Any Positive Incest Experiences? *Trigger Warning*

A beautiful example of a tautology.

Ha ha, you are even capable of dissing the obvious.

Dissing it? I don't see how I've done that. I highlighted that your statement is a tautology. It is.

I take it you’re positing, therefore, that lack of consent is not the only criterion for an abuse, and that this power imbalance is an additional criterion.

^^
Consent can only be informed if the person giving consent holds equal power to the one who they give consent to.
The power imbalance therefore is included within the informed consent criteria.

Secondly, I would raise the possibility of the power imbalance going the other way: for example, how would you characterize the power imbalance if it were a 15-year-old boy with a 25-year-old woman who has a mental age of 13 or 14?

^^ I was actually waiting for you to raise this point. I didn't include this in my previous statement because this is a difficult area for the law to explore.
In the scenario that you propose - that of a 15 year old male child with a 25 year old female child..
tricky subject.. it's likely that the boy would view her as an adult and therefore feel her to be of greater status than he.. he would likely respect her and look at her as a person to trust more than a person of his own age would perhaps be.
The boy would have been abused.
The female child would not be mature enough to understand these things however as she would indeed be a child.
It's a subject that quite honestly would be better left to your own thoughts because we could be here all day with this otherwise.
This is a tough one for the courts as well and there have been a fair few of these situations occur.

If they can’t consent, and if lack of consent equals abuse (you say ‘correct’ to this above), then all minors who have engaged in sexual activity have been abused, whether or not coercion was involved, and whether or not their sexual partner was of a similar age, by virtue of the simple facts that a) they couldn’t consent and b) lack of consent equals abuse.

^^ nope.. read my first point about the power imbalance.

Jimjustjim wrote:I had a positive incestuous relationship with my grandfather from ages 8 to 11 1/2. It was a loving relationship and mutually pleasurable. I don't regret it in anyway.

After reading the post above, I contacted the moderators. The thread was first locked but kept there. Later it was moved here. How can we call the relationship between a GRANDFATHER and an 8-11 y a simple paraphilia? With or without consent, is this NOT sexual abuse of a child?

-- Mon Oct 13, 2014 7:47 am --

ctithe wrote:Dissing it? I don't see how I've done that. I highlighted that your statement is a tautology. It is.

clithe

I agree with all your posts in this thread. I am as concerned as you are. We are in "definition's dilemma".

scepticalblahblah wrote:Consent can only be informed if the person giving consent holds equal power to the one who they give consent to.

I’ll take a parallel. Let’s say I’m being asked to consent to surgery. Can I only give informed consent if I hold equal power to the consultant surgeon who will be performing the surgery? How would you conceive of equal power in such a situation? Knowledge of what the surgery entails and the potential consequences? He would know an awful lot more than me about the surgery and its potential consequences. Perhaps we could simply claim that I do hold equal power to the surgeon by virtue of the fact that I’m an adult and so is he, and that’s the only level on which we need to be equal. But how would our equal adulthood render my consent informed? Surely for my consent to be informed I would simply have to be provided with adequate information and understand it? Perhaps, then, you are arguing that a child doesn’t have the capacity to adequately understand the information. Actually, science done in this area reveals this to be untrue. The extensive research carried out by Priscilla Alderson in the 1990s shows quite clearly that children – even very young children – are capable of what we would describe as informed consent in the medical arena and other ‘local’ arenas if given adequate information. Following on from this, Matthew Waites (2005) provides a convincing argument for how her work translates directly into matters of sexuality and sexual choice.

scepticalblahblah wrote:The power imbalance therefore is included within the informed consent criteria.

If I understand you correctly, equal power is therefore a precondition for informed consent, but overall it’s still the lack of consent that defines whether or not a situation is abusive?

Let me recap what we’ve said, for my own understanding. Correct me if I’m wrong, of course.

1) You said that minors were incapable of informed consent, and you said that lack of informed consent made a situation abusive.
2) I pointed out that by this definition any sexual activity engaged in by the minor would be abusive, as by this definition it was irrelevant how old the minor’s partner was. If they’re incapable of informed consent, and that’s what makes it abusive, then they’re incapable of engaging in any sexual activity that would not be abusive.
3) You countered by introducing a new element, imbalance of power, stating that equal power made it not abusive.
4) I described this as an explicit rejection of the notion of consent being the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to factors determining abuse, because now (seemingly, in my understanding) we have two two incompatible views: i) minors are incapable of consent, and lack of consent makes it abuse; and ii) equal power makes it not abusive.
5) Your response to this is that equal power is a precondition for informed consent.

If this is a fair summary, then I’d contend that you haven’t shown how your latest point (5) is complementary to your original position (1), because if minors are incapable of informed consent, then it doesn’t matter whether or not one or more preconditions for informed consent are met, as they (i.e. minors) are, by your original argument (point 1), incapable of giving it.

scepticalblahblah wrote:

Secondly, I would raise the possibility of the power imbalance going the other way: for example, how would you characterize the power imbalance if it were a 15-year-old boy with a 25-year-old woman who has a mental age of 13 or 14?

^^ I was actually waiting for you to raise this point. I didn't include this in my previous statement because this is a difficult area for the law to explore.

It is, because it's a complex issue, which is why we're talking about capacity to consent in a more sophisticated sense than merely a legal prescription.

scepticalblahblah wrote:In the scenario that you propose - that of a 15 year old male child with a 25 year old female child..
tricky subject.. it's likely that the boy would view her as an adult and therefore feel her to be of greater status than he.. he would likely respect her and look at her as a person to trust more than a person of his own age would perhaps be.
The boy would have been abused.

To play devil’s advocate (actually, I’ve been playing that role all along): would he? But he has a greater mental age than her. Surely the balance of power is skewed in his favour? Perhaps he has abused her. It might be more (or less) clear-cut if we say that this 25-year-old has a mental age of 9 or 10. He comes on to her. She accepts his advances. Has he still been abused?

scepticalblahblah wrote:It's a subject that quite honestly would be better left to your own thoughts because we could be here all day with this otherwise.

Well, true. I’m not being antagonistic, by the way. I like a debate. I find it supportive. I enjoy looking for worthy debating partners, and sometimes I argue a position that is not entirely in line with my own views just to see what kind of arguments an interlocutor will wheel out. Yes, we could be here all day, though the nature of a forum is such that you can dip into a discussion as you see fit. I do state my opinions clearly, but I am respectful and don’t get abusive when others do get that way towards me.

Personally I think it’s in this area that we’re touching on now that things get interesting. I know I’ve challenged you above to render your argument coherent on what renders activity abusive, but that’s because I don’t think one can have an interesting, productive discussion on a matter unless one’s basic premises are solid. I agree with the idea of an age of consent; I think it’s important to balance the rights of young people (to express themselves sexually, for example, or to form intimate relationships) with additional safeguards for those vulnerable by virtue of their age (albeit in this case chronological age, which is perhaps unsatisfying but necessary on account of simplicity). But I think it’s important to recognise that an age of consent is a provision that allows for such protectionist measures. It shouldn’t be taken to mean that all those above that age are capable of consenting and all those below are not. It is an age at which we, as a society, or as a jurisdiction, say that all children who are not vulnerable for some other reason (e.g. mental age, mental health, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, etc.) are capable of giving informed consent. Occasionally we’ll come across some people who assume that age of consent means in psychological/physical terms what the law says only in legal terms.

scepticalblahblah wrote:This is a tough one for the courts as well and there have been a fair few of these situations occur.

Quite. It should prompt us to be clear about what we mean by imbalance of power.

I must take exception to CopperMoon's assertion that "it would just never occur to nine-year-olds to have an orgy." I was first introduced to sexual experimentation in 1959 at age nine by an eleven-year-old neighbor girl. We were part of a group of neighborhood children all about the same age, and although we carefully hid our activities from the adults, we were involved in what amounts to a sexual experimentation group. The oldest child was a twelve-year-old girl whose mother was divorced (a big scandal back then) and who had to work, leaving the girl at home by herself in the house. This provided us with a secret place in which to meet. We were very careful to avoid attracting attention, and we swore a "kid's oath" to never snitch or reveal our activities to people (kids or adults) outside our group. One problem was that there were more girls than boys, so basically we had to "take turns." In retrospect, it was kind of odd to be sitting in a 4th grade desk, in the same classroom with two girls with whom I had "done stuff with." Same thing about church and Sunday school.
There was never any coercion or pressure applied to anybody to participate. I was more than willing, even eager, to do so. The oldest girl did "organize" things a little (spin-the-bottle or by drawing cards) and we had a rule about not writing anything down. (Different cards represented different sexual acts, corresponding to the different "bases" commonly used to describe sex among elementary school kids.) There were no adults involved, at all, but when I was grown up it occurred to me that the girl who introduced me to sexual experimentation sure seemed to know a lot about adult sexual behavior for a nine-year-old, and I now believe she may have been molested by an older male--possibly her older brother or her father.
We moved away from that neighborhood when I was eleven, and it took me a while to find friends as close to me as those kids were. During that time when I didn't know anybody well enough to "fool around," I really missed my old friends. About a year after we moved, I realized that there was a similar group in the new neighborhood, only the kids were older, and it was more like typical young adolescent behavior rather than kids experimenting. I had a good friend on my baseball team, Arthur, who told me that he and his older sister had been sexually active, and two girls on the next block over were actually pretty promiscuous, but with older boys.
So, while it may not be obvious, in my experience children are very active sexually, and are certainly capable of "organizing an orgy," even if they have to take turns to do it.

^^ Sweet, dude. Burning with envy.

Agreed. I certainly as a kid was a sexual creature. I thought about the female form and interacting with it from at most 4 and onwards.

I never did sexual stuff (AHHH!) but that was through lack of opportunities. I had crushes on girls from 8 and even the cute ones I didn't have a crush on I would have been willing to do stuff with, at least, I hope I would have.

The only thing potentially stopping me was that I was a bit of a goody two shoes and I might not have consented because thought it was against the rules but considering I viewed pornography from 12 I think I would have given in if I knew the offer was open. A girl 2 years older than me, no way I could resist and a hot adult: I'd feel eternally indebted to her (if she didn't get pregnant and keep it).

I've changed a lot since I was 8 (since 16 even) but no way would sexual time with a hot adult be something I couldn't want or harm unless she gave me an STD.

But I've drifter a bit off-topic:

I have never desired sex with most my relatives. Considering I objected to taking medicine I think I'd object to sexual advances I didn't want.

When I was younger I liked one of my cousins an awful lot. I said aloud I'd marry her at least once. However, even though I think I'd have taken her up on sexual things even if it was established our relationship would be akin to a platonic one, I wonder if it just make for a lot of awkwardness and elephant in the room stuff later on. Having said that there's some of that now and it's quite tolerable (I walked in on her naked once which wasn't fun but we never discussed it thank goodness).

ctithe wrote: My girlfriend, incidentally, had a sexual relationship with her stepbrother (so no incest) for 5 years when she was aged 5-10 and he was aged 10-15. Occasionally she wonders whether she should feel bad about it, to which my response is 'do you feel bad about it?', and her response is 'no, I enjoyed it and I feel positive about it'.

This is a problem I think. I get the impression that a lot of people feel bad just because they think they're supposed to feel bad so people feel bad unnecessarily.

Did she tell you any details that you could PM me? If not that's totally cool.

Hello, if you're looking for people that would catagorize their experiences with incest as positive, I would definitely fall into this catagory, but over the years I have noticed some symptoms from being in this type of relationship for as long as I have.
I was 28, and my mother was 49 when we had our first experience together. At the time my step-father was dying from cancer, and I believe this event set the stage for my mother and I. It started out as casual sex between us when I came to visit for Thanksgiving, but quickly developed into us becoming lovers. For 5 years we lived on and off together in a monogamous relationship until my youngest sister became suspicious about the kind of relationship my mother and I had, so we decided to live apart to put my sister's suspicions at rest.
All, and all I would consider our relationship a positive experience, as there was no balance of power or coercion of any kind involved in my mother and I becoming lovers.

I think I had more sex between the ages of five and fifteen than I have since. Sex in my neighbourhood as a child was an every day occurrence. Yes, even with my older sister. It was all just "fun" and no one was forced to do anything they didn't want to.