Our post legalization impact on society

Amongst the various convoluted reasons behind incest remaining illegal is the ridiculous notion that it will in some way cause a kind of social catastrophe in which anarchy prevails and men devolve into savages. The reasoning goes that should the incest taboo be removed, then all sexual acts regardless of their immorality would become fair game. This is not only a form of the slippery slope fallacy, but it is patently absurd in the extreme.

Logic itself would suggest that any sexual act which is harmful in and of itself should always remain illegal, for instance bestiality and pedophilia cause significant harm and thus those acts should remain on the books as sex crimes. No sane person would argue for the legalization of shit like that, nor approve of the suggestion of such. This said, many people falsely associate incest with pedophilia and thus believe that incest in and of itself causes harm. This is ONLY true if one party is underage and thus unable to give informed meaningful consent.

However, incest between consenting adults is a completely different subject, there is no victim here, nor is there any valid reason for banning such relationships. To anyone who suggests that legalizing incest would be bad for society, it would be wise to ask them whether France, Spain, Holland, Japan, China, the Russian Federation, or Rhode Island were dealing with societal disasters as a result of incest being legal there. Of course, those countries are NOT lying in ruins or being overrun with predatory perverts.

So what would our impact be on society if incest was made legal tomorrow? I’d say relatively little, it’s not like we’re much different from anyone else anyway. We’re normal contributing members of society who raise families and like to live life to the full the same as everyone else. So while some might consider us oddballs, we’ve much more in common with regulars than they realize.

The charge that we would fundamentally change the function of the family unit or threaten family cohesion is ridiculous. There is a vast amount of diversity in what we call the modern family to begin with, and we are just one small part of that diversity. There are many things which can disrupt a family unit, most of which are perfectly legal. Take divorce for instance, that certainly upsets the functioning and cohesion of the family unit at least in the short term, but we don’t outlaw divorce because of this.

Also we do not redefine the family roles, we add to existing ones. When people are in incest relationships they are first and foremost family, then they are lovers simultaneously. Contrary to popular belief, this is NOT a contradiction, it’s the way these relationships work.

Furthermore, our way of life is often charged with destroying the traditional family unit. How could we even begin to threaten the family unit? We don’t. If somebody else wants to have the traditional setup, how does their neighbor over the road having an incestuous relationship affect them or prevent them from having what feels right to them? It doesn’t. So no, we aren’t out to destroy the family, we just live a little differently that’s all.

Of course, over time after legalization, there would be a greater amount of tolerance for us, just as their has been for LGBT persons. I doubt we would have much impact on culture, we may have some minor impact in terms of some celebrities coming out or whatever, but that isn’t exactly earth shattering stuff. So even though we may be numerous, I cannot see how giving us equality is going to negatively impact society at all. Doomsday is not going to come on our account.