Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!agate!eris.berkeley.edu!doug
From: doug@eris.berkeley.edu (Doug Merritt)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Incest avoidance
Message-ID: <1991Apr23.173353.14984@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 23 Apr 91 17:33:53 GMT
References: <1991Apr5.233453.3577@leland.Stanford.EDU> <21529@crg5.UUCP> <3360@beguine.UUCP>
Sender: root@agate.berkeley.edu (Charlie Root)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 76

In article <3360@beguine.UUCP> joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields) writes:
>In article <21529@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:
>>For humans, parental proximity would predict the following:
>>
>>* Societies where fathers do not actively help raise their daughters
>>  from a young age will have a higher frequency of father/daughter incest
>> [ etc ]
>
>The above predictions are all very well and good if child/parental incest
>in humans occured because of sexual attractiveness or fertility or even
>to spite social moral.  However, most incest does not occur for those
>reasons, rather for power, control, manipulation, the need/desire to abuse
>something weaker.  How can a child be sexually attractive?

Your comments apply to child molestation, and to incest occuring as a
form of abuse and/or rape. I know this can be a touchy subject, but please
understand that, in a biological and anthropological sense, those are not
the only forms of incest. In fact, I think that they are the least interesting
forms for the purpose of the current discussion, because they are considered
to be pathological cases, and emotionally charged ones to boot.

In a purely neutral and striving-to-be-objectively-scientific sense, one
wants to understand mechanisms without reacting emotionally. Nick's comments
were right on track for this purpose. Discussing incest as a psychological
and/or sociological pathology is an important topic, but is getting off
the original subject.

As another illustration of non-pathological incest, consider the sibling
marriages of European monarchies. The siblings may not have been too keen
on the idea, but there was no rape nor abuse nor molestation involved. It
was a matter of politics and sociology etc.

>Incest is a
>very devestating form of abuse, it is akin to rape - only in this case
>(not just father-daughter) it lasts longer, over a period of years in some
>cases and the perpetrator is someone the child is taught to love and
>depend upon for protection.  We can always say that this is the exception
>- but it isn't.  Incest/sexual abuse is much more common than we would
>like to admit.

Certainly. I've seen the statistics; it's quite common. But also consider
(POLITICALLY-INCORRECT-THINKING WARNING!) that the statistics for sibling
incest do not generally differentiate between willing versus abusive
relations. There *are* cases where say a sixteen year old girl has incestual
relations with her thirteen year old brother, both quite willingly. One
should always distinguish such cases from those of child molestation,
sibling rape, parental rape, etc. The mechanisms involved are presumably
quite different.

And understanding the general mechanisms for incest avoidance in primates
and in humans can only help understand the pathological cases.

>The devestation that incest leaves can last for years.  The scars are deep
>and the shame, guilt, anger, and terror can destroy the grown child's
>life.  

This can of course apply even to willing cases of incest, but is far more
dependent on individual value systems (e.g. the aforementioned incestual
monarchy versus an originally-willing, later-guilty sibling incest in the
U.S.) than in cases of incestual *rape*.

>In general, incest avoidance may indeed be a factor of genetic recognition
>or proximity - it probably is, in a healthy family or society.  However,
>the reasons given for why incest occurs despite the restaints both genetic
>and cultural - are very idealistic and rare.  They may very well occur in
>a small isolated society but I don't think they happen in ours.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but keep in mind that we are all far
more emotionally involved in our own society than in others, and it is
easier to neutrally understand those other societies, and perhaps apply
the insight thereby gained to circumstances closer to home.
	Doug
-- 
--
Doug Merritt		doug@eris.berkeley.edu (ucbvax!eris!doug)
		or	uunet.uu.net!crossck!dougm