Being Consanguinamorous After Abuse

As the title of this entry indicates, abuse will be discussed, so if that is likely to be a problem for you, please skip to another entry.




Some people in consanguinamorous relationships were previously abused. So were some of the people in relationships that aren’t consanguinamorous or who are in no relationship at all.

Sadly, some people try to dismiss the love, happiness, comfort, and ecstasy someone has found in a consanguinamorous relationship with a statement like "You're just doing this because you were abused." This is cruel and attempts to rip away something that is very often a healing experience and the best relationship someone will ever have.

Many people who were never abused get into consanguinamorous relationships, so the generalization doesn’t work.

These statements come from people who are biased against consanguinamory, and this can be demonstrated. You never ever hear people say, "Oh, you're just getting into a monogamous heterosexual marriage with that person of the same race who is about your age that you met a couple of years ago... because you were abused!!!" They disapprove of the kind of the relationship and they try to attribute someone getting into one to their being abused. They assert that there must be something wrong if someone else doesn’t want the same thing as they say they want. Whether it is asexuality, being gay, interracial relationships, adult intergenerational relationships, polyamorous relationships, open marriage, or consanguinamorous relationships, if it isn’t what they feel or do or want then it has to be wrong or the result of something bad. This is very narrow thinking.

Yes, some people get with people all wrong for them. That happens to people who haven't been abused, too. Each relationship has to be evaluated independently. There’s no good reason to dismiss all consanguinamorous relationships as bad. Some are clearly the best possible thing for all involved and very healthy and happy.

But even in situations where it is likely that at least part of the reason someone has entered into their relationship was because of being abused in the past, so what? Consanguinamorous relationships often provide a basis of existing bonds and trust, and if that is what someone needs, why try to deprive them of it? There are people who sleep with a night light because of a fear of the dark. Do you obsess over getting them to stop that? No, because they can live a full life and there's nothing wrong with them having a night light.

A woman who was abused as a child can pick her job, and her home, and whether or not to join the military or take out a loan, and she can decide for herself what she's going to do with her time, heart, and body. If she can pick a stranger for a date, or a friend to start a romance she should likewise be free to choose a close relative to be a lover. She can’t erase the past. What matters is what she is doing now, and as we’ve pointed out before, consanguinamorous relationships are not inherently abusive. (This applies regardless of gender.)

There's a lot of abuse out there. One of the reasons we want consanguinamory decriminalized where it still against the law because we believe it will be easier to prevent abuse and prosecute abusers if love and recreation between adults isn’t criminalized.

Nobody should put up with being abused. Dependent children and dependent elderly or disabled often have no choice, so it is up to others to stand up for them. If you are being abused, which can include, among other things, pushing, shoving, slapping, hitting, kicking, stomping, hair pulling, scratching, arm twisting, choking, biting, physical restraint, them putting any part of their body inside any part of yours (I’m talking about against your will, not as part of mutual sex play), remove yourself (and any other potential or actual victim) immediately. Nothing matters more than life. I’m not talking about if you’ve gotten into a mutual fight and you slapped the other person and they slapped you back and it was an incident, not a pattern. An escalating pattern is a major red flag, about the biggest there can be.

If the relationship you’re in now is not abusive, then whether or not you were abused before shouldn’t mean you should not have your relationship. If someone treats you right, if you are basically compatible, and you’ve mutually agreed to your relationship, nobody else should try to stop you from sharing your love and finding your happiness.