Comment

Roger Ailes on Soledad O'Brien: 'That Girl That's Named After a Prison'

230
Nyet4/13/2012 5:56:24 pm PDT

re: #198 Obdicut

But that’s the same knowledge we use to show that incestuous relationships tend to be damaging as well; what we know about the way that siblings relate to each other.

But why, if you’re supposing that there’s all these invisible cases of incest that are perfectly okay, couldn’t someone say the same thing about adult-child relationships? By calling into question the psychiatric records showing that sibling incest is damaging by contending that such relationships are only examined when pathological, that seems to me to open up the exact same line of argument for relationships with children.

Nope, because with children the harm can be derived from more general principles, which also happen to be more obvious. It’s not necessary to base this on psychiatric record of actual cases. There’s simply no analogy between adult and children-adult “relationships”. Besides, in adult relationships you have to go an extra-step, because you’re denying consenting (prima facie) adults their rights.

Also, it’s not the state’s role to regulate the supposedly abusive relationships between consenting (prima facie) adults on its own. It’s not up to the state to divorce an abusive husband from his wife, even though their relationship can be visibly dysfunctional. It’s still up to her to leave him and ask the state for protection, if necessary.

If you’re going to make the assumption that nothing in the record can be relied upon because there could be cases of incest that are outside the record and unreported that are positive, it’s pretty impossible to disprove that.

But this objection doesn’t make your argument more valid. No, it’s still not sufficient to analyze only abusive incestuous relationships, because by definition you will conclude that they’re abusive. And possible non-abusive relationships can be hidden for numerous plausible/obvious reasons, starting with illegality of incest and ending with social taboo. No study that doesn’t at least attempt in seeking out non-dysfunctional couples (even if it fails despite the best efforts), but relies simply on the record that is biased towards dysfunction is not a firm base for legal restrictions.

I’d say the large number of incest cases that continue into adulthood, and the large number of incest cases that are only revealed long afterwards, do demonstrate that.

1. [citation needed] 2. Percentage?

If you’re rejecting the psychiatric record, there’s no way to attain those numbers.

And therefore no cause to deny consenting (prima facie) adults their relationships. Anyway, what are percentages of the categories in the prev. comment in the record?