Taking the Steps

I have frequently seen the question asked, “It is incest to date my stepbrother?” or “Would marrying my stepsister be incestuous?”

Romance, dating, sex, or marriage between step relations is not literally consanguinamory, but is often subject to the same prejudices, which in some places and cases includes criminalization, as consanguinamorous relationships. With Discredited Argument #18 not a factor, the excuse to try to deny others their relationships is usually Discredited Arguments #1, 3, 19, or 21.

Although someone may try to control our relationships, we can’t effectively control what other people do with their love lives and we shouldn’t try. We don’t pick who our family members love or marry. As such, sometimes someone is brought into our lives as a step relation, such as a stepbrother, stepsister, stepmother, or stepfather whether we like it or not.

Sometimes, we like it. A lot.



Perhaps the most common connection between step relationships is when adults marry and their adolescent or young adult children, who are made stepsiblings, find they are mutually attracted. The Westermarck Effect, which describes the suppression of sexual attraction between people raised together in the same home or close quarters, isn’t experienced by everyone but doesn’t have even a chance to be experienced if young people don’t meet or don’t spend much time together until their pre-teen years or later, as often happens in these cases.

Each of us is our parent’s child. If the person we share genes with and raised us is attracted to someone, is it really surprising that we’d be attracted to that someone’s child or sibling? This is especially the case if new stepsiblings spend time under the same roof, perhaps on a full-time basis.

There is no good reason why the relationship of persons A and B should prevent the relationship of persons C and D.

But what about when one person ends up having two lovers from the same family? That can happen if there is a relationship between a stepparent and a stepchild, including cases in which the stepparent never knew the stepchild as a minor. (As always, I’m talking about consenting adults in this entry, or minors close in age to each other.) Perhaps things didn’t work out between the stepparent and the parent, or the parent died, or there’s a polyamorous situation, meaning the parent is still involved. Sometimes, someone’s stepparent is actually from their generation or at least closer in age to them than their parent, due to their parent having entered into an intergenerational relationship. The important thing to remember is that we are talking about consenting adults in these cases. One person’s prejudice against intergenerational relationships or against someone having more than one lover from the same family should not have any control over such consensual relationships.

Relationships like these have existed throughout history. There are also other relationships that have meant someone has (or has had) more than one lover from the same family. Traditional polyandry usually involves brothers marrying the same woman, and many polygynous males marry sisters. Having both mother and daughter or father and son as lovers is a common fantasy, and does happen. (I have had my own experience.)

Someone considering a relationship with a stepsibling, stepparent, or adult stepchild should make many of the same considerations as I have encouraged people to make when it comes to consanguinamorous relationships, and, if applicable, what I wrote about intergenerational relationships.

Parents may not like it when their stepchild gets together with their child, but the parent should remember that it wasn’t the children that created the environment in which they found themselves. Isn’t it better they get along rather than fight? Anyone upset about step relations getting together should read this.

Family strife is one thing. Law is another. There is no good reason to have laws discriminating against adults for their consensual relationships.

Are you, or have you been, involved with a step relation, or someone who later became one? Tell us about it by commenting.

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Alcohol and young women: "But I just want my daughter to be popular"

I've written about this topic a number of times before (in fact, I've even highlighted the same story I'm about to tell) but over the past couple of weeks I've visited a number of schools where I've encountered some particularly powerful (and not particularly pleasant) groups of young women in a year level and I thought it may be a good idea to raise the issue again …

A number of years ago I had just finished my Parent Information Evening at an elite girls' school and was speaking to a few parents afterwards. Time was getting on and the teacher who was looking after me for the night was shepherding those remaining parents out of the hall and when nothing else worked, she turned the lights out ... As I was following them out of the room this teary-eyed mother approached me from the corner of the room where she had been waiting until everyone else had left and said, "You're going to think I'm the worst mum in the world …"

Now parents have started conversations off with me in many ways, but I'd never heard that one before and thoughts instantly went through my head about what this woman could have possibly done that was so bad. Maybe I needed the teacher, or even the school counsellor with me for this one. She went onto say something like this:

"I just want my daughter to be popular. I totally get what you're saying about delaying her alcohol use for as long as possible and I appreciate all the research around brain development that you showed us tonight, but if I try to stop my 15-year-old daughter drinking and going to parties, she is going to lose her place in her social group. I wasn't popular at school and certainly wasn't in with the 'in-crowd'. I was on the outer my entire school life and I wouldn't wish that on my daughter for the world. She is in the popular group at the moment and I don't want to take that away from her by limiting her social life. I just don't know what to do ..."

By this time we were sitting outside the school grounds on a bench and she was really upset. She had found herself in a situation that she had no idea how to deal with and felt totally lost and had nowhere to go for answers. As she said to me, she felt she couldn't talk to her friends about it because she knew how she sounded - i.e., being popular was more important than being safe, and from her perspective, there was really so much more to it than that. She believed that school counsellors and the like would see her as a bad mother and there simply wasn't anywhere else for her to go ... The one person she had discussed it with was her own mother and that had been a disaster as she just dismissed her completely and told her to "grow a backbone and be a parent"!

Let me start by saying that I totally get where this mum was coming from - every parent wants the best for their child and that includes being popular (or at the very least not to be unpopular). We all want kids to have a positive friendship group that supports them, peers who are there for them to play with when they are younger and to socialise with as they reach adolescence. No-one (and I mean no-one) wants their child to feel socially excluded and on the outer. Children and adolescents can be cruel and we all want to protect our kids from being bullied and tormented by their peers. We all remember the 'popular group' - that group at school that just appeared to have everything going for them. They were usually really good looking, did reasonably well (but not too well) as far as academic results were concerned, were more likely to play sport and represent the school in at least a couple of activities and, most importantly, were at the centre of any social activity that took place on the weekend! Who wouldn't want their son or daughter to be a part of that group? It sure beats being a part of a group that sits on their own in the playground, is never invited anywhere and are only spoken to when someone feels the need to insult them for how they look or for the clothes they are wearing … As I said, kids can be incredibly cruel and every parent wants to protect their child from that kind of abuse.

I was certainly never in the 'popular group'. I had a great group of friends in my final two years of high school who were wonderful - but we were hardly in the group that everyone wanted to join! Do I wish I had been more popular? Absolutely! I'm sure it would have made those difficult years so much easier and I hope my nephews and niece (whom I love dearly) are unbelievably popular, well-liked and have great friendship groups that are supportive, positive and treat others well. But would I condone or tolerate them drinking alcohol at the age of 15 to help ensure that popularity? Most probably not ....

As my sister-in-law regularly tells me - "You're not a parent, so it's easy for you to say this" - so let me start by saying I can't begin to imagine what it must be like for a parent to deal with this sort of issue, but this is the advice I gave to the mother that evening ...

Firstly, I asked her if she wanted her daughter to drink alcohol at 15 - did she feel comfortable with it? She replied that she didn't, in fact, quite the reverse. When she had provided her daughter with a couple of drinks to take to a party (something her daughter told her that all her friends' parents did) she was terrified the whole night. I then asked her what she thought of the girls her daughter was hanging out with? Had she met any of their parents and, if so, what did she think of them? This took her quite a time to answer and when she finally did it was obvious that she was not overly impressed with her daughter's friends. She was extremely careful with what she said but it was clear that she thought that they weren't particularly nice girls (to be honest, I don't think they were in fact the 'popular group', they were more likely the 'evil princess group'. Although these girls believe they're popular, they're usually just feared! They certainly are powerful but they don't lead in a positive way, instead it is all about judgment and intimidation - not nice at all!). She knew almost nothing about their parents as her daughter had made it abundantly clear that she must make no contact with them whatsoever - that would be social suicide! I can almost guarantee, however, that the mothers of her daughter's friends were in a similar group when they went to school. As I always say, what happens to the 'mean girls' when they leave school? They usually become those hideous mothers who try to be their daughter's best friend and make other parents feel guilty for imposing rules and boundaries around things like alcohol and parties! Once again, not nice at all!

Now I don't want to sound like I am psychoanalysing anyone here, but this seems to me as though this is more the mother's issue and her trying to deal with the pain she had experienced when she was an adolescent than anything else. She had obviously been bullied by the very same type of group of girls that her daughter was now a part of and now found herself in exactly the same situation again, this time being bullied by her own daughter. When I raised this as a possibility the floodgates opened and she sobbed - I had certainly struck a chord.

As much as popularity is a wonderful thing, it's most probably better to aim for not being unpopular!

During adolescence, peer groups have a growing influence on behaviour and having a group of friends who are supportive, positive and caring, as well as accepting of others is incredibly important - whether they're popular or not. Let's make something very clear here - so many of the so-called 'popular' students I have had contact with have all of these attributes and so much more (i.e., not all popular teens make the not-so-popular kids' lives a misery! Many of these young people I meet strive to be inclusive, accepting and use their popularity in a positive way). It is also important to acknowledge that many of the young people who are on the 'fringe' are totally okay with that, in fact, they couldn't think of anything worse than being involved with the 'in-crowd'. They're completely comfortable in their own skins and often thrive in those groups that just don't quite 'fit in'!

Do we want our kids to have wonderful and thriving social lives? Of course we do, but we also want them to survive this difficult period called adolescence. Although supplying or tolerating alcohol use at a young age in order to maintain their popularity or social standing within a peer group may seem like a good idea to some parents in the short-term, realistically, when you look at the evidence, it simply isn't worth it!

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This Is Exciting: Risk and Reward

There's a new project that you should know about as a Friend of Full Marriage Equality. "Risk and  Reward" is an upcoming movie to which you can contribute. Even if you can't contribute monetarily right now, you can help get the word out.

Follow the movie on Twitter and  retweet them.

Like the movie's Facebook page and share what it posts.

It is critical to support projects like this. Visibility, representation, solidarity, and opening minds are all needed to secure the rights of all adults to love each other how they mutually agree.

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NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #3

“Not a lot of people want to do it” or “I don’t want to do it.” This is not a justification for keeping something illegal. If anything, it is a reason laws against consensual adult relationships are wasteful and unnecessary. But we don’t deny minorities rights based on majority vote. Also, people would be surprised to know just how many people around them are in, or want to be in, or have been in, a relationship that is currently illegal or otherwise discriminated against.

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 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 #2

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #4

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Why? Many of the Same Reasons Anyone Else Does It

Vicky Wireko wrote at myjoyonline.com under "Reality Zone: Why would a father sleep with his biological daughter?"

Without yet getting to the text of the piece, the terms need to be defined. By "sleep," she no doubt means intercourse. But is she referring to rape or is she referring to consensual sex?  Rape and lovemaking are two different things. Rape should always be illegal. Lovemaking should never be illegal. But "biological daughter" can mean a woman the father didn't meet or didn't have a relationship with until she was an adult, or at least hasn't had a relationship with since an early age. Consanguinamory initiated through Genetic Sexual Attraction has a different dynamic than consanguinamory growing from an existing sociological relationship.

Why would a father make love with his biological daughter? I'm talking about CONSENT ADULTS here.

For many of the the same reasons a man would have sex with any woman:

He's a heterosexual male and she's a receptive or initiating female he finds attractive.

They love each other.

It feels good and is fun. This is especially true when it comes to consanguinamory.

To bond.

To express love.

To have children.

Some of them have been brought together through Genetic Sexual Attraction, some of them haven't.

There are many reasons, but they shouldn't need to justify it to anyone else. Why is ultimately theirs to share, not anyone else's business. Perhaps a better question is why wouldn't/shouldn't he? Sex is not a bad thing. Those who think it is are probably doing it wrong.

What did Wireko have to say? Let's see...

Everything is certainly wrong with a father sleeping with his blood daughter.

 Does she give a reason?

It is repugnant apart from the fact that it is a taboo in our custom.

Ah, Discredited Arguments #1 and 2.

However, when a father’s love for his daughter straddles beyond parental love veering off to lust, to the extent of sexual abuse, it becomes horrendous.

Abuse and lovemaking are two different things. She goes on to write about abuse, without giving a good reason as to why consenting adults shouldn't be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage. Don't like it? Don't do it. But there ARE adult women in loving spousal-type relationships with their biological fathers, despite what prejudiced bigots think.

Please also see Intergenerational Relationships Can Work 



why would a woman sleep with her father why would a father and daughter have sex why would a parent have sex with an adult child why would a woman have sex with her father

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NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #2

“It goes against tradition.” So did the abolition of slavery. In reality, (adult) intergenerational, interracial marriages, same-gender marriages, polygamous or polyamorous marriages, and consanguineous marriages are nothing new. Some of these were entered into by prominent religious leaders and historical royalty. Regardless, a tradition of inequality is not a justification for continuing to deny equality.

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 #1

Go to NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #3 

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Risky parties and gatherings: What can a parent say to keep their teen as protected as possible?

Recently I was contacted by a parent who had recently attended one of my presentations and was concerned about an event that his son was going to attend. As with many of the emails I receive about concern regarding events, this one also had to do with a post-formal party. As anyone who reads my blog regularly knows, these are events I feel very strongly about and, as I always say, so often the parents who put them on are often completely unaware of the potential risks and the almost impossible position they put other parents into when they make the rules they do. The parent's email read as follows:

"After listening to you speak my wife and I are now struggling with how to deal with our 17 year-old son attending a post-formal party he has been invited to ... We have great problems with the party and its rules around alcohol consumption (the parents hosting have specified those wanting to drink may bring no more than 4 drinks with a note from their parent!). Our son is a non-drinker but of course wants to attend. 18th birthday parties are just about to begin (with similar rules no doubt) and even though we won't allow attendance at every 18th for study reasons the floodgates will be opening and non-attendance at friends' parties is not an option.  At this stage, resistance seems pointless and anti-social.  We aren't willing to make our responsible son suffer the humiliation of non-attendance in a battle against a culture that is so off track. Please, how do you think we should respond to this?  What advice do we give to our son and how do we give it?" 

First off, before anything else - no more than 4 drinks??? Do the parents hosting this event realize how much alcohol that actually is? If one of the girls invited (who could be as young as 16 years-old) brings four Smirnoff Double Blacks (the most popular drink amongst this age group) that means they will be consuming 7.6 standard drinks – more than a third of a bottle of vodka! The Australian drinking guidelines recommends that "for healthy men and women, drinking no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion reduces the risk of alcohol-related injury arising from that occasion" - and that's for adults! No number of drinks is recommended for those under 18 years of age, with the guidelines stating that "not drinking alcohol is the safest option."

Now I'm not an idiot and I realize that 'not drinking alcohol' is not realistic for many young people, but when parents suggest that 4 drinks is an appropriate number for a post-formal event, it really takes a lot of effort for me not to completely lose my cool!

So let's get back to the question the parent is posing ... how can you best deal with keeping your teen as safe as possible when they are attending events that you know are potentially risky? As much as many parents would love to keep their teen locked in their bedroom to keep them protected, you've got to let them out and it is important for them to go to parties and gatherings - that's where they learn to socialise, just like we did when we were teenagers. When they're 14, 15 and even 16, if a parent feels a party is not safe it is entirely appropriate for them to turn around and say that you're not going to let them go. I'm not saying it is always going to be easy but if you feel they could be in potential danger then it's your responsibility to act and do what you feel is necessary. In the final year of high school it gets more difficult, particularly in regards to 18th birthday parties and of course, pre- and post-formal events.

So if you've got to that point where you believe you can no longer prevent your teen from attending what you believe could be a risky party or gathering (as the parent said "resistance seems pointless and anti-social"), what advice should you be giving and how do you start the conversation?

I believe the best way to have the talk is to firstly find a good time for all concerned (according to what I have read lately, late at night, not early in the morning is the time of the day when they are most receptive – I always used to say over dinner but apparently that's not always the best time!) and then sit down with your teen and tell them about your concerns. Ask them to give you 5 minutes without them interrupting and then you will give them an opportunity to do just the same. Use this time to tell them clearly why you think the party is risky? Make sure you don't make value judgments about their friends and their friends' parents, just clearly outline why you are worried about the event. End your little speech by stating that regardless of all of that, you love them and you want them to be happy and have fun with their friends – they can go but you want them to now tell you why you shouldn't be worried … 

In my experience that is the best way to frame it – give them the opportunity (without you interrupting or asking any questions) to explain how they (and their friends) are going to look after themselves. Most of the parents that I have spoken to who have used this strategy have told me that they have been pleasantly surprised by the answer their teen provides … If nothing else, it encourages your teen to really think through exactly what could go wrong and what they would do in an emergency. Once they've given their answer, end the conversation by talking through a couple of things that may contribute to keeping them just a little safer at events that could be potentially dangerous. Some of these could include the following:

• Give them an 'out' – make sure they know that if they don't want to go to an event they're invited to, you're happy to play the bad guy and do a performance in front of their friends (you'd be surprised how many young people actually don't want to go to some of the events they get invited to or only want to go for a short period of time)
• Decide on a code word or the like just in case they want to leave but want to save face – they can then call you or send a text secretly and then 5 minutes later you call them (when they're now in front of everyone) and tell them that they have to come home for whatever reason
• Make sure they understand that they have your permission to call an ambulance if anything goes wrong. They need to call for help and then call you straight afterwards – they have your 100% support in this area
• Make it clear to them that they can call you at anytime and you will be available on the other end of the phone to pick them up, give advice or whatever. If they're going to call anyone for help, you want it to be you. They need to understand that there will be no judgment made when they call and no questions will be asked ... then! There may be lots of questions the next day - but at the time they call, you won't ask any!

As a parent, you've always got to look for those opportunities to 'allow' your child to do something - it's all well and good to try to protect your child by preventing them taking part in certain activities but at some point you do have to let go ... Don't get me wrong - I'm not talking about letting your 14 or 15 year-old wander off to goodness knows where and of course, if you don't want them to do something, you need to say 'no' and then explain clearly why you have made that decision! But during that final year of high school it is important to look for opportunities, not only to allow them to prove to you that they are now young adults who are better able to look after themselves, but also to have quality conversations about safety and clearly outline to you why you shouldn't be as worried as you are.

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Consanguinamory is Not Sick

As this blog and others have repeatedly shown, there is no good reason to keep laws, discrimination, or stigmas against consanguinamory (consanguineous or consensual incest sex or relationships) that is consistently applied to other relationships. One of the grasping-at-straws assertions that one might make when all of their justifications for denying rights fails is "people who do that are sick" or "those relationships are dysfunctional."

Before we do anything else, let's make it clear that we're talking about consensual sex and relationships, not abuse. It's not fair to point to abuse, assault, child molestation, etc. by a close relative as an example of how "incest" is "sick".

Alleging psychological problems or mental illness is something best left to mental health professionals, such as a psychiatrist (a medical doctor) or a psychologist. The opinion of someone without such credentials and some experience should be suspect. So, if someone makes the claim that we should criminalize or otherwise discriminate against consanguinamory because the behavior is based on mental illness, they should be asked 1) for their credentials; 2) if they have personally conducted an evaluation of the individuals involved and the dynamics of their relationship, and; 3) if all relationships they personally think are based on mental illness should be likewise criminalized or discriminated against. Usually, calling consanguinamory "sick" is just a thinly veiled variation on Discredited Arguments #1 and 3.



You can find mental health professionals who will declare consanguinamory to be a sickness. Throughout history, you could find such individuals or studies and reports saying women shouldn’t use vibrators, being gay is a mental illness, masturbation leads in to insanity, wanting to be with someone of a different race is a problem… on and on it goes. To this day you can find psychologists who’ll insist that being gay is a mental problem and that taking certain steps during a child’s development will prevent them from “becoming” gay.

There are mentally ill people who have these attractions. There are dysfunctional relationships that are consanguinamorous. BUT, having consanguinamorous feelings or relationships is not necessarily a sign of illness or dysfunction. Some people assert it is, but they do not back up that claim. At most, they restate their claim another way, asserting that everyone should either pursue (heterosexual, monogamous) relationships with someone outside the family and not closely related (how close is too close for their approval varies) or should remain alone and celibate.

There are many mentally healthy people with these feelings. There are many healthy, functional relationships that are consanguinamorous or have involved consanguineous sex. The people who are living proof of this, due to laws or other forms of bigoted discrimination, aren't eager to sit down with a mental health professional, or law enforcement and tell them all about it. Medical and mental health professionals tend to deal with people who are having problems. Most people in consanguinamorous relationships or who are attracted to close relatives or family members, who are healthy and happy, do not visit doctors and therapists and volunteer that information to them. That is one of the problems with studies or saying something like "I don't know any that are healthy..." These relationships are common enough that everyone does know someone who is, or has been, involved. Most of the time, we're don't know everything that's going on, because people feel the need to keep secrets.

It is normal for minors close in age to experiment with each other. Coercion is problematic, but if it is not a matter of coercion and no harm is perpetrated, we're not talking about sickness. Genetic Sexual Attraction is also a normal response to the circumstances. And sometimes, for completely normal and healthy reasons, close relatives who have always been in each others lives get involved as adults.

There are a few places where consanguineous sex and mental illness do connect...

1) If someone, due to mental illness, acts out sexually with just about anyone, that may include close relatives. But again, most people who are. or have been, consanguinamorous are not part of this category.

2) People who are otherwise mentally healthy, who experience persecution, discrimination, prosecution, etc. due to having a consanguinamorous relationship, they may experience problems such as depression, anxiety, etc. This is a common harm of bigotry, and anyone concerned that consaguinamory is "sick" should note that often, the biggest problems experienced by consanguinamorous people is prejudice. If someone is truly concerned about the well being of others, they shouldn't perpetuate this. Being told constantly that your NORMAL attractions and desires need to be repressed and should subject you to ridicule, ostracism, and even imprisonment can cause people mental problems. What kind of mental state would you be in if you were torn from the person you love most in the whole world, publicly ridiculed and subjected to imprisonment? Learn how to avoid being part of that problem here.

3) If someone has been abused, they may find comfort in the safety of sexual intimacy or release with a close relative, not wanting to take the risk of being vulnerable with someone they're not certain loves them. Again, most consanguinamory isn't a result of a situation like this.

Maybe you have known some messed up people, and those people have engaged in consanguineous sex. But they also fed their dog, were good employees, etc. Does that make dog-feeding and being a good employee sick? Yes, some people who are attracted to close relatives need professional help. Others don’t. Being attracted to a close relative, by itself, is not necessarily a problem.

I personally know people who are mentally healthy, intelligent, attractive, and have no problem attracting sexual or romantic interest from others, and yet, they are very attracted to a close relative. I can guarantee you know some people like that, too. You’re just unaware of their attractions.

If you want to know what science has to say on these issues, read through the science tag of the Full Marriage Equality blogspot.

If you want to be part of the solution, you can! If you think you need help, see here.

UPDATE: See what Jane wrote about this at her blog.

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NOT a Good Reason to Deny Love #1

“It is disgusting.” Also known as the “ick” or “eww” factor, this explains why the person using the argument would not want to enter into the type of relationship or marriage or have the kind sex they want banned, but their own personal disgust is not a justification for preventing other people from doing something those other people want to do. Don’t want to have an (adult) intergenerational or interracial or same-gender or polyamorous or consanguineous marriage? Don’t have one. Some people are disgusted by the idea of heterosexual sex, or their parents having sex, but obviously this is not a justification to ban those things. Some people find prejudice and bigotry, a lack of marriage equality, disgusting. Meanwhile, the people in these relationships aren’t disgusted. How they love each other should be be up to them.

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 #2

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