Examinator< "Suppose I was divorced and started an affair (sex fling) with my younger secretary who ten years later turns out to be my estranged daughter. Did our not knowing really change anything? What father/daughter role was interrupted."

You are really playing with fire with this thread Examinator!
Incest is one of the biggest taboos in the vast majority of cultures/peoples in the world, and for good reason.

Are you suggesting it would be ok as long as children are not born out of the incestuous unions?

The mental health wards are home to many people who suffered through incestuous relationships, while disability services attend to the mental and physical needs of damaged people born to close relatives.

It is NEVER ok to have sex with close relatives!

Dear Examinator,

I question your premise of this being a
case of two consenting adults.

The daughter was a teenager
the first time the father had sex with her - both
had a serious drug problem at the time.
Later, it seems that
the sex continued - but so did the drugs.

If the father was able to understand what he was
doing, I rather doubt the daughter's mental
capacity to do so.

As I said previously - this case doesn't appear
to be about two consenting adults. This case appears
to be about one totally debauched individual simply
taking advantage of a younger, weaker person that by
rights he should have protected until she at least
was capable of consenting/or not.

I draw the line at any individual taking advantage over
another. Be it in the workforce, in society, or in the
family.

Come on examinator - this is a story that includes celebrities, drugs, rock'n'roll and incest! It's just the kind of salacious crap that sells trashy books and tabloid newspapers. The people who should've drawn "the line" are the hapless starlet and her erstwhile Papa/lover.

Fascinating that his band was the Mamas and the Papas. Now I'm wondering how they arrived at that name...

Excellent posts Foxy.

Examinator I think your question has been adequately answered. Or is there an underlying agenda to this topic?

CJ and others
you should have read my first post with more effort or my 2nd post.

NOTE : I didn't mention specifics because they are irrelevant to the question I was asking.
I did mention a list of exclusions for good reasons because they are essentially emotional, cultural/religious affectations that prevent or retard our ability to see things for what they are.

In other words I was leading to perspective which is one of the arch enemy to prejudice and irrationality.
NB That doesn't mean I'm advocating or condoning it, just that I took a broader perspective.

I was trying to get at what is the ACTUAL differences between Cases A&B in real terms. (beyond the exclusions)

Apart from the the 'risk' of inbred faulted etc children. Which is by no mean is guaranteed . I see only perceptions and potential abuses of power.

By establishing that, the next point was to suggest then it's the abuse of power that is the problem, why aren't we dealing with that IN BOTH cases and punish(?) the culprit?

My next point was to then ask the question why then do we stigmatise the victim ? Much like we used to do with bastards. We don't now, that's enlighten thought. In its place we teach sensible/protected sex.

The companion point is that we culturally make too big a fuss over SEX allowing/encouraging it to be a subject of titillation/salaciousness and ultimately the victims suffer (unnecessarily IMO).
The solution is to de-glorify sex.

10 years of listening to crisis (many suicidal) this seemed to be a good, if only realistic solution. Generally it's more difficult to handle sex based crises because of the perceived stigmatising by and of the victim .

To simply come out with that I would have been accused of 'pontificating' rather than making a point.

CJ I guess if you as a ex Anthopologist can't extricate from cultural mores it is unreasonable for others to do so .
Sorry.

Dear examinator,

Some people's demeaning, gross and pathetic attempts to
sexualize the world inappropriately is an
immorality. It lacks respect not only for human
beings, but also for the role that sex can and
should play in a spiritually mature existence.

As Marianne Williamson says in her book, "Illuminata,":-

" There is a category of sex that
is very dark. Rape, incest, molestation, abuse of any
number of varieties, centred around sex, then lodged
like a knife in people's souls. Millions of people
are thought to carry the burden, the vicious psychic
wounding of someone somewhere having violated them
sexually."

As a counsellor, you should know that sexual abuse
survivors are haunted by horrible memories, in bed and out.
Their efforts to forgive can feel like the need to lift
a boulder with one little finger, their access to one
of the most beautiful human energies having been sullied
and damaged and grossly misused.

Sexual abuse is an obscene betrayal. It is such a sign
of the insanity of our times that anyone would touch
a child, yet many people do; that anyone would rape,
yet many people do; that anyone would have to suffer such
a terrible degradation, yet many people have and do.

We don't need to de-glorify sex as you suggest - what we
need to de-glorify is its abuse.