This mother/son GSA couple do NOT need ‘help’

Today we have another news story, this time the hate and condescension being piled on this couple. You see, while this article is good in that is explains what GSA is and is lambasting the haters on the internet, it is not so good in that it is saying that they need help. Okay, on with my review of this sorry mess.

The internet hate machine is doing its thing again, and today’s subjects are Kim West and Ben Ford. Kim is 51 and Ben is 32. Kim is Ben’s mum. Kim and Ben have been having sex for two years. And Kim and Ben are planning to have a baby.

So? This is anyone elses business how? Why?

Incest is one of the biggest taboos of all, so the internet has its pitchforks out. But Kim and Ben deserve help, not hate. They’re caught up in something enormously powerful and problematic.

Well, firstly incest shouldn’t be a taboo to begin with, it’s a normal and natural part of human sexuality that is very much misunderstood, both in it’s GSA and NON-GSA forms. It is certainly true that this couple do not deserve hate, but it is also true that they do not need help either. Why would they? They’re obviously a loving couple who aren’t hurting anyone. Consanguinamory is a powerful bag of emotions, but it is ONLY a problem because of other peoples reactions to it, remove the negative, hostile and condescending reactions and then there is no problem.

When Ben says ‘it isn’t incest’, he means it. Kim gave Ben up for adoption when he was just a week old, and they met again when he was an adult.

It’s not sociologically incest, but is is biologically incest. At their ages, it wouldn’t be an issue whether she raised him or not… the issue is that there is no valid reason for people to interfere.

The attraction between them isn’t the love a mother feels for a child or that a child feels for a mother. It’s something strange, and strong, and sad.

Way to go for not making them look and sound like total weirdos [/sarcasm]. The only sad part I see is that it is only ‘sad’ to the writer of this article because he finds it ‘strange’. Well fair enough to him it might be strange, but that doesn’t mean it is strange to everyone.

It’s sad because something has gone awfully wrong. The ‘incest taboo’ exists for very good evolutionary reasons: incest can magnify genetic abnormalities and health problems.

Yes, the risks for immediate family run at about 9% based on the available double first cousin data (which share same amount of genetic material as full siblings), which is probably substantially less than people think. Furthermore, if the chances of deleterious alleles colliding is increased… doesn’t that also mean that the chances of BENEFICIAL alleles colliding is ALSO increased? Nobody ever mentions that do they? Incest has been around for as long as human beings have been around, and so far it has not managed to cause some biological catastrophe.

Also, risk factors could be managed with genetic counseling being made available to consanguine couples… but that won’t happen until the prejudiced laws are removed from the books.

We’ve added moral and ethical and religious reinforcements for it over the years, but that’s what it boils down to. Whether it’s horses or humans, interbreeding can be an evolutionary dead end.

Like I said, the outcome can be either positive or negative… doesn’t have to be either the outcome could be neutral… a normal healthy baby, which is what happens for the overwhelming majority of the time.

Unfortunately for Kim and Ben, we’re also wired to be attracted to people like us. Multiple studies have demonstrated that people find others more attractive if they resemble themselves or their parents.

Which is exactly what Freud was saying and studies later proved. Actually,here is an article I wrote about that very topic a while back.

In normal families that isn’t an issue because of something researchers call the Westermarck Effect, which they believe is a process of reverse sexual imprinting. Essentially it’s a phenomenon that prevents inbreeding by ensuring we aren’t physically attracted to family members.

Well, first of all that clearly doesn’t apply to GSA, secondly, the Westermarck effect doesn’t work for everyone, hence why there are so many people who also enjoy NON-GSA consanguinamory too.

The Westermarck Effect appears to happen when people live in close proximity – and of course, Kim and Ben didn’t. But there must be more to it than that, or every adopted child reunited with their biological parents would experience similar attraction. And they don’t.

And that’s why Kim and Ben need help, not hate.

There is more to every relationship than just a string of theories competing and playing out. Ever considered that their personalities could be an extra factor, that they discovered that they are compatible to a rather large degree. You know, the kind of stuff that would make any relationship, consanguine or not, work.

What internet commentators call disgusting and Kim calls Genetic Sexual Attraction or GSA isn’t a sickness, or a perversion. It isn’t a predatory parent abusing an innocent child.

Consanguinamory of either GSA or NON-GSA forms isn’t sick or perverted. Why the assumption than the NON-GSA stuff has to do with child abuse? It doesn’t, I know, because I’ve been the offspring in just such a relationship and it was VERY POSITIVE. Please do some research on BOTH kinds of consanguinamory before making such ignorant statements PLEASE.

It’s what happens to some people when a natural thing – affinity for people like them – adapts to an unnatural situation, such as when a son meets his mother for the first time when he’s an adult too.

Well it certainly shouldn’t be a criminal matter, and it DOESN’T require ‘help’. It requires acceptance and understanding.

And it’s something we simply don’t understand. There’s been precious little research into the phenomenon, possibly because of the knee-jerk disgust we feel: getting funding for research into GSA can’t be easy.

There is very little research on GSA, and even less on NON-GSA consanguinamory. It’s a shame that bigotry is getting in the way of much needed research. Most of the information available on the internet is on blogs like this one and those I link to in ‘useful links’… other than that it’s mostly porn sites. Trust me, VERY annoying when people are looking for answers and all we are able to give them is our limited insights.

Furthermore, even doing such research is difficult because most people will be fearful of becoming part of any studies simply because of the law and prejudice! Hence part of the reason I am doing the consanguinamory study… to see how much the prejudice is affecting people, and to get some basic data. If nobody else wants to study us, we have to study ourselves.

That means people like Kim and Ben aren’t getting the help they need – and the online criticism means that other Kims and other Bens might not try to get help in the future.

They don’t need help, they need acceptance. These outrageous laws have got to change and stop discriminating against loving couples.

In a world where adoption has been joined by IVF, sperm donation and surrogacy there will be more Kims, and more Bens. We owe it to them to try and understand, and to find ways to help them. They deserve our sympathy, not our scorn.

Yes, you DO need to try to understand, and when you do understand you will see clearly why they need acceptance and not help. They do not deserve scorn and they do not need your sympathy… because there is nothing wrong with them. They are a loving couple who deserve to be left alone in peace.