Sunday, August 5, 2018

If She Wasn't Serious, She Wouldn't Have Revealed Her Feelings

There are better places than Reddit to have a serious discussion about consanguinamory, but I thought this recent post by someone with the screen name DaughterNeeds was an interesting one. This person claims to be an involved/experienced daughter, and titled the post "Respect your daughter choice and say yes"...
Actually, the only time I felt unwanted or unloved or hurt or betrayed was when my father originally told me no. He was worried that he had somehow done something wrong or that somehow I was confused.
To the fathers who are out there let me assure you of something: If your daughter comes to you can rest assured that she is sure and yes she means it! We are socially programmed from birth to believe such feelings or thoughts are immoral and unethical. If your daughter comes to you longing for you, she has had more than enough time to think, rethink, and think some more. She has likely struggled to come to terms with how she feels and she has likely contemplated a million reasons on why she should squash her feelings and most certainly has she has tried. Unknowing to you she has most certainly tried her whole life to force herself to feel for someone else as strongly and as instinctively she feels for you.
She makes a good point. Unless the situation is a recent reunion/introduction, or she's  literally insane to the point she has no idea what she's doing, a daughter making a clear pass at her father (or mother) must have thought about it a lot already. It might seem sudden to the parent, but it isn't to the daughter who is opening her heart and being extremely vulnerable.
I do believe genetic attraction is real. I too have a biological clock as it were, just as we all do; only my clock knew that my father was who I needed. I'll say again, needed. It was not just a fantasy or a phase or a silly want that I could dismiss. Deep down everything is telling me this is what I need. And until I actually got it I was not completely satisfied with my life as something always felt as if was missing until I got what I needed.
Sounds like she might be consanguinamorous in orientation.
When my father first told me no it broke my heart. I felt rejected on a level I could not ever put into words. Even today, looking back, that feeling still makes me feel heartbroken. Nothing he could say could make that level of pain and disappointment go away. I felt so hurt and even betrayed somehow. Now mind you, it was not that my father was not attracted to me (he was, very much so, but he never let me know), but rather it was as I said, he was worried that somehow he had done something wrong. He had not. In fact, it was because he had done everything right that I had felt so safe and secure with him and it allowed me to come to him with how I felt, even after fighting with myself for all those years (trying to suppress it).
Eventually, my father came around and we are in a happy committed relationship (going on six years). The only resentment I have ever had toward him was when he first would not validate my need for him (out of his own fears). I understand why he did but it would have been easier a lot sooner for the both of us if he had consented sooner. It was the only time I felt negativity and resentment toward my father.
Something I've heard over and over again from people who are involved is that their own regret was not getting together sooner.
We have been together now for five years and we both admit that our relationship is more magical than anything we could have dreamed of. We've talked in detail about how everything seems so much more intense (emotionally, physically, and spiritually). We recently gave birth to a happy baby boy who is almost a year old (9 months old). He is completely healthy and already mimicking early language skills. I feel completely happy, content, and completely satisfied with my life and the relationship I have with my father (as does he).
Congrats to them!

It is important for fathers or mothers to consider that a daughter has thought carefully and seriously about it already. Don't jump to the conclusion that it must be a fleeting, unconnected moment that will pass. There are other considerations, of course, and each person must decide for themselves what affections they are willing to share and receive. Taking things slowly is an option.

If you're having these feelings, reading this might help. If you think someone in your family has these feelings for you, this might help.

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Saturday, August 4, 2018

Same-Gender Marriage and Consanguinamory in the US


Gay marriage (or same-sex marriage, or most accurately same-gender marriage) and consanguinamory (romantic and/or erotic love between close relatives) are usually (but not always) two different things.

As of this posting, there are people fretting that allowing more consenting adults their freedom to marry is going to result in... even more consenting adults having the freedom to marry! Oh, the horror! Because the limited monogamous same-gender freedom to marry is now legal nationwide in the US, some people are asking if people in consanguineous relationships (or adult consensual incest) are going to have their rights and be treated like, you know, people.

Please note everything we're discussing here is about consensual sex and relationships between adults. We're not talking about rape or molestation.


In the US, the bigotry against marriage equality is rapidly losing out. We recently had the Supreme Court decide for the nationwide limited monogamous same-gender freedom to marry. The denial of marriage equality still currently extends to preventing first cousins from marrying in a little over half of the states. If you consider cousin marriage incestuous, then the remaining states, which allow marriages between first cousins (some with ridiculous restrictions) are where same-gender first cousins can enter into monogamous same-gender "incestuous" marriage.



There are a few states with laws against consensual sex between first cousins, including North and South Dakota, Utah, Texas, Nevada, Kentucky, and Mississippi. The states that neither marry nor criminalize will generally allow first cousins to be together without marriage.

There are some states that do not criminalize consensual incest between closer relatives than cousins, but with very few exceptions, they will not marry those lovers. Most US states still have laws against consensual incest (consanguinamory), and in most of them, people do continue to be prosecuted for simply loving each other.

Laws against gay sex have been struck down by the Supreme Court. So, gay sex is now legal nationwide, consanguinamory isn’t yet.

Mixed-gender consanguinamory (such as brother-sister sex) involves sex between consenting adults of who are closely related.*

Gay marriage is a commitment between consenting adults of the same gender.

Those are usually not the same things.

Here are some things they do have in common: 1. They are between consenting adults. 2. They don’t hurt anybody. 3. Both have been subject to discrimination and being banned by the sex-negative busybodies who like to interfere in the love lives of others. 4. There is no rational reason, consistently applied to other relationships, as to why either of these are or were banned in certain places.  5. LGBT people do not choose their orientation and people do not choose the parents to whom they are born. 6. Gay relationships and consanguineous relationships have always been part of humanity, and are common around the world.

Otherwise, they are two entirely different freedoms to marry. I support both freedoms to marry, and others, because I support relationship rights for all and full marriage equality.

An adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion, should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with ANY and ALL consenting adults (and any of those without the others), without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination. Don't like it? Then don't do it. (That’s a good, easy response to bigots that doesn't throw anyone under the bus.)

Different people have different likes and dislikes, different biases and prejudices than others. Some LGBT people are in consanguinamorous relationships. Other LGBT people are supportive, some neutral, and some disgusted by the idea. Just like everyone else. But nobody's disgust should interfere in another's life.

Consenting adults may do things with each other that might disgust a majority of other  adults, but that disgust of others should not prevent the consenting adults from having their sex or love lives. Each of us should stand up for the relationship rights of all consenting adults. Gay sex may disgust someone. Heterosexual sex may disgust another. BDSM may disgust someone else. Interracial sex may disgust someone else. Polyamory may disgust one person. Consanguinamory may disgust another. So what? The disgusted person doesn’t have to do it, but should recognize that other adults should be free to have orientations, feelings, and relationships they may not understand, and free to express their sexual desires with, and affections for, other consenting adults in the ways they want.


*Some places include adoptive or step relations under the criminalization of incest, even though there is no biological relation between the participants.

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Friday, August 3, 2018

Drug detection dogs: Would you want your innocent teen to be put through the process?

Official police figures were recently released that found drug detection dogs were wrong in almost two-thirds of all strip-searches conducted in NSW last year. Of the 1124 people strip-searched because of a so-called 'dog indication' in 2017, drugs were found just 406 times. This means that the dogs were wrong 64 per cent of the time! SA Police figures were also released earlier in the month finding drugs were found just 15 per cent of the time after indications from sniffer dogs or electronic tests, i.e., of the 2366 searches conducted, only 348 people actually had drugs on them. The dogs were wrong 85 per cent of the time in that state!

Let's start by making a few things clear - illicit drugs are just that - illegal. If you make the decision to use cannabis, ecstasy/MDMA or whatever, one of the greatest risks you face is that you could be caught and, as a result, face consequences that could change your life forever. This blog entry does not deal whether particular drugs should be legal or not. The law is the law and, as I say to young people, if you believe these laws are wrong then there are a range of organisations that you can join that exist solely to make change in this area. If you feel that strongly about it, do something - don't just sit there and moan about the laws being unfair! I also want to make it completely clear that this piece is not a criticism of the police or policing. I have worked closely with police across the country for 25 years and when it comes to the illicit drugs area they have a clear job to do - to uphold the law. Overwhelmingly, I have found the vast majority of them to be great people who care about what they do and simply want to do their job well. That said, in recent years the introduction and gradual increase in the use of drug detection dogs concerns me greatly.

Drug detection dogs were first introduced by the NSW Government in 2002 and since then have been rolled out across the country. They were introduced to provide police with greater powers when it comes to searching people. If a dog displays a particular type of behaviour (we are unclear as to what that behaviour is - we used to believe the dog had to sit down in front of someone - but that certainly isn't the case anymore), police then have the power to 'pat down' that person and search their belongings (something they previously didn't have the power to do unless they arrested them). They can then go one step further if they believe there is 'cause' and 'strip-search' the person. According to people I know in the government and drug policy, the strategy 'polls' extremely well, i.e., the general community supports the use of sniffer dogs. It would appear that many believe that if a dog identifies someone with illegal drugs on them, so be it, they have broken the law and they should suffer the consequences. The problem is that it's not only drug users that are being affected.

I have written about this topic before but have decided to raise the issue again because of a Year 11 girl I met a couple of weeks ago who had recently had a particularly traumatic experience.

Clare started the conversation by making it very clear to me that she had never used illicit drugs - it wasn't a part of her or her friends' world ("You may hear this a lot of times, but truly, we don't take drugs!" was the line she began with ..). She was attending her first dance festival with a group of friends and as she was joining the queue to go through the turnstiles Clare felt something brush against her leg. She looked down and saw a black dog sniffing around her. She does not remember the animal sitting down but she said it continued to stay with her as she kept walking. She then noticed a police officer with a leash attached to the dog. The next few minutes are all a blur for Clare but according to what her friends later told her she was then approached by another officer, this one being female and escorted to the side of the entry. 
She doesn't remember the initial 'pat-down' or what was said at that time. It wasn't until the next stage of the process that she even realized what was happening. She was taken by two female officers to what she thinks was a small tent. It was at this point that it dawned on her that this had to do with drugs. She kept telling the officers that she didn't take drugs and that she had nothing on her but was repeatedly told that the dog had detected a substance and that "the dogs were never wrong"! She was then asked to remove her clothing, piece by piece, one officer in front of her and another behind. Not surprisingly, nothing was found. 
She was clearly distressed as she told her story. She had not told her family what had happened and had not really talked about the experience with anyone. It was now even 'off limits' with the girls who attended the festival with her. She wanted to talk to me because she wanted to know why this had happened to her … During the presentation I had warned the students that if you are around people who use drugs, particularly cannabis, then the smell can get onto your clothes and into your hair and can result in a 'dog indication', but that had not been the case for Clare. There was no satisfactory explanation - the dog was just wrong!

I have no idea whether this was even a legal search - Clare was 16! In my talks to students I make it clear that if a police officer even suggests strip-searching them, they should be polite and respectful and inform them that they are underage and request that their parent or guardian is present. I have asked police services across the country to provide information about operational procedures involving dogs and whether juveniles are able to be legally searched without a parent or guardian present (I'm sure they're not and many police officers I know have agreed with me) but I have never been able to get an 'official' answer. Regardless of whether it is legal or not, it is happening! I have met many school-based young people over the years who have been searched in this way. Some were at dance festivals and the like but others were simply standing on a train station in their school uniforms and subjected to this process - that's outrageous!

What continues to baffle me is that parents are not screaming from the rafters complaining about this strategy. What if your teen was put through this process and had done absolutely nothing wrong? Ask any young person who catches a train to school and they will tell you that they have seen the dogs on the platform in the morning and have also witnessed people being searched in front of them or taken somewhere to be strip-searched. I'm sure that some will say that seeing this could be a great deterrent and may in fact help to prevent drug use. Maybe so but does that possible benefit outweigh the fact that these dogs are not perfect and so often, they get it wrong (remember, up to 85% of the time according to some figures!) … I'd really love to know how many more young people there are out there who've had a similar experience to Clare - my hunch is that there's a lot!

Police officers have a tough job - they put their lives on the line everyday to ensure the community is protected. As such, I am a supporter of giving police greater powers to keep them safer. Drug detection dogs, however, do not keep police safer, they just enable them to enter particular places without a warrant (something they weren't previously allowed to do) and search people when a dog displays a particular behaviour. I'll repeat what I said earlier, we don't even know what behaviour the dog needs to display, but based on whatever that is, police officers are allowed to pat people down, search them and their belongings and actually strip-search someone ...

Drug detection dogs can be useful tools to help prevent illicit drugs coming into the country. Using them as part of border control, whether that be at airports (checking cargo and luggage) or post offices (parcels and letters) makes perfect sense. I also have no problem with them being used to help stop the flow of drugs into the prison setting but should we really be seeing them on public transport and at entertainment venues? If there was one shred of evidence to suggest that the strategy was effective in any way, particularly when it comes to preventing drug-related harm amongst young people, who knows, I could possibly feel differently. Until then, to all parents out there - this may sound like a wonderful idea but I guarantee you won't feel the same when it is your innocent child that gets pulled over at a train station and searched ...


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NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #5


“It's not natural." Many people have been embarrassed by making this argument, because it is so easy to refute by a cursory survey of sexual, mating, and partnering habits of various animals. But invariably, the person saying that a relationship should not be allowed because they think it is unnatural constantly enjoys things that aren’t natural, from their smart phones to their toiletries to their food to their clothing to their transportation to their housing… on and on it goes. “Hey! You can’t ride a bicycle! It’s not natural!” See how ridiculous that is?

There is no good reason to deny an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, the right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (or any of those without the others) with any and all consenting adults without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

Feel free to share, copy and paste, and otherwise distribute. This has been adapted from this page at Full Marriage Equality: http://marriage-equality.blogspot.com/p/discredited-invalid-arguments.html

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #4

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #6 

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Thursday, August 2, 2018

An Open Letter to Mackenzie Phillips

Dear Ms. Phillips,

Congrats on the role in Orange is the New Black. A recent article by Keryn Donnelly at mamamia.com.au about your role was headlined with what I call the "i" word, because it gets a lot of attention. In fact, almost all of the article was about your past, rather than what you're doing now as far as acting and show biz. Your longevity in show biz is quite impressive, especially considering what you've endured.. I do remember watching your earlier roles, and I'm glad you're on such an esteemed show.

Here's what the article, which I'm assuming accurately quotes you, contained that caught my attention.
Many members of Phillips’ family have not forgiven her for exposing her relationship with her famous father. When she released her book in 2009, some spoke out against her and claimed it was unfair she had come forward with these allegations when her father was not around to defend himself.
It seems to me you were unfairly attacked.

If you were abused, then it was your story to tell regardless of whether your abuser was still alive or not.

If you were not abused, it was still your story to tell and you spared your father undue attacks while he was still alive.

But let's continue...
But Phillips says she’s made peace with her past.

“I have to say that I loved my father, and I still do. I’ve been trying to come to terms with this very difficult past,” she told Winfrey.

“I can’t be the only one this has happened to. Someone needs to put a face on not only non-consensual incest, but consensual incest, and I know that I can’t be the only one who’s lived through this. So in finding this redemption, maybe I’m helping someone else.”
You are exactly right.

Someone needs to speak up about both these two very different things that are often conflated: abuse by a close relative and consanguinamory. They are two very different things. It is our contention that the stigma and even criminalization attached to consanguinamory hinders effective prevention and prosecution of cases of abuse. It is also unjust to interfere in the love lives of consenting adults.

Because of your book and subsequent interviews, you've probably heard secrets people have, both about abuse and about consanguinamory. You've probably heard such secrets from celebrities and from fans, maybe even complete strangers you just happened to encounter.

Maybe you should be involved in raising awareness? Or maybe you just want to connect with people who don't lump all sexual activity between close relatives into the abuse category. Please feel free to reach out. As with anyone else who contacts me, I never share what someone tells my privately (even with their own lover) unless they grant me permission to do so.

I can't know for sure if your physical relationship with your father was abuse, consensual, or a mix of both. I'm not even sure if either of you could know for sure, given the mind-altering substances you both were using. I do reject the assertion that some people make that any sexual relationship between an adult and their parent is abuse by the parent. I do know that there are adults who do have consensual sex with family members, whether on a recreational level or a spousal level. I have seen it myself.


People often cite a power differential as to why such relationships should not be considered consensual. It is Discredited Argument #20. Where does the power differential end when it comes to parent-child? Is it different between father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter, and father-son? What if the parent is 50 years old and the child 33? What if the parent is 70 and the child 53? What if the child was raised by someone else? Why not just let consenting adults do what they want when it comes to sex?

Thank you for saying what you did.
If that's as far as you'll go with this, that's fine. However, I would welcome your contact, encouragement, or general support in helping to make consent clear, and honored. Abusers need to be stopped. And nobody should be rejected by family or abused, especially by their own government, for consenting to love, sex, residence, or marriage with a close relative.

You are welcome to join our forum under a screen name, where you can compare your own experiences to those of others.

-Keith Pullman of Full Marriage Equality



orange is the new black season 6 barb mackenzie phillips



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Northern Ireland Needs Full Marriage Equality

Northern Ireland is the only region of the UK that doesn't even have the limited monogamous same-sex freedom to marry. This is currently making news.

Like the rest of the planet, Northern Ireland should get full marriage equality so that an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion, will be free to marry any and all consenting adults, without fear of prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Moderate alcohol consumption increases the risk of cardiovascular events and death.

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This is How You Contact Keith

There are multiple ways to contact Keith, the person behind this blog.

1) Email is great! It is the best way. Keith's address is fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com. It also works to contact Keith at fullmarriageequality at yahoo dot com.

2) On the Wire messaging app: fullmarriageequality

3) On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fullmarriageequality

4) Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/FullMEquality - You can send Direct Messages.

5) There is a sister Tumblr to this blog. You can submit an "ask," including anonymously. You can also send a private message if you are signed in to a Tumblr account. If you submit an ask anonymously, you can't get a private response unless you provide an email address or a Facebook or Twitter or Wire or Tumblr account at which you can be reached. Say you want a private response if you don't want it published.

6) Comment here on this blog! You can comment after this entry (below) or any other entry, and you can do so anonymously if you'd like. Again, if you submit a comment anonymously, you can't get a private response unless you provide an email address or a Facebook or Twitter or Wire or Tumblr account at which you can be reached. Say you want a private response if you don't want your comment published. Comments have to be approved to be published, so you can write stuff you want Keith to see but you don't want published.




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Monday, July 30, 2018

NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #4


“My religion is against it.” If you don’t want an (adult) intergenerational, interracial, same-gender, polygamous, or consanguineous relationship or marriage, then don’t have one. But we should all have the freedoms of religion and association and in places like the US, we have separation of church and state, so this can’t be a justification for denying marriage equality or other relationships rights.

There is no good reason to deny an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, the right to share love, sex, residence, and marriage (or any of those without the others) with any and all consenting adults without prosecution, bullying, or discrimination.

Feel free to share, copy and paste, and otherwise distribute. This has been adapted from this page at Full Marriage Equality: http://marriage-equality.blogspot.com/p/discredited-invalid-arguments.html

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #3

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #5 


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