Incest---

[JHAQ]

Male - female sibling incestuous interactions seem subject to very powerful in- built prohibitions -- no doubt for genomic reasons re- mating strategies . It seems to come about by early age male / female living in close proximity for long periods . It even happens among Israeli kibbutz children , genetically unrelated to each other but whose commonality is being raised together . Does anybody know IF it is an age related phenomenom ( sort of like imprinting ) & if not why it does not arise in older people married & living together for long periods of time . Does this suggest a genetic component rather than a cultural-sociological one ?

[aj47]

I would say it's mostly just because, at a younger age, you are generally more impulsive and have increased levels of hormones i.e. testosterone, that would cause you to hit on anthing with a heartbeat anyway.

 

But saying that, there could be a variety of factors that come into play.

[Norman Albers]

One day in 1954 or so when I was five and my sister seven years old, my parents both slipped out for a half-hour to vote. They came home to find my sister and I fairly naked and jumping, sliding onto the sofa. To their everlasting credit they did not freak out. We got dressed! If you need a theoretical statement here, and I hope you do not, sexuality is a smooth spectrum of cultural possibilities. Love is simply a matter of , "What is the appropriate form here?" If you find me naked and sliding on your sofa, I will understand if you find it not appropriate. With love, Norm . . . .GO TO 'Phi for all', and his reaction to the panties of his fiance's sister. You cannot make up stuff this good.

[JHAQ]

To add I think it is an inherent mating strategy genetically mandated . There is

an extraordinary good book by Olivia Judson -- Dr Tatianas Sex Advice for

All Creation which gives details of just how remarkable the instinctive or

even mechanical strategies are employed in nature to ensure the perpetuation

of personal genomes into the next generation . Incest is to be avoided to

minimise deleterious recessive gene recombination with sometimes

catastrophic results

[Norman Albers]

I would guess that this fact was recognized by some cultures and not by other, lesser lights, or those with less cultural 'memory' passed down.