What About the Children?

Jane has released the results of her study on consanguinamory and reproduction. Kudos to Jane for yet another useful update!

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Can You Marry Your Brother-In-Law?

That was a search that brought someone to this blog.

What is a brother-in-law?

There is more than one way to have a brother-in-law.

1) He could be your spouse's brother.

2) He could have married your sibling.

3) Some people would call a man who is married to their spouse's sibling their brother-in-law. For example, if I was married to a woman and her sister (who would be my sister-in-law) was married to a man, I might refer to him as my brother-in-law.

4) Similar to 3, someone might think of their sibling's spouse's brother as their brother-in-law. Your sibling's spouse is definitely your brother-in-law or sister-in-law. Their brother could thus be called your brother-in-law.

Unless "in-law" is being used figuratively or in the sense of number 4, it means you and/or he are married. In most places where English is the predominant language, people can still only be legally married to one person at a time. Where someone can only be legally one person at a time, the only way you can "marry your brother-in-law" is by being unmarried and marrying the person described in number 4.



This is more common, especially historically, than some people think, whether marriages have been arranged or have been chosen by the spouses themselves. With arranged marriages, the families already know each other from the previous matching. With spouse-chosen marriages, it is easy to meet and spend time with your sibling's spouse's sibling.

If both couples have children, those children are "double cousins" and are like genetic siblings.

There have even been situations in which identical twin men have married identical twin women.

So yes, in that sense you can legally marry your brother-in-law, and it happens all of the time. If you are a woman, you can legally marry your brother-in-law in more countries than if you are a man.

Where heterosexual polygyny is allowed as a legal form of marriage, an umarried woman can marry the man who is married to her sister, and thus she can marry her brother-in-law in that sense.

Where heterosexual fraternal polyandry is practiced, a woman is expected to marry her husband's unmarried brother (her brother-in-law) if she is going to have a polyandrous relationship.

Otherwise, currently, someone can only marry an ex brother-in-law, meaning that one or more divorces or deaths ends the marriage(s) that made him your brother-in-law.

With full marriage equality, you will be free to legally marry any brother-in-law who is agreeable. Won't it be nice when an adult is free to marry any and  all consenting adults, so that such questions won't have to be asked?

Regardless of all of he above, sex between in-laws does happen, both in affairs and in ethical nonmonogamy.

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Your Son's Choice in Media Content

Someone recently found this blog searching "My son has started to view incest porn."

What does it mean that your son is viewing "incest porn"?

There is a wide variety of material that can fall under that category.

1. Are we talking about professionally produced videos, featuring unrelated actors, like the classic "Taboo" movies or the countless more recent offerings?

2. Are we talking about what appears to be amateur or "home made" material with people who purport to actually be related?

3. Are we talking about material that depicts assault/molestation?

The first two categories are wildly and widely popular. There are a lot of people who are watching that or material that portrays fauxcest/nearcest. (There are a lot of people who have actual experience, too.) We generally refer to that as consanguineous sex or consanguinamory to distinguish it from abuse or assault.

While category 3 isn't as popular, it still has a following and as long as we're talking about fiction with consenting actors, there isn't necessarily cause for concern. If he seems to be obsessed with abuse/assault he should probably see a mental health professional for an evaluation.

The rest of this entry will focus on a son who is watching something that falls into the first two categories, which depict consensual consanguineous sex.



There could be different things going on:

Possibility A: He has an "incest fetish" or at least mild curiosity and wants to see consanguineous sex, or at least depictions thereof, or likes it because it is "taboo." There are many people who view "incest" porn or erotica who are doing so for this reason and have no interest in any of their actual relatives. If this is the case, it's merely his entertainment and there should be no concern and there isn't anything to discuss.

Possibility B) He's consanguinamorous in orientation and this is at least part of how he is discovering/addressing (maybe even revealing) his desires. (It is important for him to know that porn and erotica are fantasy, and like most media, are usually not accurate reflections of reality.)

Possibility C) Even if he isn't strictly consanguinamorous, there is at least one close relative or family member with whom he would like to have sex, and so he finds erotica with that theme especially interesting.

B and C are where the rubber hits the road. If the son is watching material that depicts scenarios that would include the person doing the search or an actual relative he has, then there might be something to talk about with him. For example, if mom wants to know why her son is watching what is supposed to be sex between a mother and son, it could be because he wants to have sex with her, whether sex only or more of a romantic relationship. Same goes for a father who wants to know why his son watches "father-son" porn. If it is something else, like siblings, cousins, or aunt/uncle with niece/nephew then it might be something he wants with relatives who have those relations to him.

An important question is, how did the person doing the search find out that his or her son watches this material? If the parent knows because the son wanted them to know (he told them, he didn't erase his browsing history, he used a device to which he knows they have access, he allowed them to walk in on him), then he likely wants to have sex with one (or more) of them and this was a signal to them, and he was testing their reaction. If the parent knows because they have circumvented the son's attempts at privacy, there is a chance this is a "Possibility A" situation, although it could still be B and/or C.

Figuring out what is going on might include continuing to monitor his viewing habits, talking with him (could be awkward, but would be healthy), and paying close attention to what else is happening. For example, if he's been viewing brother-sister erotica and he seems to have been trying to spend more time with his sister and getting more affectionate or playful with her, then that is different than if he seems to avoid his sister.

So What's Next?

There might not be anything to do. If this is simply the son finding the erotic media he likes, there is nothing to do, provided he's old enough to view it.

If a parent understands their son wants to have sex with others in the family, the parent can attempt to be preventative, neutral, or supportive in their reaction. Preventative actions are for "sex" that wouldn't really be sex, but assault (as in, the family member or members the son wants are unable to consent). This can involve confronting the son with warnings, denying him access, etc. Neutral would mean staying out of the matter entirely and allowing those involved their privacy. Supportive could mean any number of things, up to playing the wingman. If, for example, a mother discovers her son wants to be with her sister (his aunt), the mother might talk with the aunt about it or advise her son how to approach his aunt.

If the parent understands their son wants to have sex with them, then the parent has some decisions to make. Initial reactions, especially negative ones, might change. If he's not of age, he might benefit from reading this. If he's of age, you still might want to move forward slowly.

Whatever is going on, if your son watches such media, he's  hardly alone. It is a very popular theme in erotica and porn.

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Tips For Switching to Polyamory

Quora is an excellent way ask and answer questions. I certainly recommend it over a certain Big Internet Portal That-Was-Just-Bought-by-a-Big-Telecom's Answers service. Somebody asked "What are some tips for people who are thinking about transitioning to being polyamorous?"

Before we move on to the answers, which you should check out in full by following the link above, it is important to note that for some people, they are polyamorous as who they are, just like they are left or right-handed. They are polyamorous whether they are in a relationship or not, or even if they are currently in a relationship with one person. For such people it is more a matter of becoming true to themselves. Other people can function well long-term in polyamorous relationships or monogamous relationships.

Franklin Veaux is always a good person to consult about polyamory. He is co-author of More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory...

Don’t expect that you can just try it and go back to the way things were if it doesn’t work for you. It will change things, even if you decide later to return to monogamy.

Yes it will.

Don’t imagine you can script how your “outside” relationships will develop or what they’ll look like. Other people are people, and people are complicated. Things will go in directions you didn’t expect. Theory and practice are the same in theory but different in practice. That’s okay. Cultivate an attitude of flexibility and resilience.

A person can decide what their boundaries are, but they can't decide for anyone else.

Lori Beth Bisbey, an intimacy coach and clinical psychologist...

Do some research. Read Dr Meg Barker’s book Rewriting the Rules, Franklin Veaux and Eve Richert’s book More than Two, and Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy’s book The Ethical Slut for some balanced perspectives.

Good advice.

Kari Rakitan...

Just be sure to keep your love life separate from your career for a while unless you are in a profession where such openness is actually beneficial to your work. If you want to come out to people at work later, make sure you are fully prepared to defend your decision. Some of the books Lori mentioned will be helpful for that.

It's too bad that anyone would feel pressured to keep closeted about consensual adult relationships, but sometimes it is necessary to avoid the negative effects of bigotry. Read more about protecting yourself and each other.

I will add this:

It can be much easier or at least less complicated if you're not in a relationship when you make this change. That way, as you date people, you can let them know at the appropriate time that you will not be promising monogamy because you are intentionally, ethically, nonmonogamous. Also, you can seek out partners in polyamory forums and social networking groups.

Making the transition when already in an established relationship is possible, it just means your partner has to be on board, whether or not they will be seeking new partners, and your new partner(s) has/have to be OK with your current partner being their metamour.

Why More Will Try Polyamory

Advice on Coming Out as Polyamorous To Your Parents

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The Love Overcomes the Hate

On this blog's sister Tumblr, someone asked if we get a lot of hateful messages. Go read the answer.

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NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #13

“This will cause inheritance disputes.” This can’t be a reason for the continued denial of the polyamorous or polygamous freedom to marry. Again, if we're talking about children, not all polyamorous marriages will have children. But even with today’s restriction of monogamy-only for marriage, we see inheritance disputes all of the time. Widows and widowers who were married only once get in fights with their own children, who may fight with each other. Then, in some cases, there are children born outside of that marriage. There’s divorce and remarriage with or without stepchildren or making more children, there are people who were never married who have kids, there are childless people whose inheritances are disputed, "monogamous" and polyamorous people who had children with multiple people without having been married to any those partners, on and on it goes. If anything, legalizing polygamy would make it easier to sort out inheritance. There can be default rules in the law, and people can come up with their own documented, legal agreements.

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 (and 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 (Polyamorous) Love #12 

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny (Polyamorous) Love #14

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The 'highs' and 'lows' of making a call to parents hosting a party: Three parents' experiences (one wonderful, two not-so-good!)

Last week's blog entry looked at questions parents need answered to assist them in making a decision about whether their child should attend a sleepover, party or gathering or not. In most cases, to get those answers you need to access a number of sources, including calling the host parents. It's never going to be easy to make that call and I can guarantee your child (no matter what their age) is going to want you to do it. They'll moan and groan and say you will 'shame them forever', but as one Mum wrote on my Facebook page in response to the piece ...

"If we all do the call it stops being embarrassing! They may try to whinge that we're the only parents who are uncool enough to call but it's great to be able to reply that Jon's, Matt's Lucy's, Mary's, Laura's and Dave's parents called too."

That's so true! If more parents made the call and it just became part of what was done every weekend, it would make it easier for everyone. Sadly, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. That said, I certainly think we are seeing more parents actively parenting in this area today than we saw in the past, it's just that we could do a heck of a lot better! The problem is that as another mother wrote, even if you do make the call, there are no guarantees that you are going to get the whole truth …

"Parents lie though .. I've had face to face discussion with a parent re no alcohol being at a party my daughter attended. She came home to tell me that they in fact allowed alcohol. Don't trust on face value all the time is my suggestion …"

I've written many times before about parents lying to other parents about the parties they are hosting. I've also discussed why this may be happening and the very real problems this has caused parents I have met over the years. The one thing I've never done, however, is discuss some of the experiences Mums and Dads have sent through to me when they have actually put in the effort and made the call. As already said, calling another parent and asking them about an event they are hosting is never going to be easy but as you will see from the following stories, sometimes the call goes extremely well, while at others it's a complete disaster!

Most importantly, for many parents the experience is likely to be fairly 'benign' - you'll introduce yourself, ask your questions, get some responses, thank them and get off the phone. Sometimes though, something special may happen …

Caroline's 14-year-old son, James, was invited to a sleepover. He had attended a number of such events over the previous 12 months and almost all of them were hosted by parents that she had either known or at least met either at the school or school/sporting events. She still made a call or made a point of talking to a host parent even if she knew them. This sleepover, however, was being held by a family that were new to the school. James bought an invitation home and Caroline, as always, made the call, although as she said "For some reason I didn't do it as quickly as I usually would and ended up speaking to the mother only a couple of days before the event." The phone call was uneventful and Caroline and on the night of the sleepover she took James to the door, as she usually did, met the Mum briefly, had a quick chat welcoming her to the school and left. Early the next week she received a card in the mail from the mother thanking her for the call (apparently she was the only one who did) and also for introducing herself that night (once again, she was the only one). She also asked her if she would like to catch up at some point for a coffee. They did and Caroline and Sarah (the mother) are now the closest of friends …  

Then you have the other stories. Sadly, these are just some of the many I have received over the years ...

Serena, the mother of a 15-year-old son, Gary, had always either met up with parents hosting sleepovers, gatherings and parties or made a phone call to find out what will or won't be happening. There had never been an issue with doing this all the way through primary school and even in the early years of high school, but things started to change in Year 9. Gary had never liked her making calls but knew it was a family rule, i.e., if she didn't make the call, he couldn't go. When he asked to attend a party at the beginning of Year 10 Serena had a feeling that it was a different type of event and when she finally got access to the host parent's phone number and made the call, she was right … Serena had three questions that she asked when she made a call and before she could even ask the first she was accused of 'overparenting' and shaming her son. "I was told by this woman that he was 15 and did he know that I was making the call?" Serena told me. "According to her, I was embarrassing him by calling and he would be the laughing stock of his group if they found out. She went into a long rambling speech about how she trusted her son and would never dream of doing what I was doing! I was stunned by what she was saying and how fast the call had got completely out of control. All I had done is to introduce myself and tell her that I was calling to find out about the party my son had been invited to …" Not surprisingly, Serena thanked the mother for her time, got off the phone and informed her son he would not be attending the party!

When Cecilia's 16-year-old daughter Jayne was invited to a 16th birthday, she had no idea that the call she would make to the host parents would end up leading to her child having to leave her school after almost 6 months of intense bullying and harassment. Cecilia had always made a call to parents hosting events and had never had a bad experience but from the moment this mother picked up the phone, she knew something was wrong. The actual call was not particularly problematic - Cecilia asked her usual questions and got answers but as she told me "I should have known something was wrong when she asked me to repeat Jayne's name." What she found out later was that the mother had then gone straight to her teen (the birthday girl) and told her about the call, apparently mocking both Cecilia and her daughter and the fact that she had made a call, actually repeating the questions she had asked. What followed was a period of systematic bullying by the birthday girl and her friends, both face-to-face and via social media. Jayne was totally ostracised and even though the Principal, teachers and counsellors became involved and tried to help, Cecilia had to finally remove her daughter from the school. "When I finally had a face-to-face meeting with this mother that had been organised by the Principal it became quite clear that she was just as much of a bully as her daughter was. I still find it extremely difficult to understand why she did what she did and I will never forgive her for what she has done to Jayne. It's almost impossible to believe that simply asking what time a party was ending would result in such a response."

It's difficult to believe that any parent would respond in such a negative way to a simple request for information regarding an event they are hosting. Realistically, both of the host parents in the final two stories above obviously have serious issues … You certainly don't have to agree with the parenting choices of others and no-one can tell another parent what to do with their child, however, when you are concerned about the health and safety of your teen, you have every right to ask whatever question you want. Of course, whatever your questions are, they need to be asked respectfully and without judgement (i.e., if you don't agree with what the parent is going to do, just thank them for their time, hang up and inform your child that they're not going. You don't need to have a debate with the host parent about their choices when it comes to running a party).

What these three cases highlight is that making these calls can result in better 'parent networks' (and, in Caroline's case, a strong and valuable friendship) that will potentially assist all concerned, particularly as your child gets older and alcohol starts to become a part of the events they will be attending. If you get a difficult parent on the other end of the phone, however, it can be an extremely confronting experience and lead to you never putting the effort in again ...

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Why More Will Try Polyamory

Thanks to psychologytoday.com for continuing to feature good content respecting polyamorous families and individuals. Elisabeth Sheff, Ph.D had another good writeup there, titled "Fear of the Polyamorous Possibility." It is about why some people feel threatened by polyamory. [This entry is being bumped up.]

There are three common reactions, she says, to the realization that polyamory is a possibility. You'll have to click through if you want to read about those, but I wanted to note that she explains why there is the potential of a much larger percentage of the population having polyamorous relationships.

Among forms of sexual nonconformity, polyamory is unusual in that it could potentially be appealing to everyone who desires intimate relationships with other people. Most people are heterosexual, and it is readily apparent that not every one experiences same-sex sexual attraction or desire. In other words, not everyone has the capacity or desire to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Unless they are monogamous by orientation, however, most people in long-term relationships -- regardless of sexual orientation -- have had the experience of being attracted to someone else besides their partner. Almost everyone has the potential to be polyamorous in a way that many people do not have that same potential to be gay.

Just about anyone who has been in a long-term relationship, no matter how happy they have been in that relationship, has experienced a desire for, or daydream of, doing something with someone that might not be considered appropriate, and not because they want to betray or hurt the other person in the relationship, but because they find this "third" person fascinating, attractive, or they share something in common. It doesn't have to be sexual. It could be an emotional connection, or simply wanting to share some recreational experience. It could be going to a concert, or hiking and camping in a specific spot, a mutual interest in a style of dance or cuisine. Or, it could be entirely sexual, or romantic, or emotional. There are so very many ways that polyamory can be experienced, and many people who don't need polyamory can still want and enjoy at least a season in which they have more than one relationship, without lying or sneaking around.

Despite the claims of some bigots, adopting the same-gender freedom to marry and eliminating other forms of prejudice against LGBT people does not make one more person gay or lesbian. Removing discrimination against ethical nonmonogamy, and especially adopting the polygamous freedom to marry, will mean more people will enjoy polyamory, because you don't have to need polyamory to enjoy polyamory.

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Cousins Changing States

This was left as a comment and it is a very important question for those of us in the US.

Can anyone offer insight on the case of 1st cousins who marry where it is legal and later move to a state where it is not. It would seem that the full faith and credit clause of the constitution would offer them protection. 

Article. IV. - Section. 1.
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

From what we've seen from family law attorneys online, you appear to be correct, at least with certain states. I do want to remind you that I am not a lawyer or attorney, and I recommend checking with a family law attorney in the state to which you plan to move or have moved.

There is a chart on Wikipedia that indicates that some states will not recognize any first cousin marriages from other states, while some others will not recognize them if they are that state's residents who went to another state to get married. It seems to me this has to be unconstitutional based on many precedents.

It is important to note that a handful of US states criminalize sex between (unmarried) first cousins, and yes, people have been recently prosecuted. But it appears as though if you were legally married in one state (which can include "common law marriage" after living together a certain number of years) and move to one of those criminalizing states, you'd be OK.

There is an organization called Cousin Couples that could have answers.

Anyone with personal experience in these matters or who has practiced family law is encouraged to leave a comment.

Cousins, and any other consenting adults, should be free to be together, married or not, without fear of prosecution, bullying, or discrimination. This is why the US and every country needs full marriage equality and relationship rights for all adults.

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