This is going to be a fun one.
So here are the facts:
I commented on a news article about a mother and adult son charged with incest (and adultery as well for her.) This is what I said:
Someone responded to me and I replied before I realized my original comment was removed for being inappropriate. Then I added the edit when I saw.
The next day I discovered I'd been banned from that community for "pro-incest comments" and several others I don't think I've ever been in for rule 4 violations. The orignal post was removed.
You can see those here:
Site rule 4 is: Usernames or posts/comments containing transphobia, homophobia, sexism, racism, ableism, zionism, anti-veganism, or trivializing COVID. No self-described or obvious fascists, conservatives, or reactionaries.
My comments had none of those things. I'd even go so far as to say my banning was reactionary.
Now, I'm not defending incest, especially not for myself. My problem is with puritanical laws interfering with the private sex lives of people. In my original comment I stated that grooming was a separate issue and should be dealt with, but that there is nothing inherently wrong with incest. That is, enthusiastic consensual sex between capable adults.
I know someone will bring up the Hapsburgs, so yes, children of incest should be avoided.
228 Comments
Susaga@sh.itjust.works · 88 pts · 7d
Leaving aside whether the rule was the right one to use, I will stress that, when it comes to incest, the power dynamics in play make consent dubious at best. This is doubly so for parent/child incest, such as the case you were talking about.
This is a weird hill. Are you sure you want to die on it?
Wren@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 7d
Won't die on it. Still think it's weird to be banned for it.
Susaga@sh.itjust.works · 38 pts · 7d
By making this post, you are still fighting on it.
Wren@lemmy.today · 9 pts · 7d
I think a permanent ban was unjustified, yes.
Susaga@sh.itjust.works · 22 pts · 7d
Your permanent ban for defending incest, a situation that is widely agreed to be an abuse of trust in any configuration, thus making consent dubious. Specifically, your response defending a woman who fucked her son, suggesting grooming to be at play.
Once again, is this a cause you want to keep fighting for? Or do you want to just take the damn L already?
Wren@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 6d
I specifically said she was likely grooming her son, which is bad. I'm against incest being a crime.
Susaga@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 5d
After nearly a full day of inactivity where people lived their damn lives, you came back to offer nothing new, yet you keep trying to nitpick your way into an argument. Why is this so important to you?
Actually, no, don't answer. Just stay on your weird family-fucking hill until you die on it, as you so obviously want to. I'm done with you.
Wren@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 5d
You're mad because I was busy for a day?
Madison420@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 7d
In a lot of people's mind there can't possibly be consent so it's simply rape which makes you a pro rape advocate. If that makes it make a little more sense to you.
Wren@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 7d
That's a hell of a long walk to call me a pro-rape advocate. No, that doesn't make sense to me.
Madison420@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 7d
It's quite a short walk I'm afraid and yeah I figured that was the case. Fun question, are you now or have you ever participated in incest?
Wren@lemmy.today · 9 pts · 7d
I have not.
Madison420@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 7d
Then I find your position even more odd.
Is it something you think about, like what is the motivation here? Like is statutory rape wrong to you or is that another "well there's consent" issue for you.
Wren@lemmy.today · 16 pts · 7d
That's called a bad faith argument. I stated in my comments that people need to be capable of and enthusiastically consenting.
I'm opposed to overreaching laws based on ideas about sexual purity.
For instance, under Canadian law, two people who don't know they're blood relatives who begin a sexual relationship can be guilty of incest if they later learn that they're related and continue that relationship. And that seems insane to me.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 6d
The same reason a white person with a white partner would argue against anti-miscegenation laws: They are wrong, and they are needlessly harmful.
The same reason a straight person would argue against homosexuality prohibitions: They are wrong, and they are needlessly harmful.
The same reason a cishet person would argue against transphobic laws: They are wrong, and they are needlessly harmful.
You don't have to be in a miscegenated, homosexual relationship with your trans half-sister to realize that the public and the state has no valid interest for interfering in the free association of capable, consenting persons. Such interference is wrong, and needlessly harmful.
By all means, ensure that any such association is freely entered. Ensure that the individual participants are capable. Ensure that the individual participants are consenting. Once those three criteria are met, the public is free to speak its mind, but it is not free to arrest or otherwise interfere.
Droechai@piefed.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 7d
Problem is that the law is based on morals rather than damage. SA is illegaland grooming is illegal, why does incest need to be illegal in addition?
SarahValentine@pawb.social · -4 pts · 7d
I think it's weird you came here to complain first, instead of googling "why is incest bad" and reading literally the first result.
Wren@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 7d
Weirdly enough, I wrote a paper in philosophy about the puritanical reasons things like incest, adultery and sodomy are illegal.
SarahValentine@pawb.social · 4 pts · 7d
Yeah but those aren't the only reasons it's bad. They're just the bad reasons. There are good reasons, too.
WraithGear@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 5d
i don’t have any skin in this game, but you truley are not going to beat the “diying on this hill” allegations.
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6d
Incest is bad for scientific reasons that don't have anything to do with religion. You can leave the moral stuff out of it if that's the angle you want to play. Ever seen the blood lines of families that have had incestual children? The defects add up over time. If that isn't enough for you, i don't know what is.
I don't understand why you're arguing this anyway. It's such a weird thing to argue about. It's pretty universally recognized that incest is bad.
Furbag@pawb.social · 2 pts · 5d
Then incest is only bad if the intent is procreation. If two sterile adults who also happen to be related have a bit of consensual sex, what's the issue?
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 5d
Oh yeah bcz that's super common...
Furbag@pawb.social · 4 pts · 5d
I mean, the much more common method of using birth control devices also invalidates your argument so...
Cethin@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 5d
Yeah, cousins, or even siblings potentially, I don't see too much of an issue with morally, but parents I'm going to draw a line. I'm very permissive on what people should be allowed to do. There's no way to have even power dynamics in a parent relationship though. Even anything to do with inbreeding aside, assuming it isn't even possible, that relationship can never be fair. (This includes step-parents, as much as porn loves to use the trope, because it's easy to write.)
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 37 pts · 7d
PTB. Ban doesn’t fit the rule.
I don’t agree with OP’s position, but that isn’t the subject of this thread. The ban is. And I don’t think it’s justified.
Susaga@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 7d
The ban fits the spirit, if not the letter, in a sort of "we didn't think we needed to specify a dog can't play basketball" situation. I suspect the wording of the rule will be changed to reflect this.
cosmos8188@leminal.space · 8 pts · 7d
I disagree, if by "spirit" is how rules and laws are to be followed, this will make it open to ambiguity and alternatives. In effect, negative effects such as abuse-of-power can be seen (as indicated in this scenario).
Susaga@sh.itjust.works · 14 pts · 7d
And if you ignore the spirit of the rules entirely, you get shitty people doing shitty things while clinging to technicalities. If I say "I technically didn't steal your watch", you would still want your watch back.
The solution is to uphold the letter of the rules and, if they are insufficient, you update the rules.
cosmos8188@leminal.space · 4 pts · 7d
Sure, but if you completely rely on the spirit without regard to technicality you get the same scenario. In addition, the "spirit" is highly subjective so the basis of technicalities is not only beneficial but necessary.
I do agree on the latter, however.
frongt@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 7d
The good thing is this is Lemmy, not any anything of any consequence, so being a little loose with the rules isn't the end of anyone's world. (And if it is, you need to get off the Internet and go touch grass.)
In particular, banning someone and changing the rules to cover a scenario that just occurred (ex post facto) is usually okay. We're not large enough for thorough rulemaking to cover every conceivable situation.
And in OP's case, they're being reasonable about it and the ban is temporary, so I'm not going to call this PTB or YDI.
cosmos8188@leminal.space · 3 pts · 7d
While I do agree on being relatively loose with the rules especially on a social platform - it still seems a bit one sided. You're taking the side of the mod (its pretty clear), but consider being the poster - the rules state nothing about the thing op is ranting about.
So tell me how is it fair for the other party? Of course the mod could've went about this somewhat differently - but they resolved it with the nuclear option. A warning is a thing you know - and it's a tool mods should use before resolving to more rigorous methods.
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 6d
You never can completely rely on it alone. The spirit of the law, or Lemmy community rule, always originates from some letter. The two concepts are fundamentally linked and concern the other.
cosmos8188@leminal.space · 1 pts · 5d
Agreed, a strong foundation to rules is necessary. A lack of rules thereof or just relying on the "vibe" of the rule is insufficient and could cause malevolent actors to abuse such "vibes". Shitty people can cling to technicalities - such as people who cling onto the apparent vibes of the rule.
You can't have one without the other, as without one, you have people excusing something that isn't remotely within that rule.
cosmos8188@leminal.space · 10 pts · 7d
I agree, this ain't the community for moralising op's shenanigans - but for abuse-of-power inflicted by mods.
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com · 29 pts · 7d
I said this below, but i think it requires visibility.. you people are just missing the actual problem:
just so you fully understand...
incest cannot be about 'consenting adults' because those adults psychology are incredibly intertwined, and the decision to perform the incest cannot be held separately form those relationships.
its a power dynamic tangential to rape, and the only people 'pro-consenting-adult incest' are completely ignorant of the actual issue.
there is no such thing as a 'healthy' sexual relationship with regards to incest, hence its illegality.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 6d
Not every incestuous relationship fits that description. Two half-siblings of the same sperm donor don't share any of the problematic psychologies you describe.
I just described one. Any number can exist. Criminalizing the parties in the situation I described is fundamentally unjust.
The problem you're describing isn't actually one of incest. The problem you are describing is one of a power imbalance significant enough to justify stripping one of the parties of their personal agency with regard to consent. While the scenario you describe does call for the state to so deeply tread upon the individuality of this person, it is not their biological kinship that justifies this intrusion. It is the power imbalance between them; the exploitation by the social superior against a subjugated inferior.
nanometer1625@thelemmy.club · 9 pts · 7d
If you can provide a way to quantify the extent to which 2 people are "psychologically intertwined", I'll consider this, but at the moment, it doesn't sound credible.
Wren@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 7d
I disagree. Rape, coersion and sexual interference are already crimes (in many places) and ethically wrong (anywhere.)
As someone who doesn't know most of my family, and assume most everyone didn't grow up with their extended family, I wouldn't say familial relationships are more psychologically intertwined than any other. It's a long walk to assume there's such an unfair power imbalance in incestuous relationships as to make incest tangential to rape.
BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk · 3 pts · 6d
There's been a few studies on positive incest cases, not sure if you've ever heard about the Reddit story of the guy with two broken arms that evolved into an incestous relationship with his mom - They've been part of one of such studies
catsandcatsandcats@beehaw.org · 1 pts · 5d
That Reddit story has to be a joke lol
BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk · 1 pts · 5d
It's unfortunately verified through doctors that did research on their experience
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social · 1 pts · 7d
If the power dynamic is clear (which includes parent-child cases like what OP was talking about, I'm in agreement with you there), then why should the law specifically care that the people involved are relatives, wouldn't more general laws about coercion, grooming, or abusing positions of authority be sufficient to make that a crime? (And if they aren't, shouldn't they be?)
If the power dynamic is not clear, like if both people involved are of similar age and there's not some other clear marker of who has power over the other like financial dependency or some kind of caretaker relationship (not "if there is no power dynamic", just if it's ambiguous enough to an outsider that there's a significant risk of an outsider like a judge or jury or cop getting the dynamic wrong), then doesn't having a specific law about incest risk punishing the wrong side a significant percentage of the time, or create a situation where a victim is afraid to come forward or can be threatened into more abuse, because they fear the penalty being applied to them as well if the law isn't convinced that they weren't the person with the power in their situation?
snooggums@piefed.world · -2 pts · 7d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_incest
Incest between people who know beforehand is absolutely wrong and pretty much guaranteed to not meet the criteria for consent, but it is a broad topic that isn't as simple as parent/child.
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com · -9 pts · 7d
o0o0 i see, you want the actual, common incest to be legal because of an edge-case easily handled by judges.
got it, youre an incest cheerleader.. for some reason.
snooggums@piefed.world · 8 pts · 7d
A judge can't just rule someone gets a free pass when something is illegal because they didn't know. That isn't how law works.
The law could conceiveably be written to exclude those cases, but anyone trying to include that would have people like you claiming they are pro incest for pointing out exceptions.
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com · -3 pts · 7d
my original point was grand jury which absolutely decides whether charges are applied and prosecution attempted
either way, still not sure why anyone would think that edge case is a reason for you all to want incest to be legal... sure are strainin' to do some explainin as they say.
snooggums@piefed.world · 7 pts · 7d
You said judges, not grand juries. You also assume I want the opposite of what I wrote.
Not wanting something to be illegal is not the same as being in favor of it. There are lots of things that I am fine with being legal that I am opposed to because I think making them illegal would be a huge negative compared to addressing it through social pressure.
Fleur_@aussie.zone · 24 pts · 7d
You chose to die on the mums can fuck sons hill idk what to tell you man XD
zeppo@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 7d
on hexbear? well yeah, fuck that
Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 7d
It's only a 7 day ban.
I'm not sure how grooming could possibly be made illegal.
I agree that maybe siblings could consent to healthy sexual relationships as adults. It's gross to me but doesn't need to be illegal.
I don't agree that parents and children fucking eachother should be legal. Parents are the guardians and protectors of their own children. That role doesn't end when a child transitions to being an adult. I think it would be nearly impossible to micromanage a relationship in order to determine that grooming took place, better for society to just make it illegal for parents to ever fuck their children.
I think that it's appropriate that you're being muted for a week for repeatedly defending the right of a parent to fuck their child.
Wren@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 7d
I should have been more clear, my ban from the unrelated communities was temporary while my ban from news was permanent.
Again, I was saying incest shouldn't be a crime. To say I was defending a parents' right to fuck their child is deliberately misinterpreting the argument.
OccasionallyFeralya@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 7d
Iirc hexbear has a self-crit community where you can explain where you went wrong and appeal mod actions
Objection@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 7d
YDM. Only a seven day ban, from a couple communities? Got off too lightly.
You're not considering the full picture, and looking at it in a vacuum. The vast majority of people are not ok with incest, so the probability of two people in the same family just happening to be into it is incredibly low. It's far more likely that something fucked up is happening, that there was grooming, that the child was taught it was normal, and it's very possible they were subject to sexual abuse as a child, which is often incredibly difficult to prove. Even in the best case, the power dynamics are very fucked.
You're assuming that the only opposition to it comes only from "puritanical" attitudes. In fact, there are very strong arguments against it from the perspective of consent, especially when it's considered not in some theoretical abstract, but in the practical, material reality of what those cases tend to look like.
Doubling down on it just looks worse. The seven day ban seems like it's just giving you a chance to realize that you're wrong, if that's not happening you should probably be permabanned.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 14 pts · 6d
I'll play devil's advocate...
...
We've seen nearly identical, statistical arguments made against transexuality, against homosexuality, against miscegenation. Those arguments do, indeed, arise from puritanical attitudes, and fail here for the same reason they've failed everywhere else.
Genetic Sexual Attraction between relatives separated at a young age is a common enough phenomenon to argue that "the vast majority" and "it's far more likely" statistical arguments don't actually stand up to scrutiny.
"power dynamics are very fucked" is a valid concern in relationships arising from formalized superior/subordinate social structures in general, which include teacher/student, jailer/inmate, doctor/patient, parent/child, etc. But, those social structures don't necessarily arise in sibling, cousin, and certain nibling relationships. They don't arise in scenarios where the individuals were separated early and did not reunite until adulthood. They don't arise in cases of "accidental incest", where the parties are unaware of kinship beforehand. The "power dynamics" argument actually extends only to a narrow category of incestuous relationships. They justify prohibitions against that narrow category, but they don't justify prohibitions against the general case.
Your arguments don't actually challenge OP's position. The presence of complicated power dynamics issues would conflict with the "consent" requisite they presented.
Objection@lemmy.ml · -4 pts · 6d
I disagree. There was a time when I was more partial to OP's perspective, but it's the arguments I made here, not suddenly developing some "puritanical attitude," limited exclusive to this topic, that convinced me that perspective was wrong.
None of the arguments against the other things are "nearly identical." Trans people are statistically a small percentage of the population, but on a large scale small percentages show up. Homosexual relationships are not constrained to a handful of people like incestuous ones are, so you can seek out other people even if the percentage is small. Your comparisons, as well as your assumptions about the motives behind my position (which isn't really important regardless) fall flat.
If one in a million people are naturally into mother/son relationships, the chances of it happening naturally are 1 in a trillion. And that's only saying that they're potentially ok with such a relationship, whether they actually get along is another question. It's safe to say that it simply doesn't happen, and if by some miracle it does, it's a trivial percentage of cases which is secondary to the majority of cases where it's the product of abuse/grooming.
As someone with siblings, they absolutely do.
And courts often make exceptions in those cases, and if OP had limited their position to those cases they might have had a point. But OP took the "strong" version of the claim. In fact, the specific story involved both a mother/son relationship, where you acknowledge power dynamics are relevant, and a situation where the two people were not separated growing up. If you want to defend OP then you have to defend that.
That's like saying roofies should be legal because some people would consent to having sex while drugged. Technically, sure, again, if you're looking at it purely in the abstract. In practice, the vast majority of the time, drugging someone before having sex with them is rape. Which means if the law makes an exception for consensual drugging, it's one more thing the victim has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other hand, if roofied sex is fully illegal, then a small handful of people might be inconvenienced and have to find another way to get off, but a much larger number of people will be kept safe.
In a world where less than 4% of rapists face convictions, adding additional hurdles for rape victims to clear is obviously a bigger concern than inconvincing the much smaller number of people trying to shag their sisters. It is far better to err on the side of caution.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 6d
Ok, I can do that pretty easily: OP did not defend this specific mother/son relationship. Transcribed from the images the posted:
OP was contemplating the general case of incest, not this specific one. OP explicitly declared that this specific case should be criminalized, and chose to discuss inoffensive behaviors.
To address the remainder of your comment: In everything you're describing, the offensive behavior is the imbalance of power. You are not describing "biological kinship" as the offensive factor. You are using "biological kinship" as an implication that a social power imbalance exists. You're allowing for exceptions to criminalization on the basis of biological kinship, if the power balance implied by that relationship doesn't actually exist. You don't seem to actually have a problem with the biological kinship. You have a problem with the power imbalance.
Why not just prohibit the power imbalance?
Why confuse the issue of power and consent by first weaving it through biological and genetic circumstance?
"Power imbalance" avoids the non-problematic incestuous relationships for which you allow judicial exception, while also capturing problematic non-incestuous relationships, like step-parents/step-children, and socially-close relatives too distant to qualify as incest (third cousins, being communally raised, for example)
The attraction between adopted children and their biological relatives is not at all rare. It's a very well known phenomenon. Reuniting parties are widely cautioned to expect sexual attraction to their long-lost family members. It's not "one in a million" behavior. I completely reject your statistical arguments because they have no basis in reality.
Objection@lemmy.ml · -3 pts · 6d
This is a nonsense point because decisions will still have to be made regarding what is and isn't a power imbalance. If you change the law to allow incest but only if there's no power imbalance, then eventually courts will have to decide whether there is inherently a power imbalance in such relationships, whether a parent/child relationship automatically qualifies or not. All you're doing is moving from a practical standard to a theoretical one, but then you'll have to move back to a practical standard, you know, in practice.
Since it's true that there is almost always a power imbalance in incestuous relationships, the law should reflect that. If the courts rule correctly, then legal precedent will make incest functionally illegal regardless, so it's just shifting the decision from the legislative branch to the judicial, which there's no real reason to do.
Yes, correct. The standard that I'm applying theoretically already is consent and whether there's a power imbalance, and based on that theoretical standard I am arriving at the practical conclusion of banning incest.
In the same way, I don't have a problem with roofies in theory, I have a problem with the fact that in practice they are used to rape people. That doesn't mean that I should want to legalize roofies.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 6d
Those are the only decisions that need to be made. Those are the only points that need to be raised. When two parties engage in a relationship, and don't discover a biological kinship until later, that biological kinship cannot alter the nature of the relationship to the point of criminality. The "incest" component is completely irrelevant to the issue of criminality.
The power imbalance is the sine qua non of the issue. Without the power imbalance, the right of free association greatly exceeds the authority of the public and the state to violate the personal agency of the participants.
Among consenting adults, they are already legal.
Objection@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 6d
Yes, and the determination I have made is that cases of incest overwhelmingly involve issues with consent. Whether that decision is made legislatively or judicially is not important.
Agreed.
Disagree. That does not follow.
Should it be legal to run out of a bank, holding a trash bag and wearing a stocking over your face, and to jump into the back of a car shouting, "GO! GO! GO!"? If you did all that without actually robbing the bank, technically, you didn't harm anyone. And if someone tries to forcibly stop you while doing your silly little prank, should they be criminally liable for using force?
That would be absurd. If you see someone doing that, then you can reasonably assume that they robbed a bank. You don't have to see them sticking up a cashier or shoving the money into the bag to arrive at that conclusion. In this example, you can't really verify those things because by the time you do they'll have gotten away, while in the case of incest, it's generally impossible to verify because family members are going to be spending so much time privately, it's always going to come down to "he said, she said" which is not enough to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt. It may be an imposition on freedom for it to be illegal to do that specific prank, but the other concerns obviously outweigh it. Just do a different prank, aka, just fuck one of the 7 billion people out there who's not your mom. It's not a big ask.
Therefore, to legalize incest means that nearly every pedophile or groomer will be able to get away with it, because it puts the child into a position of having to prove something that they could not reasonably prove. If a parent takes a child aside, 1-on-1, at some point in all the time they're alone together, and grooms them to believe incest is normal and fine, then how could they ever prove those words were said beyond a reasonable doubt to a court? What, are we expecting 5 year olds to be secretly recording every single thing their parents ever say to them? It's ridiculous.
The state's first responsibility is the safety of the citizenry, and with the danger I just highlighted, the right to not get groomed or molested vastly outweighs the right of free association.
No they are not, with very good reason.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 6d
You seem to be assuming that "incest" implies "pedophilia". However, OP is explicitly referring to relationships between adults, not children. The legal status of incest does not affect in the slightest the illegality of grooming or pedophilia. Regardless of the legal status of incest, adult/adult relationships are readily distinguishable from adult/child relationship. Relationships between teachers and pupils, jailers and inmates, guardians and wards, parents and children, doctors and patients, is criminalized separate and apart from incest. Incest does not need to be criminalized for the general, power-imbalanced relationship to remain criminalized.
Any argument involving minors is well outside the scope of this discussion, as is any argument of non-consenting adults or individuals lacking mental capacity. Restrict your arguments to relationships involving capable, consenting adults.
In the context if individuals deliberately and voluntarily imbibing them, nothing in your link makes a special distinction of illegality between rohypnol and other schedule IV drugs that don't induce unconsciousness or amnesia. That your partner chooses to use cocaine or rohypnol makes them a criminal drug user, but their drug use says nothing of your criminal culpability. I think we've taken the roofie argument beyond any useful analogy.
PiraHxCx@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 6d
"giving you a chance to realize that you’re wrong, if that’s not happening you should probably be permabanned." for... what crime? Or are they adding "no defending incest between adults" to the rules?
Objection@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 6d
Rules aren't designed to cover every possible hot take a person can have.
PiraHxCx@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 6d
they kind are... banning at whim when no rules are being broken is exactly what a power tripping bastard does
Objection@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 6d
I don't see it that way at all. Mods aren't supposed to be robots, they can use their own judgement in banning someone that's technically following the letter of a rule, or not banning someone who's technically breaking it.
In any case, I presume the mod would say that their position is reactionary.
PiraHxCx@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 6d
Not entering into the merit of how the position is actually the opposite of reactionary, precedent created, mod should just add "no defending incest whatsoever" to the rules, issue warning, and enforce after it
Objection@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 6d
Making it easier for people to get away with rape and grooming sounds pretty damn reactionary to me.
They could, but I don't think it's a common enough occurrence to need it. Like, if somebody comes around saying, I don't know, "Kill everyone who's uncircumcised" does there really need to be a rule specifically against that for them to get banned? Why?
PiraHxCx@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 6d
Yeah, if you are dead set to always ignore the words consenting and adult sure it is, and then the state deciding what consenting adults can do in their intimacy is somehow progressive and not what the church and the state have done through all history...
Surely that other case can be covered with rules of hateful comment, group discrimination, inciting violence, blah blah blah... hey, if mod wants to say it's absolutely impossible for blood-related people want to engage in sexual activity out of their own volition and everyone that thinks otherwise are advocating rape and should be banned from the community, whatever, their community their rules, just be clear about it
lightnsfw@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 6d
Have you seen the porn tubes in the last decade?
Objection@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 6d
There's an enormous difference between watching two people pretend to be stepsiblings and actually wanting to fuck your siblings.
Wren@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 6d
It was a permanent ban from that community and a seven day ban from the others. So I guess I did get more?
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 7d
It's pushing the envelope towards PTB, but isn't for two reasons: first, it is a 7 day ban, so a timeout. Secondly, incest is strongly associated with pedophilia, and it typically comes across the same way arguing about age of consent does.
While it's not specifically in their rules, incest and pedophilia would reasonably fall within their lineup of bannable topics given what is on there.
If it was a permaban? Clear and flagrant PTB. But this is just a warning in function.
Wren@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 5d
Just to be clear it was a permanent ban from that community. The other ones were temp bans.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 6d
What a deeply weird post and thread. It seems like a lot of people somehow think the idea that incest is bad is only related to religious beliefs. I don't really care if it is even considered bad by religions (I'm not even certain it is), because it's bad for obvious reasons that have not a damn thing to do with religion. I had no idea so many people would argue in favor of incest.
cosmos8188@leminal.space · 4 pts · 5d
..Which is extremely problematic - but not because OP did X or y, but because this community is about power tripping bastard mods not OPs morality.
That is the weird bit, and it proves that this community isn't what's promised.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 5d
Humans are going to be human. We react to stimuli.
cosmos8188@leminal.space · 4 pts · 5d
That is true, but in the context of this community the stimuli should be focused on the mod not whatever moral ideas op has.
Wren@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 6d
To be fair I'm not arguing for incest, I'm arguig against it being criminally punishable.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 6d
Which would be a distinction that mattered if incest weren't very harmful in a variety of ways. But it is and it doesn't.
Wren@lemmy.today · -2 pts · 6d
The varieties of ways incest can be harmful are already, or should be illegal. Incest in itself isn't harmful unless they're producing children with each other.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6d
As everyone who isn't also in favor of this practice has pointed out. This is a beyond bizarre hill to die on
Wren@lemmy.today · -2 pts · 6d
Again, I'm not dying on it and I'm not in favor of incest. I thought it would be an interesting post for this community.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 6d
The existence of this post and the repeated defenses are what people mean by dying on a hill. I don't know what else to tell you
Wren@lemmy.today · -2 pts · 6d
Engaging in debate is fun and a great way to test your knowledge and biases, I don't know what else to tell you.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 7d
Mods are people, and people are biased. Yeah, they'll ban you over sensitive-to-them subjects, and there's not much we can do about it but appeal. I happen to agree with you re: incest, but I knew better than to voice it directly to that same article posted in a different comm. You spoke your mind and someone with a bit of power shot you down. So it goes.
But, there's more to it than that.
Lemmy is a general interest, public forum and therefore full of people with opinions that fall in the middle of the bell-curve. Opinions of all types that fall at the edges get shouted down and trimmed off. Everyone is aware that MAGA opinions are in that group, as well they should be in, again, a general interest public forum. But, there are plenty of others, like permissive ideas around incest, and support for AI in there, too. You need to "read the room."
You can find other quite active forums outside of Lemmy that will be more sympathetic to such fringe positions of all sorts, if you feel the need to express support or discuss.
Wren@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 7d
You know what? That's fair. I looked at the other comments being made and checked the sidebar. I was a little crass in my verbiage but thought I was participating as I should. Someone didn't like that and I'm still happy to be here.
Zahille7@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 7d
I feel like your last sentence could lead down a very slippery slope of ending up on a list somewhere.
Quexotic@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 6d
Pretty sure that ship has sailed.
snooggums@piefed.world · 10 pts · 7d
Is there a word for being fine with something controversial instead of pro or con? I'm with you, not in favor (pro) but also not seeing any reason to prohibit (con) as long as everyone is consenting adults and there wasn't any grooming, which should be prosecuted as grooming.
Social stigma against it because of the downsides and likelihood of being the result of grooming is enough.
PTB, especially due to the rule not matching.
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com · 6 pts · 7d
just so you fully understand...
incest cannot be about 'consenting adults' because those adults psychology are incredibly intertwined, and the decision to perform the incest cannot be held separately form those relationships.
its a power dynamic tangential to rape, and the only people 'pro-consenting-adult incest' are completely ignorant of the actual issue.
there is no such thing as a 'healthy' sexual relationship with regards to incest, hence its illegality.
snooggums@piefed.world · 5 pts · 7d
The power dynamic thing is also an issue for relationships with age gaps like marrying someone who the older person knew as a minor, but who is not related. Like a teacher marrying a student after the student is an adult. Or someone in their 30s marrying a young adult from their neighborhood who was in their scouts program. They are not exactly the same, but can be very similar, especially when family isn't all located in the same place.
Also, not all incest is between a parent and child. Siblings don't really have the same kind of power dynamic thing. It also gets muddied when adoption and step children are involved. Is incest wrong based on genetics, legal status, or the power dynamic?
I don't think incest should have legal penalties on its own and I think the power dynamic parts that are common between a lot of relationships should have strong legal penalties. Those will apply to most, but not all incest. Absolutely not pro, I think society should continue to discourage it socially because the odds of a power dynamic issue is likely. We should also discourage people from dating people they knew as children because of the power dynamic issues.
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 7d
To be honest I do not think that would be a power dynamic problem. If that's a power dynamic problem, it's an immaturity of the younger member problem. This is not how I see adults I knew from when I was a kid, and it's not how I see younger adults who I knew as kids when I was an older kid
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com · 1 pts · 7d
whew, well, lets all be glad youre not a clinical psychologist who actually understands these things
and attempting to defend this shit? thats pretty sick.. what is your motivation here?
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7d
It's just my opinion about that specific situation little lucifer. I, as an adult, would not let myself get groomed by an adult. Guess it doesn't apply to everyone
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com · -3 pts · 7d
right, but this isnt about those relationships. its about incest.
so, move the goalpost all you want, incest should still be illegal.
snooggums@piefed.world · 6 pts · 7d
So siblings who were separated at birth or had the same sperm donor and don't find out until after they meet as adults and have an ongoing relationship should be prosecuted?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_incest
Social stigma tends to end those relationships already once they are discovered. I am saying that is enough and it doesn't require legal punishments.
RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 7d
so incest is fine if they were separated for most of their lives and only recently met
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 7d
Well, as long as they don't create a baby, I guess so
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com · 0 pts · 7d
you really want to search for an incest loophole?
really? really?
edit: tell ya what, lets let the grand jury decide on whether to prosecute oedipus
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 6d
Distant cousins, children adopted out and meeting for the first time (it's actually a thing that separated siblings find eachother more attractive than average which is a bit of a genetic health fail lmao), people that have lived full lives and decide to incest at like 50 years old or something. It's not preposterous to imagine scenarios where it's just odd rather than some fucked up messy tangled thing.
Zahille7@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7d
"Neutral"?
MrOtingocni@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 5d
I like how as soon as anyone sets foot in this thread to make a statement they are immediately sucked into a long winded argument.
elevenbones@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 5d
What a divisive issue lol
Rentlar@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 7d
Focusing on the mod action without delving much into the topic, I think your first comment could reasonably be perceived as reactionary (provoking reaction from others) by some mods which fits under rule 4, even if you were genuine in intent.
The other comm bans I think are half a step too far in the PTB direction, but the one comment removal and news comm ban are within the ballpark of reasonableness.
Quokka@quokk.au · 3 pts · 4d
The other comms are probably a site wide ban, they often show up as only a few subs in the modlog for some reason.
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 6d
Idk Americans can be a bit puritanical and weird about stuff. A lot of them never remove their christian brainworms.
Some coms are on a hair trigger though because people that know the age of consent in ever jurisdiction often have a weird interest in bringing up all the ways that doing something something sexually transgressive that might involve grooming is actually cool and good.
Hexbear probably isn't the place to discuss this stuff because they're very defensive of the community vibes and safety of users, and also weirdly puritanical sometimes.
I think it's probably mod overreach your position seems clear that grooming is bad and you're discussing theoretical other scenarios but in the context of the article it's understandable that the timeout would happen.
fwiw I think incest is a crime because it's a blunt legal instrument to just easily protect people from a lot of extremely nasty scenarios.
glimse@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 6d
There's multiple comments about American puritanism but OP got banned from hexbear communities
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 5d
They are overwhelmingly from the usa
glimse@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 5d
And they're overwhelming against US customs
naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 5d
not the puritanism
Souvenir@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 6d
Given incest is incredibly popular on all the tube sites, the lady doth protest too much, methinks. Same goes for Americans claiming they're not attracted to 20 year olds at the ripe old age of 30, but also transphobia and homophobia. A short summary of their browsing history would probably be illuminating.
JackbyDev@programming.dev · 7 pts · 6d
People clutch their pearls. With certain topics, a lot of people are incapable of nuance.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 5d
Also, as long as they don't get pregnant, the harm, if any, would be to those willingly participating only. If that is a problem then let's also bam parachute jumping, and any other potentially harmful sports, which is every one of them
In short: Who. Cares. Let people be
tyranny@crazypeople.online · 6 pts · 6d
hi pal, i want to preface this by saying I'm with you, both because punishment is worse than crime, and because arguing about genetics presumes everyone is heterosexual. my reasons aren't really important though. i really hope you find community, offline or on, that respects you and bigs you up. I'm watching you fighting with these people who want nothing better than to call you a rape-lover, and i really want better for you. i want you to be able to express yourself and spread your philosophical wings without being piled on or called names. i hope you find kinder ecosystems. big up yourself in the meantime 👍
Wren@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 5d
I appreciate that. I like Lemmy for the most part, and the response is pretty much what I expected.
tyranny@crazypeople.online · 2 pts · 5d
i'm coming here from social media like Tumblr, where it's a lot easier to curate your own experience. on tumblr, if you don't tag your post, the only way it's going to get in front of the eyeballs of strangers is if it gets significant reblogs, at which point you can switch off notifications and go to sleep. whereas here, you kind of have to be thrown in with everyone. tumblr has its own problems, namely centralisation, advertising and transmisogynoir, but i really don't think I'm going to be able to find a likeminded community anything like i did there, on Lemmy
exupulosion@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 6d
Americans are weirds. Thank protestantism
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 5d
Social media principle #1: "Questioning any aspect or detail of the Right side means you're on the Wrong side."
Wren@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 5d
Nope, no nuanced opinions allowed.
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space · 2 pts · 7d
It’s presumably too pro-aristocracy for Marxist-Leninists to allow
chloroken@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 6d
OP is such a fucking train wreck. This is all you do: make shitty comments, get banned, and then cry about it incessantly.
The last time I lit you up for this shit I had absolutely no idea that next time would be because you were going to bat for incest. Fucking freak.
Wren@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 6d
Wow. Still mad that a bunch of people shut you down last time, hey?
I post here because I enjoy the posts here, so I contribute.
chloroken@lemmy.ml · -4 pts · 4d
Somehow roasts from the incest freak don't really bother me. Keep getting banned everywhere you go though, it's really funny.
Wren@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 4d
You're confusing me with someone else.
MehBlah@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 5d
I guess but ewwwww.
PiraHxCx@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 6d
Fuck what god, the state, and especially what you (and I) have to say about what consenting adults do when you are not one of the parties involved (you don't want people patrolling what you willingly do with your genitals? don't fucking patrol what others do with theirs), nonetheless, OPs crime was of disagreeing with mod? Those are the cases that I just block the mod and the community so I don't have the displeasure of interacting with those little Mussolinis again... that to say, didn't take many days for me on lemmy to just block that instance entirely.
Sauvandu60@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 6d
I’m still wondering why incest is considered wrong under a secular liberal framework, given that liberalism places high value on consent and sexual freedom.
ChairmanMeow@programming.dev · 9 pts · 6d
It's because in the vast majority of cases, incest follows grooming or a disturbed power dynamic, meaning there's no consent. However, proving that can be hard, meaning those abusive relationships are allowed to continue.
By outlawing incest, you harm very, very few people who are in a healthy incestuous relationship, but are able to much more easily crack down on abusive relationships between family members, since proving incest is generally quite easy in comparison.
I guess the justification can be seen as similar to why we outlaw speeding: what you want is outlaw dangerous driving since that's a risk to others on the road, but that can be hard to prove/subjective. Instead, we ban speeding (and other stuff), which are very strong indicators of dangerous driving, directly. Easier to prove, targets very few who could "break" that law "safely", actively makes the road safer for everyone.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 pts · 6d
Well, you made a very good point and I thank you for it. I was waffling (not a supporter of the act, but also skeptical of state intervention between adults). You made it very clear why one side is very easy to support over the other.
NotFrenchJack@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 6d
Failed logic, since that premise implies abuser-victim dynamics are the default, yet laws punish both, yielding net-zero results (net-negative in reality since punishing victims is worse than not punishing abusers). The "deterrence" arguments wouldn't logically fly either, since deterring by punishing victims is also incoherent.
But that would be relevant if we are operating within a coherent logical framework in the first place. And western political ideologies (including communism) are based on the feelings of the plurality, or the whims of the guarding party. Which is why what's "right"/"correct" and/or the "why" behind it is always changing from one generation to another, which is in and of itself an indication of an illogical process.
Former western (public) arguments against incest (and "inbreeding", extending to cousin marriage) were based on fake medical/genetic/... concerns that were fully based on mythical folklore that still partially survives. But since this doesn't fully fly today, coming up with some new fake rationalizations like the one you provided became necessary.
Note that I'm not arguing for (or against) incest (which itself is not globally fixed in definition, see cousin marriage above). I'm just showing that pretending that either position would be based on "logic" in any modern "post-christian" western ideological framework is hubris.
The only logical coherent system would have to be based on fixed (not whim-sensitive) above-human code (a la sharia law). But a "post-religion" crowd is not ready, emotionally or intellectually, to epistemologically entertain such thoughts.
ChairmanMeow@programming.dev · 2 pts · 5d
With incest it is the default. In two-thirds of incestuous relationships one party is underage. Usually it's the father abusing a daughter. Familial bonds are almost by definition a power-dynamic where consent cannot be guaranteed. In the vast majority of cases, there's underlying abuse.
Incestuous relationships are only punished in one direction (e.g. the abuser is punished, not the victim). It's illegal to serve as a much easier lever to get a conviction, to protect victims. And it is, based on about every study you can find on the subject, very successful in this endeavour.
Incest is generally considered taboo in many cultures around the world, western and non-western.
You could argue this for cousin-relationships, but anything closer does in fact increase the chances of genetic defects. The effects of inbreeding are very well known. Even with cousins, multi-generational inbreeding can cause defects. Autosomal recessive disorders are simply much more likely (it's basically high-school biology, not "folklore"). Various animals also show inbreeding avoidance behaviour, it's not even exclusive to humans.
NotFrenchJack@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 5d
Off-topic. Criminal codes around adult incest punishes both parties.
That's a universal truth.
What makes it taboo, what is it precisely that is taboo, what reference ideology/statues (if any) is it based on, what is believed to be a deserved (earthly) punishment (if any) and for whom, and who has the right to enact such punishments, is what's relevant here.
Those steps could be coherent or logically consistent or not. And that's required before getting into a right or wrong verdict.
The laws in the modern nation state and how they come into existence fundamentally lack that logical rigor, irrespective of the topic at hand.
Feel free to actually source scientific facts and concrete numbers. Maybe what is believed to be "high-school biology" is the problem. The folklore part is beliefs that defects can be born out of otherwise healthy individuals (e.g. with no carried bad genes, in high-school biology parlance). But a lot of myths leak into school influenced societal beliefs too (school is after all the state's primary conformist tool).
I advise against siting a certain study from Croatia, which despite its already understated findings (which are laughable compared to mythical folklore beliefs) was still rife with trivial process and analytical mistakes.
Having to run to "think of the children" and mythical high-school biology, is additional indication of the weaknesses of what is already an incoherent post-hoc rationalization.
ChairmanMeow@programming.dev · 2 pts · 5d
Many countries don't actually criminalize this. In less densely populated countries it's more likely to be illegal due to the risk of medical complications for any potential offspring. In countries like Germany, same-sex incestuous relationships are actually legal because of this.
Here's an entire list: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/inbreeding
Autosomal recessive disorders is the word you're looking for. I have no idea which Croatian study you're talking about. The logic is pretty basic, recessive disorders only present if you're carrying two copies of a certain gene, and that's much more likely if both of your parents share many of their genes since both are likely carriers of the recessive gene if it's in the family, hence they can both pass it on, meaning the odds of getting the disorder are vastly increased.
It being an extremely strong indicator of sexual abuse, increased medical risks for potential offspring (and their subsequent offspring, so the population at large), largely originated from the innate instinct to avoid incestuous mating shared by many other animals with biparental parenting structures. It's not ideological in origin, it's biological and instinctual.
If you don't believe any laws match this criteria then it's just a bunch of gish-gallop and not worth bringing up.
NotFrenchJack@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 5d
And you ran off-topic again. And the few countries where same-sex got through usually happened because of a loophole (criminal code explicitly mentioning vaginal penetration), not the reason you hallucinated.
You employ a lot of circular logic and "street talk" in your replies. Provide direct applicable sources. And they better not be a generic category index in some website.
Please provide specific facts from a modern study regarding human populations, nothing from 18xx-196x studies, or "sociology" sources, or artificially inseminated animal populations (you will be surprised).
And spare me the high school genetics talk. It's curious how you glossed over the folklore about how a bad gene will come to exist if it was never carried in the first place.
ChairmanMeow@programming.dev · 1 pts · 4d
It's a directly cited reason in a constitutional challenge to the law in March 2008. Feel free to Google it, you should try that sometime before you start claiming hallucinations.
What do you even mean by a "bad gene". There's dominant and recessive genes. Some can cause disorders, many of those recessive. With recessive genes, both parents can carry it and be fine, but offspring may not be. There's no point arguing until you show you understand how this works. I'm not arguing some strawman where this happens through magic, I've been very explicit I'm talking about autosomal recessive disorders, which is very well known and well understood.
I've literally cited an entire corpus of studies that you keep dismissing as "folklore". You can look at any of them and see you're wrong. At this point you either get to cite a study showing it's fine, or you should accept you're wrong.
SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 6d
Except that speeding is, in and of itself, actively dangerous and harmful
RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip · 0 pts · 7d
If it's legal for the royal families to do it it should be legal for the rest of us.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 4d
It really sucks when mods decide to interpret rules overbroadly
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · -15 pts · 7d
Wow, rule 4 tells you all you need to know about that community and mods.
Talk about closed minds.
Wren@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 7d
I agree with rule 4 and don't see how it indicates closed minds. I just don't think I broke it.