New York New York!

You didn't provide me with a link to your single source

Mutual adult consent in an incestuous relationship is highly suspect.

If incest doesn't present a genetic problem for humans than the necessity of bio-diversity is overplayed by its proponents.

No matter how precisely Cyclo follows the rules of proper grammar (a fact I feel sure can easily be refuted) his comments are merely cut and pastes from Democratic talking points.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

You didn't provide me with a link to your single source

I did. Look again, click on the link to Amazon, and use the preview feature to go to the chapter 5: "Ancient Egyptian sibling marriage and the Westermarck effect". If you're interested in the relevant science and the excerpt you find isn't enough to persuade you, I suggest you buy the book.

Well yes you did provide me a link to Amazon.com and an excerpt from the book, but to discern whether your argument has a rational basis I need to buy and read the book. Fair enough, but I doubt too many A2K members are about to go such a length to continue a debate, and even if they all are, I'm not. Do you deny that I could pretty easily find a book on Amazon that supports my argument? This would certainly not prove my argument any more than a single source proves yours, but it would put an identical burden on you.

Your source may be 100% correct, but it advances a highly controversial premise that few people will find consistent with what have learned over the years. Again, this certainly doesn't mean the source is full of ****, but it does make reliance upon it a dodgy prospect for what should be other than a strictly academic premise for A2K debate.

It's certainly OK for you to insist that your position is supported by your source , and requires me to refute it. I'm not going to make the effort though and so our discussion could end here.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Mutual adult consent in an incestuous relationship is highly suspect.

Couples don't have to prove to anyone that their sexual relations are mutually consensual. The burden of proof rests on those who would criminalize them. And the mere fact that a relationship is suspect to you doesn't rise to any standard of evidence.

Not really.

Incest is illegal in most countries and the various states are not required to prove anything other than the individuals are blood relatives.

This may not comport with what you would prefer, but it is nevertheless reality.

Since incest is almost universally criminalized, our discussion is academic. You argue that incestuous couples should not have to prove the validity of their consent.

Should adults and children who engage in sexual acts need to prove the validity of their alleged consent, or should that be left to the State?

A fair response might be that children, by law, are incapable of informed consent, but if you choose to adopt it, I would be interested in how you distinguish it from an argument that children (of any age) are not capable of informed consent concerning sex with their parents.

Where is the bright line dividing the two arguments?

Mere chronological age?

I wonder if you are suggesting that no one other than depraved miscreants will ever argue that "children" can form informed consent concerning sex with an adult.

There's probably no grey area concerning children who have not reached puberty, but some children are biologically capable of sexual reproduction as young as 11 years of age.

Are you comfortable with the notion that sex between an adult and a 15 year old is illegal? How about children who are 16, 14, or 13?

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

If incest doesn't present a genetic problem for humans than the necessity of bio-diversity is overplayed by its proponents.

This argument is invalid. Promoting biodiversity is about the stability of ecosystems, and about preserving our biological heritage. Prohibiting incest is about preventing hereditary diseases, and about protecting the weak against pressure to have sex with their elders. The two issues have nothing to do with one another.

. Do you deny that I could pretty easily find a book on Amazon that supports my argument?

Since incest is almost universally criminalized, our discussion is academic.

You argue that incestuous couples should not have to prove the validity of their consent.

Should adults and children who engage in sexual acts need to prove the validity of their alleged consent, or should that be left to the State?

I would be interested in how you distinguish it from an argument that children (of any age) are not capable of informed consent concerning sex with their parents.

Where is the bright line dividing the two arguments?

Mere chronological age?

You don't seem to understand Fido.

While incestual relationships are very likely to lead to bad results for the participants, who are we to make force this wisdom upon individuals who want to boink their brothers or daughters?

That the practice leads to genetic destruction for the whole is meaningless to the liberal who believes that it all about the individual's desires...when the topic is pleasure.

When an individual wants to teach their children that God hates homosexuals, that intrudes upon the collective and must be prohibited.

In any case, once same sex marriages are common place (as they eventually will be) then there will be lots of examples of gay and lesbian Kardashian farces.