Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Well, as I recall, isn't the american phrase "Kissing cousins" referring to second cousins, on the grounds that at that point, you are genetically distant enough to have kids with basically no risk of genetic issues?

On the Six Degrees of Seperation front, you can connect yourself, by blood, to almost anybody to some extent, so theoretically there is a line whereupon it just shouldn't matter. My step-mother's parents found out after having been married, that they were something like third cousins once removed. I don't see such a distant link making any difference, especially if discovered after the fact.

That said, ew, gross, ick. Not something I am personally a proponant of, but if it is determined that biologically you're far enough apart that there's no particular risk to having kids, far be it from me to try and stop you.

But even if you are not biologically far enough apart, as first cousins there is around a 2.5 - 4% increase of risk compared to 'normal' couples. Even with this risk though, who are we to stop them?

I mean, to me love is love right? I really don't think that there should be a limit to love because well, life is short and you can die at any moment. Our purpose here on earth? I don't even know if we have one, so I figure I might as well enjoy everything that I can since there's no guarantee of an afterlife either. I mean as long as I'm not harming anyone else then I really don't think that there is anything I can't or won't do as long as I like it.

I just don't think it's very fair that if people found out about something like this, they probably really would tear my friend a new one and harrass him like there was no tomorrow. Why would people actively try and prevent two people from attaining happiness?

[FaintScent]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Hmm this topic reminds me of that episode on house...
A highschool dropout couple elope together, the woman gets sick and it in serious pain in the brain. After many trials of what's causing it, they find out that they are both half brother and sister. Their father had an affair with her mother. The reason the couple eloped together was because the father never approved of them and abused them (mainly the man). The father was a drunk aswell... But anyways yes, they both ended up geting sick from eachother because of that... it's kinda sad.. they were really inlove... the woman couldn't accept the fact that she was realted to the love of her life...

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Huh? How'd they end up getting sick by being together?

[flawofhumanity]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

I think the main reason people consider blood relative (in this case cousins) dating as wrong is just the "creepy" factor that was instilled into them throughout the beginning of their life. I mean, if you're told "that's gross" every time a particular subject is brought up for the first ~18 years of your life, chances are you will think it's gross.

For the sake of comparison, think of slavery. There was no real reason to the whole "Black people are inferior to white people" mentality, yet people spent their life defending the concept of slavery. Why? Well, chances are that for their whole life they were taught the very thing, and so they believed it.

I believe this is of the same concept. In my opinion, none of the medical reasoning behind the concept is strong enough to disallow marriages within blood (cousins in particular), yet we hold tightly to that 2.5%-4% because that's what we've been raised with.

This, however, is where slavery and marriage to cousins split. The former affected a whole race, and therefore there were eventually enough people to break the concept and force people to accept that their perspective was a flawed one. With the latter there aren't enough people affected to cause any widespread change, therefore we seem to be stuck with "ew....that's creepy."

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

That's true, but that 2.5 - 4% thing was fairly recent, some time after year 2000 I think. Before people used to think the percentage was up in the fifties or it was almost a certain thing that your kid would be retarded if you had it with a cousin. the 2.5 - 4% thing was meant to debunk the myth, but unfortunately who goes around looking for these kinds of statistics anyways? Most people don't have a reason to, so as you said, they stuck with the "ew.... that's creepy."

[FaintScent]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Huh? How'd they end up getting sick by being together?

Through intercourse....(if you may not know, House it a tv show about major sugeries/ problems by finding out what has cause this to people){okay i'm really bad at summaries..}
Well anyway.. it first started with the woman passing out with headaches and trumendos pain, she went into a minor traumma beacuse of a bad dream.
But then it was also happening to the man aswell.. so they figured that they were related... and checked.. that there was a disease cause by having sexual intercouse with a close realted person

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Are you sure it's an actual disease and not a work of fiction? If it indeed is a real disease, does everyone who has sex with another of close relations get it or is it like normal STD's where it's infectious or you're born with it?

[FaintScent]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Umm it is a desease... i found it on wikapedia... what happened is that they were both losing protien ...o.o

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fools_for_Love

[theinsomniacnimrod]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Attraction is a very biological thing and a major part of it lies in pheromones. We are not conscious of it, but we are generally attracted to people with DNA that is different than ours. It ensures evolution and the continuation of superior offspring. When parents of different genes have children, the kids have a better chance of receiving 'good' genes when they mix, whereas when the DNA is too similar, there is almost no chance for this to happen.

How different is a cousin's DNA than yours? When you examine it, you are only seperated by one other person along the mixing path, and your genes are extremely similar. This gives an increased chance for things to go wrong. This may or may not happen - but the percentages are higher than if the parents had more diverse genes.

There is more than a social reason we are not attracted to our siblings, parents, or close relatives. Nature guides us to mates that give our offspring the best chance in life and those close to us do not provide this.

Sorry for all this science - took one too many biology classes

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

But for cousins, doesn't the similarity in the genes reduce the chance of miscarriage?

[midnghtraver]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

I change my mind, relative relationships are ok, I mean look Adam and Eave did it ... (am I spelling Eave right?)

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Lol true, and Eve wasn't even his sister, she was made from a piece of his ribs!!

And while we're on the subject of famous people who got it on with their relatives, here's a couple more that I found while trying to distract myself from the imminent history exam:

Charles Dawin and Emma Wedgewood
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Sir John A. MacDonald
Jessie James
Albert Einstein
Edgar Allen Poe
Jean Sebastien Bach
H.G. Wells
Werner von Braun
Queen Victoria
Jerry Lee Lewis
Biblical Mary and Joseph *I am really not sure about this one but there are some people who told me they were first cousins*

[jamuko]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Sorry to post this in CT, but regarding that House episode:



(Disclaimer: no, I didn't draw it)

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

heheheh, I nice cartoon XD.

[Lamoc]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

I don't know, I realy don't see anything wrong with it.