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Professor charged with incest

Puppycow

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Puppycow
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A professor at Columbia has been charged with having an incestuous relationship with his adult daughter.

Leaving aside the issue of whether closely related people should have babies, should this be a crime?
 
Puppycow said:
Link

A professor at Columbia has been charged with having an incestuous relationship with his adult daughter.

Leaving aside the issue of whether closely related people should have babies, should this be a crime?
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Apparently all that matters is age of consent, so no, it should not be a crime.
 
Yes. I think people get too caught up on babies and don't consider the psychological and social aspects.
 
Puppycow said:
Link

A professor at Columbia has been charged with having an incestuous relationship with his adult daughter.

Leaving aside the issue of whether closely related people should have babies, should this be a crime?
Click to expand...

Actually an issue i looked into a while ago in regards to the man who married his grandmother.

It is a tricky situation, unlike what 3body is saying age of consent is not the sole issue in this case. A parent and child have a very different relationship than most sets of people. For at least (around) the first 18 years of life a child has to learn to take the advice of, and follow the instructions of their parent. If someone was interested in this kind of relationship , it would be rather easy to groom the child during these 18 years in order to do so. Thereby, from a practical standpoint taking away the persons ability to chose come adulthood.

If someone can be raised to believe that they should avoid getting a blood transfusion, there is no reason the same type of brain washing cannot be used in order to convince them that a sexual relationship with a parent is preferable to one with someone not within the family.

Then there is the issue of consequences, which is also a special case. Parents have a lot they can take away from their children, and i am not just speaking of when the children are underage. If the father wants to have a sexual relationship and the daughter does not ( and lets say, just to make it interesting, that it is not because it is incest, but the daughter simply doesn't find him attractive. ) , he has a lot of leverage to use to get it. Anything from simple non communication, to outright hostility could be an option. And unlike a non incest based relationship , this is family. While a girl may be able to tell me to **** off and never want to see me again, this is different for a father, this is someone, who one would want a lasting and in depth relationship.

The effects of incest also should be mentioned, while there is some evidence that for a few generations this will be minimal, if the practice is kept up, they are predisposing their children/grandchildren to more genetic flaws.

And finally, and perhaps a bit more ethereally, there is the issue of, " When did this man decide he found his daughter attractive?". A parent is expected to take pretty intimate care of a child, bathing them, etc. At what point can we say that if someone is attracted to their child , it is wrong for them to be seeing them naked? The man very well may have never touched her in a sexual manner until adulthood, but there is a strange line in which he very well may be thinking at age 14 or so " i would like to have sex with her. " , and now that you take away the Platonic love of a parent and replace it with the sexual love of a lover, ( regardless of if this is acted upon. ) you have a pedophile with access to his ( or her) own personal, perfectly legal stash of child porn.

So what we have, is the ability to brainwash a child to agree with having sex with you ( even if it is only in adulthood. Which, i believe a case could be made, that in most cases like this it is not. ) , the ability to hold a stable family unit as punishment for non compliance, and an easy way for someone who wants to view underage people naked to do so. All in all, entirely too many ways that a child can not have a choice in the matter. For the good of the child, yes i do believe a blanket law banning incest especially between a custodial parent and child is appropriate.
 
Sword_Of_Truth said:
I oppose vigilantes cutting this mans scrotum off and leaving him to bleed to death.
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I would have to agree. While i think that more than likely this man has used his role as father to influence his child into the decision, we have a system of laws in place to punish him for this act that is a solid 7.5/10 on the A-hole scale.
 
Good post Sadhatter.
I was thinking on the same lines, incest is a slippery slope, sexuality should not be in a parent/child relationship.
 
3bodyproblem said:
Apparently all that matters is age of consent, so no, it should not be a crime.
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Agreed - when speaking of definite adults (I have no daughter nor any plan to have any - just have no thought of that as a big deal - as long as no physical or psychological force is involved.).:)
 
Before it was about consent, now it isn't? I'll never get these social norms...
 
fuelair said:
Agreed - when speaking of definite adults (I have no daughter nor any plan to have any - just have no thought of that as a big deal - as long as no physical or psychological force is involved.).:)
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Recently I saw two different things on incest, one on an old episode of Nip/Tuck and another on...I can't remember. Anyhow, there's pretty strong evidence that the "repulsion" is actually brainwashing, and incest was/still is common in older or "other" cultures.
 
3bodyproblem said:
Recently I saw two different things on incest, one on an old episode of Nip/Tuck and another on...I can't remember. Anyhow, there's pretty strong evidence that the "repulsion" is actually brainwashing, and incest was/still is common in older or "other" cultures.
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Some studies show that humans tend not to be attracted to the people they grow up with regardless of the relationship between them. It just so happens that "usually" we grow up with siblings and close relatives.
 
fuelair said:
Agreed - when speaking of definite adults (I have no daughter nor any plan to have any - just have no thought of that as a big deal - as long as no physical or psychological force is involved.).:)
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:confused: We are talking about sexual relations aren't we?
 
3bodyproblem said:
Recently I saw two different things on incest, one on an old episode of Nip/Tuck and another on...I can't remember. Anyhow, there's pretty strong evidence that the "repulsion" is actually brainwashing, and incest was/still is common in older or "other" cultures.
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Actually, I'd say there is pretty strong evidence that repulsion is part of normative psychological imprinting.

Puppycow said:
Yes, it should be a crime?
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Yes.

Didn't they used to make those arguments about homosexuality too?
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No, I don't recall child grooming being an issue with teh geys.

Also, that is a poor counter-argument. Actually, it isn't even one.

Sorry to interrupt a potential libertarian circle jerk, but if we look at the real world evidence:

The incest taboo is universal in human culture. Though it varies from one culture to another, it is generally considered by anthropologists to be the foundation of all kinship structures.
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Linky.

The Westermarck Effect is a phenomenon which has been observed in individuals who spend large amounts of time with each other under the age of six. People who are raised together, regardless of relationship, tend to become desensitized to each other, and they will not generally develop sexual attraction to each other later in life. A variety of studies have supported the concept of the Westermarck Effect.

This idea is sometimes referred to as “reverse imprinting,” and it is named for Edvard Westermarck, a Finnish sociologist who worked and wrote in the late 1800s. He was particularly interested in marriage patterns and incest taboos, and his idea that people who are raised together will not develop sexual attraction went contradictory to the beliefs of Freud, a prominent contemporary. Over time, it has been apparent that Westermarck was vindicated, as evidence strongly suggests that Freud's ideas are not supported by actual evidence.
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Linky.

Bringing up gays seems like a, "They laughed at the Wright brothers, too," defense. Was homosexuality called "not normative"? Yes. Is believing that one has special powers over all others called "not normative"? Yes. What is the point? That is part of the general language of psychology.

Look, for anyone who is considers supporting the notion: Think about it focusing on the child. Even ignoring any pedophilia, the kid is raised to be the spouse of the parent. Where is their free will? How do they deny their parent figure? How can we determine consent in such a situation? Please google "child grooming" and really think on it.
 
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qayak said:
Some studies show that humans tend not to be attracted to the people they grow up with regardless of the relationship between them. It just so happens that "usually" we grow up with siblings and close relatives.
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See I thought I read something on smell or scent having something to do with it, but I forget. But that's if they are raised together if memory serves? If they aren't then there's evidence of a very strong attraction.

clear as mud my memory
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
No, I don't recall child grooming being an issue with teh geys.
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Wasn't that the exact reason given to prevent gays from adopting children for so many years?

Look, for anyone who is considers supporting the notion: Think about it focusing on the child. Even ignoring any pedophilia, the kid is raised to be the spouse of the parent.
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There is no evidence that the child was raised for that purpose.

Where is their free will?
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Same place everyone else's is. There are a lot of choices others make that I wouldn't. Not because they are wrong, but because I'm not into that. I can't claim that those making those choices are doing so against their free will just because the only way I would make the choice is if it were against my free will.

You are projecting your feelings on the subject onto everyone else and that doesn't work in human relationships. In general, children do not want to have sex with their parents and vice versa, but that doesn't give an accurate gauge of individuals. Some children do want to have sex with their parents ans vice versa.

How do they deny their parent figure?
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The same way my children told me "no" when I told them to clean their rooms. They didn't do it.

How can we determine consent in such a situation?
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The same way consent is is determined in other situations, I would think.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
Look, for anyone who is considers supporting the notion: Think about it focusing on the child. Even ignoring any pedophilia, the kid is raised to be the spouse of the parent. Where is their free will? How do they deny their parent figure? How can we determine consent in such a situation? Please google "child grooming" and really think on it.
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It's not so much supporting it, as it is making consent conditional.

I'd say there are more pervs looking for 17 year old girls than there are parents looking to date their kids. Yet one's legal and one isn't? It kinda doesn't make sense.
 
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