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From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: MORE MISCELLANEOUS
Message-ID: <828@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Jan-84 19:07:16 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.828
Posted: Sun Jan 22 19:07:16 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Jan-84 04:41:56 EST
References: <503@bbncca.ARPA>
Organization: U. of Tx. at Houston-in-the-Hills
Lines: 27

I would like to take Will Doherty up on his offer to furnish references
on the practice of incest in other societies.

I am aware that incest taboos vary quite a bit from culture to culture
and that some groups even go so far as to  r e q u i r e  sexual
activity or marriage among classes of relatives which other groups
place strictly off-limits;  nevertheless I haven't heard of examples
which support the radically pro-incest stance which he is taking.  What
I have heard tends to suggest that while the definition of incest
varies, the taboo against it is universal.  If he has examples to the
contrary, I would like to hear about them.

I'm trying to keep an open mind in this discussion.  My own suspicion
is that taboos against incest and cross-generational sex in general
probably serve an important function in protecting vulnerable
youngsters from exploitation, but that criminalization of those taboos
may do more harm than good.  (For example, I question the justice of
statutory rape laws which would jail an adult for sleeping with a
willing 15-year-old, even though I have serious doubts that such a
relationship would often be a "healthy" one for either partner.  An
even more blatant injustice was the recent California case in which a
girl was jailed for refusing to testify against her stepfather in an
incest trial.)

--- Prentiss Riddle
--- ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle