in print? Does this make sense to anyone else? Do >I need lithium? Sexual selection is arguably the single most chal- lenging topic in evolutionary biology. Naturalists incessantly dispute what it takes for a male echino- derm (for example) to look good to a female echinoderm. I'll recommend three approaches to the literature: a. start reading anything on "sexual selection" at a professional level. It's an unusual week in which at least one of *Nature* and *Science* fails to touch on the topic, and there are now a number of synthetic books available; b. pick up one of Desmond Morris's popularizations. He has a photograph book (*The Human Body*?) that's particular fun; c. G. Evelyn Hutchinson has written astutely and sparely on the subject, although he's probably considered dated. I remember one wry observa- tion that, (in my paraphrase) "as beauty becomes more behavioral, its nexus shifts from male to female." That's to be understood as a comment on the human condition. Incest and its avoidance is one subtopic that appears throughout the literature on sexual selection. -- Cameron Laird USA 713-579-4613 cl@lgc.com (cl%lgc.com@uunet.uu.net) USA 713-996-8546
szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) (04/11/91)
In article <1991Apr5.233453.3577@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes: >[I write, proximate cause is avoidance of those associated with at young age] >Do you know about the traditional Chinese practice of young men marrying >an adopted sister (who was adopted specifically to be his wife? I don't know this case, but would also like to find out. If the adoption took place at a young age, the children were raised together (frequent interaction), and the husband and wife had sex, it would pose a problem for this proximate cause. If no other proximate cause could be observed, such as kin recognition, it would pose a problem for the theory in general. I hope to see more experiments and observations done on sociobiological anthropology; it is new enough that not enough rigorous research has been done on the proximate causes for most of its theories. >Do species of different genuses (or whatever the appropriate taxonomical >category is) have similar problems with inbreeding? Has there been any >research on incest avoidance behavior among non-primates? Do you know of >any results from this? (Again, I'm curious.) Well, my sister tells me her rats are incestuous as hell. :-) Different categories (species,...) may have different proximate behaviors, and some may have no incest avoidance behavior. For example, the mere fact of being separated at birth and intermixed with many unrelated conspecifics may reduce the chance of inbreeding sufficiently in many species, such as fish, that avoidance will not evolve. In other species, the required genetic structure that could produce such a behavior may not be available. Where there is both need and availability, it will evolve. I am not familiar with the research beyond primates, unfortuneately. >Where would you place parent/child incest in this picture? I have not read an sociobiology on this subject, but I can extrapolate (make up my own theories :-) based on the basic theory of sociobiology. There are again two major possible proximate causes, kin recognition (the recognition of genetic relatedness regardless of cultural relationship) or proximity when young. Kin recognition is considered to be difficult to evolve, kind of violating Occam's Genetic Razor. :-). So let's consider parent/child proximity. If the capability for such a genetic structure exists, there will be genetic avoidance behavior between parent and child based on proximity of child-raising. For species where the parent does not stay around in a significant way, one would not expect avoidance based on proximity. For humans, parental proximity would predict the following: * Societies where fathers do not actively help raise their daughters from a young age will have a higher frequency of father/daughter incest * There will be a higher rate of parent/child incest for children adopted at an older age than genetic children or children adopted at a younger age. On the other hand, a proximate cause of kin recognition would predict the following: * Societies where adultery is common (and has been for several generations) will have higher rates of father/daughter incest * There will be a higher rate of parent/child incest for children adopted at any age than genetic children. >One of my problems with sociobiological explanations for incest is that if >there's a biological avoidance mechanism in place, why do we have codified >taboos (e.g. as in the Bible)? Would we need to codify something that was >instinctive? Good question. Proximate causes are often associated with emotions. For example, we hate the smell of our feces, and this probably is a behavior of significant genetic origin, which acts through our nervous system and is experienced as an emotion of disgust. This emotion is then communicated into cultural attitudes; a culture made up of people who instinctively find human feces disgusting will probably have a cultural norm that human feces is disgusting. A similar process may be involved in translating the emotions accompanying the behavior of incest avoidance into cultural attitudes regarding incest avoidance. Culture may map this emotion onto other members of the community besides than those that elicit the proximate behavior, thus creating taboos about cousins, et. al. IMHO, anthropology can benefit greatly by looking at the genetically induced building blocks of behavior and emotion upon which the various cultures create their diverse cultural structures. -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with.
szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) (04/11/91)
In article <1991Apr5.213834.13967@informix.com> herbach@informix.com (Martin Herbach) writes: >...I read recently of a study (sorry, no citation) >showing that a "beautiful" feature (e.g. nose) is one with "average" >characteristics...[could incest avoidance work the same way] This is quite an interesting idea. I hope a sociobiologist gets ahold if this one and can work on it. Sociobiology looks at sexual attractiveness, which is related to but not the same thing as the defintion of beauty used for the "similar features" theory of beauty in psychology. Sexual attractiveness is related to a whole host of features having to do with reproductive strategies, but a major contribution of sociobiology has been in explaining why young women are considered by men more sexually attractive than old. Those women who, from their outward appearance, look most likely to be fertile (age, health) are considered the most attractive by men. This may seem gratuitously obvious, but no other theory of human behavior or culture explains this phenomenon. From the Structuralist, Cognitive, etc. points of view, there is nothing to explain why Miss America, Playboy centerfolds, love goddesses, top models, etc. are 16-26 years old (or, in modern times, heavily covered with makeup or surgery to make them look that way). -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with.
bryans@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (B. Charles Siegfried) (04/15/91)
szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >In article <1991Apr5.233453.3577@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes: >>[I write, proximate cause is avoidance of those associated with at >young age] >>Do you know about the traditional Chinese practice of young men marrying >>an adopted sister (who was adopted specifically to be his wife? >I don't know this case, but would also like to find out. If the adoption >took place at a young age, the children were raised together >(frequent interaction), and the husband and wife had sex, it would >pose a problem for this proximate cause. If no other proximate cause >could be observed, such as kin recognition, it would pose a problem for >the theory in general. I hope to see more experiments and observations >done on sociobiological anthropology; it is new enough that not enough >rigorous research has been done on the proximate causes for most of its >theories. In fact, these matches do occur. In what is called *sim-pua* marriages, the wife is raised as a daughter from a very young age. Here is a quote from Robin Fox: The Chinese traditionall had two forms of marriage. In the major form, the bride came to the husnad's household as an adult. In the minor form, she came as a *sim-pua*: virtually an adopted daughter of the the family who came in during childhood and lived there until old enough to marry a designated son of the household. The situation is much like a kibbutz, where the sabras [members of a peer group that is very sibling like] are expected to marry [but never do]. Fox goes on to state that sim-pua marriages are often wrought with difficulties. Both spouses often enter into it very unwillingly. Fox gives several account of where one of the spouses had to be threatened by their parents before they would marry. In China, the sim-pua marriage is considered inferior to the major form of marriage. Source : Robin Fox, _The Red Lamp of Incest_ (New York, Elsevier-Dutton Publishing, 1980) pp.37-8 __ Bryan Siegfried Biology and Economics
joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields) (04/16/91)
In article <21529@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >In article <1991Apr5.233453.3577@leland.Stanford.EDU> repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler) writes: > >>Where would you place parent/child incest in this picture? > >I have not read an sociobiology on this subject, but I can >extrapolate (make up my own theories :-) based on the basic >theory of sociobiology. There are again two major possible proximate >causes, kin recognition (the recognition of genetic relatedness >regardless of cultural relationship) or proximity when young. >Kin recognition is considered to be difficult to evolve, >kind of violating Occam's Genetic Razor. :-). So let's consider >parent/child proximity. > >If the capability for such a genetic structure exists, there will >be genetic avoidance behavior between parent and child based on proximity >of child-raising. For species where the parent does not stay around in a >significant way, one would not expect avoidance based on proximity. >For humans, parental proximity would predict the following: > >* Societies where fathers do not actively help raise their daughters > from a young age will have a higher frequency of father/daughter > incest >* There will be a higher rate of parent/child incest for children adopted > at an older age than genetic children or children adopted at a > younger age. > >On the other hand, a proximate cause of kin recognition would predict >the following: > >* Societies where adultery is common (and has been for several generations) > will have higher rates of father/daughter incest >* There will be a higher rate of parent/child incest for children adopted > at any age than genetic children. > >Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com The above predictions are all very well and good if child/parental incest in humans occured because of sexual attractiveness or fertility or even to spite social moral. However, most incest does not occur for those reasons, rather for power, control, manipulation, the need/desire to abuse something weaker. How can a child be sexually attractive? Incest is a very devestating form of abuse, it is akin to rape - only in this case (not just father-daughter) it lasts longer, over a period of years in some cases and the perpetrator is someone the child is taught to love and depend upon for protection. We can always say that this is the exception - but it isn't. Incest/sexual abuse is much more common than we would like to admit. But what about incest between adults? When did it start - most likely in childhood. Unless there's someone out there who has or had a healthy sexual realtionship with a parent... The devestation that incest leaves can last for years. The scars are deep and the shame, guilt, anger, and terror can destroy the grown child's life. In general, incest avoidance may indeed be a factor of genetic recognition or proximity - it probably is, in a healthy family or society. However, the reasons given for why incest occurs despite the restaints both genetic and cultural - are very idealistic and rare. They may very well occur in a small isolated society but I don't think they happen in ours. The above are my opinions. Joan
szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) (04/17/91)
In article <1991Apr15.044023.14297@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> bryans@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (B. Charles Siegfried) writes: > > The Chinese traditionall had two forms of marriage. In the > major form, the bride came to the husnad's household as > an adult. In the minor form, she came as a *sim-pua*: virtually > an adopted daughter of the the family who came in during > childhood and lived there until old enough to marry a designated > son of the household. > > The situation is much like a kibbutz, where the sabras [members > of a peer group that is very sibling like] are expected to > marry [but never do]. > > Fox goes on to state that sim-pua marriages are often wrought >with difficulties. Both spouses often enter into it very unwillingly. >Fox gives several account of where one of the spouses had to be threatened >by their parents before they would marry. In China, the sim-pua marriage >is considered inferior to the major form of marriage. In both traditions, the couples involved have a strong aversion to entering the marraige, despite social pressures. This is what is predicted by the sociobiological theory of incest avoidance based on shared childrearing environment at a young age. -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "The biscuits and the syrup never come out even" -- Robert A. Heinlein The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with.
doug@eris.berkeley.edu (Doug Merritt) (04/24/91)
In article <3360@beguine.UUCP> joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields) writes: >In article <21529@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >>For humans, parental proximity would predict the following: >> >>* Societies where fathers do not actively help raise their daughters >> from a young age will have a higher frequency of father/daughter incest >> [ etc ] > >The above predictions are all very well and good if child/parental incest >in humans occured because of sexual attractiveness or fertility or even >to spite social moral. However, most incest does not occur for those >reasons, rather for power, control, manipulation, the need/desire to abuse >something weaker. How can a child be sexually attractive? Your comments apply to child molestation, and to incest occuring as a form of abuse and/or rape. I know this can be a touchy subject, but please understand that, in a biological and anthropological sense, those are not the only forms of incest. In fact, I think that they are the least interesting forms for the purpose of the current discussion, because they are considered to be pathological cases, and emotionally charged ones to boot. In a purely neutral and striving-to-be-objectively-scientific sense, one wants to understand mechanisms without reacting emotionally. Nick's comments were right on track for this purpose. Discussing incest as a psychological and/or sociological pathology is an important topic, but is getting off the original subject. As another illustration of non-pathological incest, consider the sibling marriages of European monarchies. The siblings may not have been too keen on the idea, but there was no rape nor abuse nor molestation involved. It was a matter of politics and sociology etc. >Incest is a >very devestating form of abuse, it is akin to rape - only in this case >(not just father-daughter) it lasts longer, over a period of years in some >cases and the perpetrator is someone the child is taught to love and >depend upon for protection. We can always say that this is the exception >- but it isn't. Incest/sexual abuse is much more common than we would >like to admit. Certainly. I've seen the statistics; it's quite common. But also consider (POLITICALLY-INCORRECT-THINKING WARNING!) that the statistics for sibling incest do not generally differentiate between willing versus abusive relations. There *are* cases where say a sixteen year old girl has incestual relations with her thirteen year old brother, both quite willingly. One should always distinguish such cases from those of child molestation, sibling rape, parental rape, etc. The mechanisms involved are presumably quite different. And understanding the general mechanisms for incest avoidance in primates and in humans can only help understand the pathological cases. >The devestation that incest leaves can last for years. The scars are deep >and the shame, guilt, anger, and terror can destroy the grown child's >life. This can of course apply even to willing cases of incest, but is far more dependent on individual value systems (e.g. the aforementioned incestual monarchy versus an originally-willing, later-guilty sibling incest in the U.S.) than in cases of incestual *rape*. >In general, incest avoidance may indeed be a factor of genetic recognition >or proximity - it probably is, in a healthy family or society. However, >the reasons given for why incest occurs despite the restaints both genetic >and cultural - are very idealistic and rare. They may very well occur in >a small isolated society but I don't think they happen in ours. I'm not sure what you mean by this, but keep in mind that we are all far more emotionally involved in our own society than in others, and it is easier to neutrally understand those other societies, and perhaps apply the insight thereby gained to circumstances closer to home. Doug -- -- Doug Merritt doug@eris.berkeley.edu (ucbvax!eris!doug) or uunet.uu.net!crossck!dougm
jgk@osc.COM (Joe Keane) (04/26/91)
I think that most of what people call `incest' should really just be called `sexual child abuse'. In the case where a parent abuses his child, i'd say that the fact that the two are genetically related is only of secondary importance. I tend to think that this is common only because it's most `convenient' for the abuser. Assumedly he runs less risk of getting caught abusing his own child than someone else's. I think that this case is not very relevant, and we should remove it from consideration when trying to figure out incest avoidance. It's unfortunate this that is as common as it is. Biologically speaking, the consensual case is more interesting. This would be where there is no coercion, and the people involved are adults or, if children, approximately the same age. Unfortunately there's not much data on this case. Given that it's consensual and socially unacceptable, it's highly likely that it will be kept secret. So i think that it's hard to estimate how common this is, or figure out when it happens. Note that what is considered acceptable differs between cultures. For example, there is wide variation, even within cultures, on whether first cousins are acceptable partners. Also, some cultures distinguish cousins on whether the parents are same-sex or opposite-sex siblings. This makes some sense genetically, but i don't know what the original justification is. Regarding the comment ``How can a child be sexually attractive?'', i think that there are enough weird people out there that just about anything may be considered sexually attractive by someone. Personally i don't know of anyone who's sexually attracted to children, but then again i doubt someone would admit to it. Well, that's my two cents. Comments welcome. -- Joe Keane, amateur mathematician jgk@osc.com (...!uunet!stratus!osc!jgk)