Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

[Izzy-chandess]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

I can't help but think that it's creepy... I guess it's only coz most of my cousins are 20 years older than me... Ewwwwwww...

If they were the same age as I was, I don't see a problem with it. My grandparents were cousins so I really don't have a problem with cousins dating or getting married.

[All_That_Chaz]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

it's viewed as wrong by society and by law. if you want to define that as "creepy," that's up to you.

i mean, your friend was obviously very disturbed about the fact that his parents are cousins. i'm willing to bet that if you asked him why he was so upset by this, he wouldn't be able to tell you anything beyond something like, "...they're cousins, that's just wrong!"

personally, and I may be lambasted for this, i've always thought that two consenting adults should be able to do what they want in bed. it's weird, but so is a lot of sh!t that people do in bed, and i'm not one to make judgments. i understand the problems involving the possibility of problems with the products of incest, and that's why it should be illegal to have children through incest. the problem is you can't really make a law that says, "alright you can have sex, but no kids." something like that kind of forces people to have abortions, which is a whole other debate, but i think we can agree that an avoiding an unwanted pregnancy is a good thing.

i want to make it clear that i'm not defending incest, i'm just not judging.

[Myst1278]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

My personal thought is that most of the time, the taboo of the situation is what keeps it from happening. If the only consequence was a danger to the offspring, relationships like these occur more frequently.

For instance: Let's say 2 cousins are dating, but have made a promise that they won't have children, because of the risk factor. I can't see anything wrong with this situation, it doesn't physically hurt anyone inviolved. However, if parents or friends find out about this, the couple may be shunned for their actions (there's a possibility for acceptance). Why is that? It's just NOT DONE. It's taboo.

[jamuko]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

I think it's worth bringing up again what someone else mentioned earlier...

It can't just be because of birth defects, since there are other things that make a couple more likely to have a child like that but we don't shun those couples or prevent them from having a kid regardless.

With that in mind, I don't think it should be so taboo to find out you're related after the fact. If nobody minds before that fact is revealed, then there isn't anything really wrong with it, so it seems dumb to let that get in the way so much.

I might change my mind with really close familial relationships like brother/sister because of the much higher rate of defect, but I think that instance has gotta be extremely rare.

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Well the thing is, in some states you can legally get married with a cousin but you have to be over the age of 60. Either that or you have to snip your tubes or get a vascectomy. I find that really weird, because there is after all genetic counselling for any couples, cousin or not, that can give a pretty good assessment regarding the birth defect risk factor.

I too think that the reason so many are scared to come out with their feelings and end up in some form of deppression *found some more people on a forum yesterday*, is because of the taboo. I found a couple on msn through a site called cousincouples.com who's parents found out and holy crap did they blow. Their family has kept them from seeing eachother for around 4 and a half years now and counting.

[seththelezzy]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Well, mental problems, yes. Physical deformations, no. I don't think there is a higher risk of deformations in cousins. But I think that relatives have a higher chance of giving their children an extra Chromosome 21.

[Lamoc]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

To be 100% honest. Who gives a crap? It shouldn't matter if your related, homosexual, jewish, whatever! It's your life not anyone elses. Screw anyone that doesn't approve of the way you live your life. It's yours. If they don't like it, that's thier problem!

[devonin]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

Screw anyone that doesn't approve of the way you live your life. It's yours. If they don't like it, that's thier problem!

So you'd be okay with me, if I had AIDS, deciding I wanted to live my life by walking around with open sores, bleeding wounds, and spit at people?

The main objection to incestuous relationships being presented here is medical not moral. People are positing that there are above-average health risks to related individuals having children...this causes problems for the child, not the parents, and it is a justifyable objection to say "Since this increases the risk to the child, they ought not to be able to have a child"

The taboo is a societal safety valve because it's easier for a culture to just train people to think that sexual relationships with family members is inappropriate than it is to train them all to understand the scientific reason why procreation within bloodlines is hazerdous.

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

So you'd be okay with me, if I had AIDS, deciding I wanted to live my life by walking around with open sores, bleeding wounds, and spit at people?

The main objection to incestuous relationships being presented here is medical not moral. People are positing that there are above-average health risks to related individuals having children...this causes problems for the child, not the parents, and it is a justifyable objection to say "Since this increases the risk to the child, they ought not to be able to have a child"

The taboo is a societal safety valve because it's easier for a culture to just train people to think that sexual relationships with family members is inappropriate than it is to train them all to understand the scientific reason why procreation within bloodlines is hazerdous.

Actually it's not medical, it's moral. Studies in the recent years have already shown that birth defect rates for first cousins are only on average 3% higher than that of normal couples, plus there is genetic counselling available so the risk would be reduced even further. The so called medical reasons are just an excuse many people dish out in order to justify their otherwise unjustifiable moral issues with cousin relationships. Well that's what I think anyways <__<.

You having AIDS with open sores and bleeding wounds and spitting at people is another issue because you actively harming other people. Cousins in romantic relationships don't physically hurt anyone and with genetic counselling their chances of harming their future children are also minimal.

Besides, as I had mentioned before, if it really is mostly medical and so much a moral issue, then people with hemophilia should also be banned, since the chances of them passing on the very potentially fatal disease to their children would be on average 50%. Women with vaginal herpes should also be banned from having children if that is the case, because it's skin to skin contact that transmits, and when a woman gives birth, you better believe there's a lot of skin to skin contact. Hell the child might be infect with the herpes even before birth.

[devonin]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

I wasn't saying "The issue is solely medical and not at all moral" I was pointing out that a decently large number of the people who were posting opposition to the idea were making appeals to medical logic rather than moral logic. I was responding to Lamoc's general tendency to respond to almost every topic of discussion in CT with moral and emotional appeals, more than anything else.

[sk8mastr]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

what about cousins not by blood but marrige *and yes i have bad spelling*

[chaoticblue]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

I'm sure that cousins by marriage are still slightly looked down upon if they start a relationship, but I'm pretty sure it's nowhere near as bad as blood related cousins. Part of the whole thing has to do with familiarity as well, I mean if you grew up knowing the person, you tend to sort of put them in the brother/sister category and generally are not interested in starting a romantic relationship with them. If you didn't know them at all until much later in life though I kind of think it might be normal to have hte possibility of a relationship linger in your mind.

[AriesMalvis]

Re: Romantic relationships with cousins, creepy?

yea if you're blood related it makes things seem a gazillion times worse

i don't have any attractive cousins lol