homosexuality vs. incest vs. beastiality,polygamy,etc.

[112233]

Oh but it is a strong argument.

 

just the FACT there is a chance there will be an abnormal birth and if allowed for ages, ultimatley a decrease in quality of the human genes.

 

Anyone stupid enough to engage into an incestuous relationship probably will be dumb enough to spread the tainted Genes.

 

You crack me up. Tainted genes indeed, look in a mirror. There is always a chance of "an abnormal birth", genius. Being "allowed for ages" changes nothing, and the genes are not tainted. A member of a population that has been highly inbred will, when bred with a member of another population, not have any different odds than any other non-inbred pairing.

 

In short, there's no "damage" that is passed down.

[Scottdmw]

I think most people would agree that the way to judge whether a sexual relationship is moral or not is whether it causes more harm than good. So for example many people have said that incest is a bad idea because of the well-known genetic issues it causes plus the disruption of the existing family relationships of parent to child or sibling to sibling.

 

The main problem is that often people have trouble being objective about this. If someone is feeling a strong sexual draw to ANYTHING, that person is going to really want to convince themselves that whatever it is they want is okay. They will try to convince themselves that the dangers are minimal and the benefits great. They will convincingly tell other people that the relationship they want is good. People can and do justify all manner of painful and damaging relationships because they really want to keep the sex part going. Surely just about everybody has seen some kind of sexual relationship from the outside where they ask themselves “why does this person stay in this?” It’s because sex is highly addicting and it makes it very difficult for people to be objective about themselves.

 

You have to ask if a particular kind of relationship really is in a person's best interests. It is not enough to ask whether the person wants the relationship, or feels pleasure out of it. You can say that much about for example taking cocaine or other illegal drugs. The fact that someone wants to do something and it feels good does not prove that it is good for the person. The fact that a person chooses a relationship does not prove that it's good for them either, generally alcoholics want to keep drinking and gambling addicts want to keep playing. All these things are pleasurable and fun in the short term, it is in the long-term that the problems happen. You have to look at the relationship in the context of the person's entire life and decide if it really is benefiting the person.

 

So, as others have pointed out, there are serious downsides to some of these practices. With incest, one can say, okay you are in love with your family member. We admit that the love and desire you feel is real. But, is it really best for both of you? How about you break that off and fall in love with somebody else? You sacrifice a finite time period of suffering for a relationship that is ultimately going to be healthier.

 

With polygamy, It would seem to me like there are serious problems with a polygamous relationship. There is a greater risk for spreading disease. It seems inevitable that the relationship will be unequal with some partners favored over others, leading to jealousy. If there are children, I would suspect that would create further tensions. People have a lot of biological hardwired instincts regarding children. Let's say there is a polygamous threesome with one man and two women, and one of the women has a child while the other is unable to. How long is it going to take before the childless woman starts feeling left out, quite possibly with justification when the man devotes more time and interest to the mother of his child? What if it's two men and a woman, and the woman has a child with one of the men. It's not hard to imagine the other man feeling jealous and really wanting “equal treatment”.

 

With beastiality, others have pointed out it is impossible for one party to consent. What then do you say to the person who wants to do this? He will say “that's what I'm attracted to, why can't I?”He might further point out that people regularly raise animals in conditions of high discomfort and kill them for food, which they surely don’t consent to. Why is that okay but what he wants to do isn't? I would say the better objection is it's not good for the person. It is what he wants to do, but that still doesn't make it healthy. The human brain is made for sexual bonding, but this person is going to be using those neural pathways to bond with an animal. The animal will literally take the place that a human being should occupy. Then there is the risk of disease too.

 

The original post requested arguments that can be made against these relationships but not against homosexuality. I would say that is an interesting sort of request. I would ask, what are you worried about here? If an argument seems sound but it could be used against homosexuality, are you going to discount the argument because you already know the answer you want to get, or indeed feel you must get, regarding homosexuality? Why not just ask for arguments and see where they go?

 

Scott

[112233]

You cannot back that up any more than I can back up what I said.

 

How can one prove that something cannot happen? The fact is, however, that there's no viable causative mechanism to support your assertion. Genes, virus(es) and bacteria don't care who we are.

[112233]

since we are discussing the article about the professor's relations with his daughter- i will say that a parent-child incestuous relationship does NOT sit well with me, ....

 

This has nothing to do with being genetically related, it's a power issue. If she were adopted it would not change my opinion in this case.

[loverofloveandstuff]

The original post requested arguments that can be made against these relationships but not against homosexuality. I would say that is an interesting sort of request. I would ask, what are you worried about here? If an argument seems sound but it could be used against homosexuality, are you going to discount the argument because you already know the answer you want to get, or indeed feel you must get, regarding homosexuality? Why not just ask for arguments and see where they go?

 

Scott

 

I'm not sure if you read the whole thread but a few posts down I asked if we could make this a post regarding just homosexuality and incest. And yeah, asking for arguments either way probably would've been a better way to do it. I don't think it really matters though, people will and have expressed their arguments and opinions in that manner anyway.

[112233]

Maybe I worded it wrongly. I didn't mean to say that the law is necessarily correct when making these moral judgements, just that the law DOES make moral judgements and dictate what is right and wrong in a society ...

 

No, wrong. The law cannot make something moral or immoral, it makes things legal or illegal. In America, laws make things illegal, everything is legal by default and laws restrict that. In America, there is no such thing as "legalizing" something, the correct term would be "decriminalizing" or something like that.

 

Pretty sure other places are not Universally this way.

 

Making something that is immoral legal does not make it moral. Making something moral illegal does not make it immoral, except that breaking the law might be considered immoral as a separate consideration. The act, in and of itself, is no more or less moral than it ever was.

[112233]

You have to ask if a particular kind of relationship really is in a person's best interests. It is not enough to ask whether the person wants the relationship ....

 

No, I really don't. It's not my job, nor should it be yours, to force others to conform to what you or I think is best for them. If it does me no harm, it'snot my concern. If it does me harm, work the problem logically.

[loverofloveandstuff]

No, wrong. The law cannot make something moral or immoral, it makes things legal or illegal. In America, laws make things illegal, everything is legal by default and laws restrict that. In America, there is no such thing as "legalizing" something, the correct term would be "decriminalizing" or something like that.

 

Pretty sure other places are not Universally this way.

 

Making something that is immoral legal does not make it moral. Making something moral illegal does not make it immoral, except that breaking the law might be considered immoral as a separate consideration. The act, in and of itself, is no more or less moral than it ever was.

 

That's not what I was saying at all. I did not meant to say the law dictates whether things are moral or not. I was saying that homosexuality and incest are issues of morality, that's all... creighton was saying they are social orders and not moral orders and I was saying they are moral orders aswell as social orders. The mere fact that you have to ask the question whether they are right or wrong (the law questions this too) makes it an issue of morality.

 

Edit: I don't believe there is an objective morality anyway... and if there was, it would certainly not be defined by the law as the law is always changing.

Edited December 17, 2010 by loverofloveandstuff

[creighton0123]

That's not what I was saying at all. I did not meant to say the law dictates whether things are moral or not. I was saying that homosexuality and incest are issues of morality, that's all... creighton was saying they are social orders and not moral orders and I was saying they are moral orders aswell as social orders. The mere fact that you have to ask the question whether they are right or wrong (the law questions this too) makes it an issue of morality.

 

Nah. You have it backwards a little bit. While incest, with the replacement of a familial relationship with a sexual relationship can dictate a certain measurement of intentional and avoidable harm, the same cannot be said of same-gender (homosexual) relationships, where the very presence of the relationship is neither an immoral or moral action.

 

Only a social order (a system that places 'moral' weight, consequences, and rewards on amoral constructs) recognizes that homosexuality is an issue of morality.

 

A moral order would simply weight the construct against avoidable or intentional harm.

 

Outside of established social order, homosexuality is not an issue of morality in any way, shape, or form. In fact, one can easily recognize that the maltreatment of gay couples within social orders, such as the denial of basic equal treatment and civil equality, causes both intentional and avoidable harm, making any anti-gay actions inherently immoral.

 

The same is not true for incest. The two constructs (incest vs. sexual orientation) cannot be compared. It is a fundamentally invalid and degrading comparison.

[112233]

Nah. You have it backwards a little bit. While incest, with the replacement of a familial relationship with a sexual relationship can dictate a certain measurement of intentional and avoidable harm, the same cannot be said of same-gender (homosexual) relationships, where the very presence of the relationship is neither an immoral or moral action.

 

When you find a case where the parents of the young men involved can be sure to have grandkids as a result of the "mating", I'll believe you. Not passing on genes successfully could be reasonably argued to be the ultimate harm anyone could inflict on another.

 

Not judging, just saying your point is a nonstarter.

[theBrokenMuse]

Pretty sure that's not technically true. Any existing recessive flaws may tend to become manifest, but there is not, to my knowledge, any more 'deterioration' of the alleles than in any other sort of sexual reproduction.

Consistent inbreeding is a closed system in which new genetic material is not being accessed. Closed systems increase entropy. To argue against this you would have to repeal the second law of thermodynamics.

[112233]

Consistent inbreeding is a closed system in which new genetic material is not being accessed. Closed systems increase entropy. To argue against this you would have to repeal the second law of thermodynamics.

 

Um, dude, *ANY* gene pool is a closed system, "inbreeding" is no different than any other gene pool as far as the second law of thermodynamics is concerned. Really nice hail Mary there though.

[theBrokenMuse]

Um, dude, *ANY* gene pool is a closed system, "inbreeding" is no different than any other gene pool as far as the second law of thermodynamics is concerned. Really nice hail Mary there though.

FFS, one introduces NEW genetic material and one does not. The one that does not is going to break down quicker than the one that does... how is this hard for you to understand? Magnets, how do they work?

[112233]

... one introduces NEW genetic material and one does not. The one that does not is going to break down quicker ....

 

Wow, are you seriously asking this?

 

OK, we have a gene pool of 6.7 billion individuals. Where does the "new genetic material" come from Einstein? Now we have a gene pool of 6.7 million, same. Now, 6700, same. Now 67, same.

 

Genes don't "break down" from inbreeding. What happens is that the total number of different alleles in the pool is lower and there is a greater potential for any EXISTING defective alleles that code for a recessive condition to be expressed in an individual.

 

Some populations are so deeply inbred that one can accept transplants from another without an immune response, but they have no issues due to a lack of defective genes in the pool. Some species are genetically identical in all individuals and yet they continue to interbreed without issue, the ultimate in inbreeding. Each offspring is genetically identical to all the others. Show me the "break down", please.

 

You are seriously confusing cause and effect here.

[theBrokenMuse]

OK, we have a gene pool of 6.7 billion individuals. Where does the "new genetic material" come from Einstein? Now we have a gene pool of 6.7 million, same. Now, 6700, same. Now 67, same.

You don't seem to grasp genetic variation within a gene pool or biodiversity. It is now believed that inbreeding can lead to extinction.

 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v392/n6675/full/392441a0_fs.html

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1382885

Edited December 18, 2010 by theBrokenMuse

[112233]

You don't seem to grasp genetic variation within a gene pool or biodiversity. It is now believed that inbreeding can lead to extinction.

 

Oh my god, it's hail Mary v2.0.

 

None of that is due to some magical "break down" in the DNA, it's all simply due to what is often referred to as the founders effect and the fact that a uniform population will tend to be uniformly resistant to a specific threat. That resistance might be very high, which is great, or very low, which is a problem.

 

For instance, the species I cited above is not in any danger of spontaneously failing due to genetic "break down", all the individuals are identical after all. What it is gravely in danger of is extinction due to some disease or other cause ravaging the entire population.

 

Again, cause vs. effect.

 

Go for v3.0?

[Hi.P.O'Crit]

Genes don't "break down" from inbreeding. What happens is that the total number of different alleles in the pool is lower and there is a greater potential for any EXISTING defective alleles that code for a recessive condition to be expressed in an individual.

 

Google ostrich foot people.

[goingstrong]

The same is not true for incest. The two constructs (incest vs. sexual orientation) cannot be compared. It is a fundamentally invalid and degrading comparison.

 

Now I have heard it all.. a LGBT person that is an incestaphobe and polygaphobe.I guess the LGBT community has their limits as well, but 2 consenting adults can do whatever they want sexually..right? Oh that's right, you have generations of homosexual civilizations that back up your POV.

Edited December 18, 2010 by goingstrong

[creighton0123]

When you find a case where the parents of the young men involved can be sure to have grandkids as a result of the "mating", I'll believe you. Not passing on genes successfully could be reasonably argued to be the ultimate harm anyone could inflict on another.

 

Not judging, just saying your point is a nonstarter.

 

Is the harm being intentionally done by the gay couple involved, or by the parents who believe themselves harmed if they don't have grandchildren? Or should gay men and women date and have a baby with someone of the opposite gender with the expectation of romantic longevity that they cannot deliver on?

 

While I've understood parental desire for grandchildren, I could never understand a parent who feels hurt or harmed if a child does not give them a grandchild. In fact, it would seem that the expectation of a grandchild alone is one that can cause emotional harm to the child involved.

[creighton0123]

Now I have heard it all.. a LGBT person that is an incestaphobe and polygaphobe.I guess the LGBT community has their limits as well, but 2 consenting adults can do whatever they want sexually..right? Oh that's right, you have generations of homosexual civilizations that back up your POV.

 

Personally, I have nothing against polygamous/polyamorous couples. If a number of unrelated adults share in a common emotional, romantic, and sexual bond and it brings them happiness, by all means.

 

Historically, polygyny was implemented as a form of gender oppression, where a man could have as many wives as he could sustain, but a woman did not have the ability or option to do the same. I know a few people in open relationships or polyamorous relationships that are as happy as happy can be.

 

The point still remains valid. When laws or opinion are against incest, one TYPE of relationship is denied. When laws or opinion are against polygamy/polyamory, one type of relationship is denied. When laws or opinion are against homosexuality (gay couples), ALL types of relationships are denied.

 

Incest/Polygamy/Bestiality are invalid comparisons since they absolutely transcend sexual orientation. The comparison in and of itself is inherently insulting since it is used by the most abhorrent homophobes in the world.

 

You may not recognize it, but any gay man or woman who is struggling for full civil equality and for basic and equal treatment are told almost every day that their relationships are evil, twisted, disgusting, satanic, immoral, abhorrent, etc. etc. etc. Every day when I am fighting to protect the man I love and ensure that he is taken care of should something happen to me, I have what is otherwise the greatest relationship and love of my life compared to bestiality, incest, and pedophilia.

 

The insult isn't in the discussion going on here, but in the discussion in general. To us, it raises the same negative connotations, hateful responses, vitriol, and hostility that we face every time an anti-gay bigot tells me to go "Die of AIDS".

[112233]

Google ostrich foot people.

 

Google founders effect. This is not some magical genetic breakage.

[Scottdmw]

No, I really don't. It's not my job, nor should it be yours, to force others to conform to what you or I think is best for them. If it does me no harm, it'snot my concern. If it does me harm, work the problem logically.

 

Where did I say anything about forcing anyone? Force is ineffective and counterproductive when trying to help people with these kinds of things.

 

I'm not really sure what your objection here is. The whole point of this discussion is to ask whether some sexual relations are or are not harmful and why.

 

Do you really believe that if something doesn't harm you it's not your concern? Would you follow that logic through with something that you definitely accepted was harming a person, for example if you saw someone that was addicted to drugs and obviously destroying their life? Would you just tell yourself it's not your concern and do nothing?

 

Scott

[Scottdmw]

 

Incest/Polygamy/Bestiality are invalid comparisons since they absolutely transcend sexual orientation. The comparison in and of itself is inherently insulting since it is used by the most abhorrent homophobes in the world.

 

I'm sure you find this comparison unpleasant. However, you seem like a reasonably logical debater. Surely you must recognize that whether it is insulting or unpleasant has no bearing whatsoever on whether it is a true argument. An argument is not rendered invalid because an evil person uses or misuses it.

 

I'm sure you would want to disagree with the following argument, but perhaps you could at least understand that not everyone who makes it is out to harm you or force you to do anything.

 

If a person believes that having children, and (also importantly) raising them with their natural father and mother in the best possible environment, is a great good and an extremely important part of any human's life, then the thing that homosexuality has in common with the other practices is that it tends to prevent that by substituting a relationship that has the potential to produce children in a good environment with one that cannot. Those are things that you are missing out on, and that your partner is also missing out on. Perhaps it is truly impossible for you, or perhaps not, there is a spectrum of bisexuality. Right now our culture places a huge imperative on the idea that men and women cannot get married and have children together unless they feel maximum sexual attraction for each other, and that life is hardly worth living without that kind of relationship. Other cultures have disagreed with that idea. In the end you do have to make your own decision on these things, but recognize as I described in my original post that it is very difficult for a person to be objective about the good or harm of their sexual relationships.

 

Scott

[112233]

.... for example if you saw someone that was addicted to drugs and obviously destroying their life? Would you just tell yourself it's not your concern and do nothing?

 

Scott

 

In a word yes. What would you have me do? While I'm willing to help if they want help, I'm unwilling to force them to change. It's their choice to make.

[Scottdmw]

In a word yes. What would you have me do? While I'm willing to help if they want help, I'm unwilling to force them to change. It's their choice to make.

 

I think there is a middle ground between forcing someone and doing nothing. It involves doing things like trying to get through to the other person that you think they are hurting themselves. That can be difficult and is often fruitless and thankless, but that's not to say that it is impossible.

 

Scott