Incestophobia

Incestophobia

(Note:

In this article, 'ACI' is an acronym for ' Adult Consensual Incest', also known by the neologism ‘Consanguinamory.'

'Consang' is an abbreviation of the adjective ‘consanguinamorous’ but also functions a noun, meaning a consanguinamourous person or group.

"CIAO' is an acronym for 'Consensual Incestuous Adult-Oriented' (person, group etc.) and can function as both adjective and noun ( as with ‘consang/s’) to mean consanguinamorous person or people.

Definitions of incestophobia

(Note. This article relates to consensual adult incest (ACI) only. For matters relating to any persons below the legal age of consent, please refer to other articles, such as statutory rape, pedophilia.)

noun : an extreme and irrational aversion to adult consensual incest-oriented (CIAO) sexuality, consanguineous relationships or people who want to be in or are already in a CIAO/ consanguinamorous relationship. Example: "Acts of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, incestophobia, xenophobia or discrimination </ref>"Discrimination". Australian Human Rights Commission. Retrieved 25 September 2021.</ref> happen often. We are all taught to discriminate from a young age, just by watching and listening to those around us, as if by osmosis."

Incestophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward consensual incest adult-oriented (CIAO) sexuality or people who are identified or perceived as having CIAO sexuality. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, disgust or antipathy towards CIAO,people, and may be based on irrational fear, and is often related to religious beliefs instilled by religious education, indoctrination or propaganda.

Incestophobia is observable in critical and hostile behaviour such as discrimination and violence towards others on the basis of their CIAO sexual orientation which is non-exogamous.

Recognized types of incestophobia include institutionalized incestophobia, e.g. religious incestophobia, state-sponsored incestophobia, and internalized incestophobia, experienced by people who have same-family attractions, (not limited to oedipal attractions) regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity

(Note: In theory at least, institutionalized incestophobia (religious incestophobia, and state-sponsored incestophobia,) may have existed even in Sasanian c. 250-650 A.D. where the state religion Zoroastrianism Persia which encouraged consanguineous marriage ('Xwedodah' as 'it ensured that not only the family and its wealth were intact, but also the religious affiliation of the family remained Zoroastrian.' (from J. de Menasce, ‘La Conqete de l'iranisme at la recuperation des mages hellenises,’ Annuaire des l'Ecole Partique des hautes Etudes, 1956-1957. 7 gnoli, op. cit., p.172

While the state and state religion in Sasanian Persia formally accepted and encouraged consanguineous marriage, other religious groups within the Sasanian Empire, (Christianity, Judaism and others) apparently did not, and thus may be considered to have been ‘incestophobic’.

Negative attitudes towards identifiable CIAO groups have similar yet specific names: same-sex incestophobia, for example is the intersection of incestophobia and sexism directed against homosexuals who are CIAO. 'Ageist incestophobia is the intersection of incestophobia and ageism , where there is intolerance towards parent-(adult) child CIAO where there is an age differential between the adults involved (but not against sibling CIAO).

1 Origin of the term

Although some sexual attitudes tracing back to early civilizations can be termed incestophobic (the Babylonians, Sumerians, (The (Legal) Code of Hammurabi contained laws against incest; (ancient Persia had laws against homosexuality and masturbation ), Ancient Greece (8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity (ca. 600 AD)) , the term itself is relatively new, and an intolerance towards CIAO sexuality (and homosexuals) grew quite sharply during the Middle Ages.

Note: the Christian Bible ( Genesis) tells how God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, but after escaping from Sodom with his family, Abraham's nephew Lot had sex with his own two daughters and started two Jewish tribes, the Moabites and the Ammonites. They do not appear to have been incestophobic. Abraham, Lot’s uncle, who had married his own step-sister Sarah, was after many years blessed by God with a child who was named Isaac. Abraham and Sarah do not appear to have been incestophobic, or incestophobes, and Abraham's incestuous marriage was thus the basis of the Jewish race. Islam appears to consider Abraham as a great prophet, and traces its holy lineage to him via his child from an adulterous union with his wife’s Egyptian maid Hagah. Readers of the Bible might wonder how, at least at that early stage, (before the arrival of Moses and the laws against incest established in the Jewish religion in Leviticus, the Jewish God did not appear to have anything against consanguineous relationships or polygamy.

The term incestophobia is a lend of (1) the word incest , and (2) phobia from the Greek Phóbos, meaning "fear" or "morbid fear". It is debateable when and where the word ‘incestophobia’ first appeared in print or was first used. Bittles refers to 'incest avoidance' and a number of theories to account for it.

Also see term used in 2016 Petition PE01614: Adult Consensual Incest (ACI) Petition to Scottish parliament

(Note: The word 'incest' which is one of the root words in 'incestophobia' has been and still is highly controversial; it has been used and misused, interpreted and misinterpreted over many centuries, and was and is applied in legal, medical, common language and other contexts, differently in many times, places and cultures. Its meaning was defined simply in a common family dictionary as 'sexual intercourse between persons related within degrees within which marriage is prohibited." The meaning has been extended to the metaphorical to include 'questionable, unethical or illicit financial and informational cooperation between two or more companies or organisations." The precise legal definition of what constitutes incest in the Laws_regarding_incest_in_the_United_States and the punishments for the crime vary widely across the 50 states and territories in America. Anti-CIAO prejudice (incestophobia) is a social problem that has been identified by scholars in the Social sciences for a long time, and has been drawn attention to in many articles calling for reform of incest laws in many countries where CIAO is still criminalised. Negative attitudes towards CIAO sexuality or 'incestophobia', includes 'a mixture of revulsion and apprehension' which could be called 'CIAO panic'. CIAO panic might be likened to the sort of hysteria in the individual that is easily stirred up into the mass-hysteria spread during political fear campaigns for psychological warfare purposes. Such programs can be used to influence public opinion into supporting violent action such as warfare, witch-hunts/ heretic hunts of the Spanish Inquisition, McCarthy era anti-communist movements in North and South America, and anti-capitalist movements elsewhere such as the Cultural Revolution in China.

However, unlike 'homophobia', 'incestophobia' was not included as a mental illness in the DSM - (the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual (of mental illnesses) used by the American Psychiatric Association.

Incestophobia might have a better claim to be a 'real 'mental illness though. For many decades, homosexuality was included in the DSM, and was also considered in all the Anglosphere as a serious crime with heavy penalties, so that fear of being a homosexual or being accused of being an homosexual was probably a very valid, rational and justifiable reason for being homophobic, especially in those countries where homosexuality was a capital offense since the time of Henry VIII. On the other hand, incest had not been made into an actual crime on the statute books in England until relatively recently, (1908) ( a decade earlier in Australia and Utah) and was merely a breach of Ecclesiastical Law and thus it had only been subject to fines and penances by the church. There were many 'sins' other than incest, that were not crimes as such, and the punishments for these were not so severe under church law as to warrant a full-fledged 'phobia' as was the case with homosexuality. Dispensations by the church had allowed certain consanguineous marriages to take place, especially where the ownership of large estates was at stake, and there were mutual benefits to be had for both the Church and important individuals from such flexibility.

Incest law in the English-speaking world at the end of the 19th century and during the 20th century has generally become harsher towards CIAO people.1908 Australia| |Canada|New_Zealand|United_Kingdom|United_States

In contrast, the process of liberalization of attitudes towards sex increased in the Anglosphere, perhaps due to women's suffrage the availability of cheap modern electronic mass communication devices, (radio, television, etc.) but especially from the end of WWII, with the sexual revolution (often attributed to the works of Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, (Kinsey Reports) Masters and Johnson, the development of the contraceptive pill. A massive campaign to legalise homosexuality gained momentum at the same time as the Women’s Liberation movement, making great use of the media, movies, TV radio and later the internet to spread the message of the need for greater sexual freedom and tolerance. Street protests often became hosts for a multiplicity of activist groups and their messages. When it became clear to governments that the war on AIDs could not be effective if homosexuality remained illegal and homosexuals were afraid to seek medical treatment for fear of prosecution and carried on their activities in secret, the AIDS pandemic became a useful tool for accelerating the legalization of homosexuality and same-sex marriageTuller, David (2017). "The Health Effects of Legalizing Same Sex marriage". Health Affairs. 36 (6): 978–981. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0502. PMID 28583954. Retrieved 2 October 2021.</ref>. Thus the medical establishment and governments were forced to support homosexuality law reform and introduce media advertizing and education campaigns to help normalise homosexuality in order to help reduce the high AIDS death rate from HIV/AIDs. There was no such urgent necessity for ‘cutting any slack’ for people in CIAO relationships.

England and Wales The law relating to sexual offences in England and Wales was reviewed between 1999 and 2002. The 2003 Act replaced the offence of incest with two new wider groups of offences – familial child sex offences (sections 25–29) and sex with an adult relative (sections 64–65). However in Scotland there has been no recent government action or parliamentary consideration of this area of law, other than the 2009 Act. The odd situation in Scotland regarding incest is that, because the law defines the act of incest as involving both a vagina and a penis, siblings of the same sex, father-son or mother-daughter pairs, would not be considered incestuous under the law. As well as that, acts which would be considered incestuous child abuse in other countries, might not get the same harsh treatment in Scotland as they would elsewhere).

For one thing, as Sigmund Freud pointed to in his works, "The Oedipus Complex is in fact universal." Thus at one point or another in our lives, Oedipal urges, affect everyone and so it is inevitable that, with the good number of people who fail to pass successfully through the Oedipal phase of child development that they go on to develop something between a mild neurosis and a serious one (perhaps even a 'incestophobia') stemming from their natural Oedipal feelings and the socially-learned need to repress them, and thus this group of people is likely to out-number those who have homosexual urges. In fact, homosexuals may be a subset of this larger ‘Oedipally repressed’ group. Recent statistical estimates have indicated that about 4% of the population are homosexuals, and while they may have more political power as a relatively well organized social group, they may appear (to homophobes) to constitute a smaller 'threat' to society’ than CIAO people.(Exact CIAO numbers remain unknown.

It is likely, if Freud was not completely wrong, that the number of adults who have intense Oedipal and incestuous desires), actually exceeds the number of homosexuals. However, under the present legal and social pressures, such people are manipulated by society into repressing any Oedipal feelings including CIAO sexuality and so they become incestophobic as a reaction to their socially constructed incestophobic environment. This is an example of how state, institutional, and religious incestophobia creates internal incestophobia/ neurosis) . Some psychiatrists have theorised that homosexuality, perversions, other mental illnesses, and even some forms of criminal behaviour may result from repressed Oedipal urges and interruptions to healthy psychological development during the Oedipal phase of childhood. Note.

People who had strong oedipal desires but suffered repression and could not act on their inclinations, may carry the extra-emotional/intellectual cognitive load of guilt and anxiety which could cause long lasting mental anguish and ill health.

Incestophobia may be aggravated in states where ACI is illegal but where homosexuality is normalized as part of the new inclusive multi-cultural society using all media forms as well as the state education system. While large amounts of public funding have gone on education, advertising (propaganda) pedagogical campaigns to create more liberal and tolerant attitudes towards various sexual minority groups, attempts to create greater social acceptance and understanding of sexual diversity, have not been extended to creating greater social acceptance of CIAO people, or to remove public misconceptions about ACI or to try to reduce incestophobia in any of its forms.

Efforts to further increase the rights of homosexuals and most other sexual minorities may, to some degree and in some areas, have worked against the interests of the CIAO community.

Conservative opponents of law reform in the areas of sexual freedom accused those supporting the legalization of gay marriage, as acting like a vanguard "leading us down the slippery slope towards incest and bestiality." This acted as a wedge in the movement for greater sexual freedom between those who accept that CIAO people should have equal rights and those who say they have no intention of supporting the legalization of CIAO and want to completely distance themselves from such a program - in some cases demonizing CIAO people more than non-LBGTIQ groups do, in order to appear more ‘high-minded’ and or to appear to be on the side of ‘the mainstream’ conservative establishment which has now accepted them into its midst. Such people would deny that homosexuals are ever paedophiles or pederasts, or CIAO, but would insist that all CIAO people are child abusers.

As Jane Dow says in her article ‘ “Domestic violence can and does happen in all types of relationships, and it can occasionally occur in incestuous ones too. In regular relationships, if somebody is being beaten by their spouse, they can seek help and protection from the police and later bring the abuser to justice. With incest however, it is very different… the victim CANNOT go to the police without revealing the illegal relationship, and so the victim suffers in silence. So in this instance, the cost of incestophobia is actually helping abuse to remain hidden. Even when abuse is not physical, how can somebody have a chat to friends or other family members about it when even being in the relationship at all is illegal and considered immoral? They CAN’T.”

Incestophobia persists even in countries where ACI is legal, (i.e. in France recently some protested against newly introduced laws against incestuous child abuse that still allow ACI to remain legal between adults as it has been since 1810). In many countries where homosexuality has been de-criminalized, the state continues to use the media, state educational and propaganda institutions to simultaneously normalise homosexuality, whilst demonizing incest of all kinds, including ACI / CIAO, thus spreading and maintaining incestophobia. In countries where the state institutions still make CIAO and CIAO acts into a serious crime, often with long jail sentences for those convicted, and allow incestophobic propaganda and the seeds of fear and hate to be sown freely, i.e. from the Sophocles’ plays Oedipus Rex, Antigone Shakespeare's plays Pericles Prince of Tyre etc.) that depict even accidental incest as tragic, to modern English and American sitcom television series such as 'Frasier', and the 'Spoils of Babylon' that make jokes about incest, real or imaginary. i.e. In one episode of Frasier, Frasier, the hero, a psychiatrist, is attracted to a beautiful young woman and sleeps with her, only to abruptly reject her afterwards, (in typical narcissist fashion) when his family point out to him the fact that the woman strongly resembles his deceased mother.

In some countries it is not unusual for several incestophobia-depicting TV shows or movies to be shown on television on the same day. In one night (24/11/16) three comedy programs in Sydney NSW made incest the butt of incestophobia jokes. 'The Spoils of Babylon' is a satirical show that depicts an adopted brother-sister CIAO relationship which deteriorates into adult sibling rivalry in 1960s corporate America). In one scene, Devon, the adopted son of oil baron Patriarch Jonas Morehouse) confesses to his father (who is sick and in a wheelchair) his love for his legal sister Cynthia. Though their incest is not biological, the father is so incestophobic that he immediately forbids the relationship, but is so upset he dies (melodramatically) coughing up blood, and falling out of his wheelchair only to climb back into it, and then falling out again. At one point in the story, Devon is so incestophobic that he runs away from the sister he loves and becomes a drug addict, rather than try to maintain a secret liaison with her.

In another episode, Devon married a plastic upper-class British shop manikin and tried to maintain the pretence of a conventional marriage to it, rather than accept his own consanguineous love for his sister. The story depicts the sister as morally depraved (she is jealous of the manikin she sets fire to it and burns the house down), and also she has killed the inventor of a fuel-saving device and his family in order to preserve the profits of her family’s oil corporation. In this way her incestuous love is associated with corruption and evil. (However for those intelligent enough to discern, the story itself is not incestophobic. As someone in charge of a large oil corporation might act in a way that benefits its shareholders, she is no different from others. She is a passionate woman who fights for what she loves and believes in. In the same way, we don’t all necessarily connect a president’s invasive foreign policies or use of drones to assassinate US citizens, with his private affairs. And we don’t condemn someone’s political or business practices simply because we disagree with their unconventional private lifestyle.

In a bizarre way the story highlights these modern ethical conundrum, putting into contradistinction contrasting social and legal rules. (i.e. large corporations and military forces that appear to escape punishment for mass murders and robbery, while laws against ACI mean CIAO people are sent to prison and their lives destroyed for engaging in a CIAO relationships, a victimless crime.

Such TV shows do perhaps reflect accurately homophobic and incestophobic attitudes in 21st century US society and do focuses some attention on them, albeit, under the guise of humour.

As with xenophobia and homophobia, incestophobia is a phobia of certain types of people and is a political term, not as yet recognized as a medical phobia, though perhaps it ought to be.

Incestophobia has never been including in the DSM as a personality profile to describe the psychological aversion to CIAO but the term is an important tool for CIAO activists, advocates, and their allies to combat the establishment and to help to get the incestophobic anti-CIAO laws removed. 'Incestophobia' (the word) has arisen to help the CIAO movement combat entrenched bigotry and discrimination against the CIAO community. Describing the hostile attitudes towards CIAO by some people as a medical phobia is apt because, in many ways, the only reason this wasn't the case in the past is because the condition (incestophobia) was so widespread that it was mistakenly thought to be 'benign' and 'healthy' whereas, in fact, if a society allows such discrimination and cruel treatment of a minority of individuals (who are hurting no one) to go on for no good reason, then that society could be said to be guilty of having the same moral and ethical blindness as those societies that turned a blind eye to discrimination against black people and forced them into slavery, against Jewish and Semitic people, homosexuals and other minorities who were treated unfairly fined, jailed, killed, simply for being who they were.

2 Classification

Incestophobia manifests in different forms, and a number of different types have been postulated, among which some are: internalized incestophobia, social incestophobia, emotional incestophobia, rationalized incestophobia. There were also ideas to classify incestophobia, homophobia, racism, and sexism as an intolerant personality disorder. It might be said that, like racism incestophobia may be both a cause and effect of mental illness.

While Homosexuality is no longer in the DSM-4 (the diagnostics and statistical manual - version 4. Adult Consensual Incest was never classified in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM as a mental illness. The DSM-4 has a section on paraphilia, but this mentions incest only in relation to paedophilia; Neither does the DSM include adult consensual incest in their definition of a paraphilia. And thus it would be safe to assume the APA does not consider CIAO as a mental illness. Therefore the American Psychiatric Association, which must recognize the power of the stigma against CIAO (incestophobia) ought to issue a statement, reaffirming the organisations belief that CIAO/ ACI is not a mental illness, and say,

"Whereas adult consensual incest per se implies no impairment in judgment, stability, reliability, or general social or vocational incapability, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) calls on all international health organizations, psychiatric organizations, and individual psychiatrists in other countries to urge the repeal in their own countries of legislation that penalizes incestuous acts by consenting adults in private. Further, APA calls on these organizations and individuals to do all that is possible to decrease the stigma related to consensual adult incest wherever and whenever it may occur."

The APA has a chart that defines Sexual orientation according to various categories, but these do not include or exclude CIAO. "Categories of sexual orientation typically have included attraction to members of one's own sex (gay men or lesbians), attraction to members of the other sex (heterosexuals), and attraction to members of both sexes (bisexuals). While these categories continue to be widely used, research has suggested that sexual orientation does not always appear in such definable categories and instead occurs on a continuum" [...]. CIAO, while not included in the APA categories list on the chart may be similar to the discription under the APA's classification for Transgender and Gender Non-conforming." A component of identity that includes a person’s sexual and emotional attraction to another person and the behavior and/or social affiliation that may result from this attraction. A person may be attracted to men, women, both, neither, or to people who are genderqueer, androgynous, or have other gender identities. Individuals may identify as lesbian, gay, heterosexual, bisexual, queer, pansexual, or asexual, among others."

2.1.1 Religious attitudes

Main article: Religion and adult consensual incest-oriented sexuality

The association of adult consensual incest sex with immorality or sinfulness is seen by many as an incestophobic act.

Many world religions contain anti-CIAO and incestophobic teachings, while other religions have varying degrees of ambivalence, neutrality i.e. the Mosuo people of southern China traditionally practice Tibetan Buddhism, have no marriage and live in a matriarchal social system where CIAO relationships can occur outside any existing ( Matriarchal ) defined incest. Relationships within the matriarchal group may be considered incestuous, but not those between a member of the matriarch's family group and outsiders (which can include genetic fathers).

Some religious denominations do conduct certain CIAO marriages (such as cousin marriages (forbidden by law in nearly half of the American states). These include most Islamic denominations and most churches in the UK allow the marriage of even first cousins. Though the Parsees of India and other Zoroastrians around the world today generally do not allow consanguineous marriage, the Zoroastrian church in the last four hundred years before the Muslim takeover of the Sasanian empire (c 250-650 AD), did encourage what they called Xwedodah, 'which ensured that not only the family and its wealth remained intact, but also the religious affiliation of the family remained Zoroastrian.

The Greek Seleucids, before the arrival of Christianity allowed consanguineous marriage. For example

Laodice IV (flourished second half 3rd century BC and first half 2nd century BC) was a Greek Princess, Head Priestess and Queen of the Seleucid Empire.

In 196 BC, Laodice IV married her eldest brother, crown prince Antiochus. This was the first sibling marriage to occur in the Seleucid dynasty. After her brother-husband died, their father Antiochus III arranged for Laodice IV to marry for a second time with her second eldest brother, Seleucus IV Philopator. In 187 BC, her father died and her second husband succeeded their father as the Seleucid King and Laodice IV became the Seleucid Queen. After the death of Seleucus IV, Laodice married for the third time her youngest brother Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Their son, Antiochus V Eupator succeeded his father as Seleucid King.

In his play Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Shakespeare invents an incestuous relationship between a 'King Antiochus' and his unnamed daughter and also invents a punishment from the Gods for them (death by lightning strike) as a way to inform the public that CIAO relationships are evil and always end in tragedy.)

Sophocles, born about 500 BC wrote about 120 plays, of which the tragedy 'Oedipus Rex' is the only one most people know about today, primarily for its anti- CIAO message, which is, like the Pericles play, a complete fabrication (lie).

Romans

Dura Dura Europos was originally a Macedonian foundation and had been part of the Seleucian Empire during the Hellenic period. It then came under Parthia (Persian) control until the 160s when the Romans took it. Roman domination lasted less than a century. However Dura was destroyed by the Persians in the 250s and abandoned. Inscriptions from the 1st century indicated that the inhabitants practised marriage between uncle and niece, and even between half siblings, evidently influenced by Persian custom. After Caracalla's grant of Roman citizenship, in 212, such marriage practices should have stopped, but probably did not; more than three centuries later, Justinian and Justin II, both had to grant amnesties to inhabitants of the region who continued to live in incestuous unions. (Corcoran 2000 pp 10-11) "Unlike some Mediterranean peoples (For instance Roman Egypt see chapter 2) the Romans had an incest taboo. Roman law placed restrictions on marriages between very close kin, including those related by adoption. In general, marriage between those related within three degrees was prohibited."

2.1.1.1 Christianity and the Bible

Main articles: Christianity and CIAO sexuality and The Bible and CIAO sexuality.

The Bible, especially the Old Testament, contains some passages commonly interpreted as condemning same-family (CIAO) sexual relations. Leviticus 18: 6(King James Bible) says "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD" is also commonly seen as a condemnation of CIAO sexuality.

Christians and Jews who oppose CIAO sexuality often cite such passages; historical context and interpretation is more complicated. Scholarly debate over the interpretation of these passages has focused on placing them in proper historical context, for instance pointing out that Abraham and Lot's sins are historically interpreted as being other than adult consensual incest-oriented sexuality, and on the translation of rare or unusual words in the passages in question. Some modern Christians and Jews argue that since it was not until Moses' time and the Book of Leviticus that the Lord forbade incest, then Abraham and Sarah, and Lot and his daughters did not commit sins because they broke no existing laws.

The Westermarck Effect was a theory put forward in the 19th century to explain incest aversion but later is seems to have been treated as empirical fact and used as retrospective justification of incestophobic laws. If Westermark’s theory is correct and people who grow up together have an innate aversion to sexual relationships with each other, there would have been no reason to introduce rules to ban close-kin relationships as they simply would not exist.

2.1.2 State-sponsored incestophobia

State-sponsored incestophobia includes the criminalization and punishment of adult consensual incest-oriented sexuality, hate speech from government figures, and other forms of discrimination, violence, persecution of CIAO people.

2.1.2.1 Past governments

Main articles: CIAO rights in China, History of Christianity and adult consensual incest-oriented sexuality, and CIAO rights in Russia See also: History of CIAO people in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

In some but not all cases in medieval Europe, CIAO sexuality was considered a sin, but under the Catholic church, which extended the definition of incest from a few degrees of consanguinity to a great many, so that people would have to search great distances to find a partner who was not a distant blood relative, those with enough money merely needed to pay a dispensation to the church for permission to marry consanguineously. Those who needed to worry about incestophobia in the church were those too poor to be able to raise enough capital to marry their relative.

The countries in Europe today with the largest Catholic populations, tend to be more liberal, and do not criminalise CIAO people, whereas, the countries that adopted Protestantism, tend to have harsher more incestophobic laws against CIAO people. In Iceland as an example, offenders were once punished by being executed and later they were worked to death in work camps, so sinful was the offense of ACI thought to be. Today, in Denmark, \sex with a descendant is punishable by up to 6 years' imprisonment. Sex between siblings is punishable by up to 2 years' imprisonment.

A Danish professor has argued that sex between consensual adult siblings should be legal.

Már Jónsson writes: “Stóridómur (English: The Grand Judgment) was a set of laws passed by the Icelandic parliament, Alþingi, in the summer of 1564, following the adoption of Lutheranism in Iceland. ... and the laws were enacted to reduce moral licentiousness and sexual lasciviousness in the country.

The laws introduced harsher punishments for various moral crimes, such as incest and having children out of wedlock, and placed the executive power of meting out punishment and collecting fines in the hands of the emissaries of the Danish King. An example of the punishment for incest (besides beheading for men and drowning for women, was being sent to prison to do hard labour.

In the years 1683-1687, however, a legal rule was introduced in the Danish Kingdom, stating that people who had been sentenced to death could have their case sent to the king himself. He would then decide whether they should be executed or sent to prison for life, where they were put to extremely hard work.

By 1730, executions for incest had become an exception and imprisonment for life the rule - although, for many, this may have been worse than death. The conditions were terrible and of the eighteen Icelandic prisoners who came to Copenhagen-prisons in 1756, only four were alive one year later. (The Sound of Heavy Industry)

By the middle of the nineteenth century most incestuous people were "only" put in prison for a few years, and then released. Incest had stopped being a crime against God and was now only considered to be a disruption of orderly relations in society. “ Incest in Iceland 1500-1900 by Már Jónsson

The theologian Thomas Aquinas was influential in linking condemnations certain types of sexual behaviour with the idea of natural law, arguing that "special sins are against nature, as, for instance, those that run counter to the intercourse of male and female natural to animals, and so are peculiarly qualified as unnatural vices." Ironically the Reformation may have resulted in harsher treatment of CIAO people. Invention of the printing press, the age of faster communications may have increased incestophobia as false information, disinformation and indoctrination with false ideas could be greatly accelerated.

In ancient China, incestophobia was not as greatly ingrained, as say homophobia was in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China when homosexual behaviour was outlawed (1740). The story of the incestuous love relationship between Wen Jiang (Duchess of Lu, died c 673 BC) and her brother Duke Xiang, who had her husband murdered, is fairly well known and accepted in China. When Mao Zedong came to power, the government thought of homosexuality as a "social disgrace or a form of mental illness", and "[d]during the cultural revolution (1966–76), people who were homosexual faced their worst period of persecution in Chinese history."

There are no laws in the PRC specifically against CIAO sexuality, or homosexuality in the PRC however other laws may be used to prosecute people who break conventional sexual mores.Hooliganism or disturbing public order, are the sorts of laws that can be used to persecute CIAO people in China under CCP rule. More research needs to be done, but with mass surveillance in the PRC, researchers may have great difficulty with such a task. Xi Jin Ping’s recent crack downmay not affect CIAO people as he seems more concerned with ‘the bad phenomena of effeminate men’ in China.

In the Clifford Geertz article ‘The Visit’ which reviews A Society Without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China by Cai Hua, translated from the French by Asti Hustvedt, Geertz points out that in the 1950s the communists used their power to try to force the non-conforming ‘Na’ people of southern China (matriarchal, non-marrying and ‘fatherless’ people) (who occasionally may have been in incestuous relationships from the Chinese and western point of view) to conform and enter conventional marriages. But this doesn’t seem to have been from a desire to stamp out incest or from incestophobic motives. Perhaps it was to force the Na people to move from their (basically) ‘primitive Communism’ to Mao’s communism.(These people were already living in cooperative matriarchal communes with no private property, with no marriages, where women did not have husbands, children had no fathers. Thus there could be no ‘biological ‘incest’ in the western sense, nor any need for western incest rules to protect private property, since no private property existed.

The Soviet Union under Vladimir Lenin decriminalized adult consensual incest-oriented sexuality in 1922, long before many other European countries. The Soviet Communist Party effectively legalized no-fault divorce, abortion and ACI, when they abolished all the old Tsarist laws and replaced them with the Soviet criminal code which was more liberal and enlightened when it came to sexual practices. Lenin's emancipation was reversed a decade later by Joseph Stalin and adult consensual incest-oriented sexuality remained illegal under Article 121 until the Yeltsin era. In Germany, Ciao people were among the many groups besides the Jewish people who were targeted by the Nazis, imprisoned and died during the Holocaust.

2.1.2.2 Current governments

United Kingdom

Laws regarding sexual offences in the United Kingdom are devolved. Sex with an adult who is related as parent (including adoptive parent), grandparent, child (including adopted child), grandchild, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece, is illegal. In England and Wales the offence is against the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which effectively replaced the offence of incest with two new wider groups of offences: familial child sex offences (sections 25–29) and sex with an adult relative (sections 64–65). In Northern Ireland similar offences are against the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008.

In Scotland the offence is against the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, the provisions of which effectively replaced the Incest and Related Offences (Scotland) Act 1986 (although the 1986 Act was not actually repealed until 2010). Prior to the 1986 Act the law was based on the Incest Act 1567 which incorporated into Scots criminal law Chapter 18 of the Book of Leviticus, using the version of the text of the Geneva Bible of 1562.

In January 2016 a petition calling for “Adult Consensual Incest” to be decriminalised, was submitted to the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee but the petition was not debated and no change was made to the law.

North Korea

While the government of the North Korea condemns Western Gay culture as a vice caused by the decadence of capitalist society, and denounces it as promoting consumerism, classism, and promiscuity, like South Korea, it does not condemn CIAO sexuality. CIAO is not illegal in North Korea. In North Korea, "violating the rules of collective socialist life" can be punished with up to two years' imprisonment. However, the North Korean government accepts that some individuals are born with ACI-oriented sexuality and treats them with due respect. CIAO people in the DPRK are not criminalized or subjected to incestophobic repression, as in many capitalist regimes around the world.

Like their near neighbours Russia, China and Japan, North and South Korea do not have incestophobic laws against ACI. Hong Kong, as a former British colony does have incestophobic laws against ACI, a legacy of British rule. The Republic of China, (ROC)Taiwan still has incestophobic laws against ACI, though the PRC and ROC mutually claim each other’s territory as their own. CIAO people on the Chinese mainland, may feel safer than those in Taiwan, who may face imprisonment if detected and charged.

Germany

Though Germany has had incestophobic laws against ACI since the time of Bismark which were continued during the Third Reich (as with homophobic laws) homosexuality was legalized in both East and West Germany in 1968 and 1969, while ACI remains illegal in unified Germany. One indication that Germany is not entirely incestophobic today was the 2014 report by the German Ethics Council the recommendations of which included that ACI between siblings should be legal.

Australia

While ACI is technically legal in Australia under Federal law, various incestophobic laws exist in every state and territory of Australia. While the punishments actually given are often fairly mild, the 1975 Report of the Royal Commission into Human Relationships made formal recommendations that there should be no crime of incest in Australia (i.e. that ACI should be legal. Stonewalling by local, federal and state governments and the media on the subject indicate near universal incestophobia, at least in the Establishment. This makes it difficult for those advocating for human and marriage rights for CIAO people in Australia, but there are indications that incestophobia is decreasing in neighbouring New Zealand where 33% of the population under 30 think that ACI should be legal. Reducing incestophobia among the young may be attributable to many private and state publicity campaigns for same-sex marriage, which often made mention of the slogan, ‘Love is Love’ and indicated that everyone should live an inclusive, tolerant society and equal rights for all, the benefits of diversity, living in a multi-cultural society, etc.

Israel and Turkey

While Israel is predominantly Jewish, and Turkey is predominantly Muslim both countries are constitutionally secular and lack incestophobic laws against ACI. Turkey, under the ‘despotic’ Ottoman Empire made ACI and homosexuality legal circa 1860. As Israel appears to have been part of Palestine, once part of Ottoman Syria it may be possible that Ottoman law has influenced modern Israeli law.

Ivory Coast and North Africa

All the African countries which were colonised by Britain and as a consequence had British homophobic and incestophobic laws established therein, have retained those laws, which may or may not have been different from earlier traditional laws. Of the former French African colonies, only Ivory Coast has maintained French laws allowing ACI. Under the Indigénat the indigenous people in French colonies had a separate system of laws that to some extent respected local traditions, but the Indigénat ‘privilege’ ended shortly after the de-colonization period began. In many North African countries, Islamic laws were functioning prior to the arrival of the European colonialists. The return of Islam as a dominant religion in North Africa may have seen an increase in harsh incestophobic punishments of ACI after the departure of the French and to a lesser extent, the British, though Islamic law is generally tolerant of ACI sexuality and marriage between cousins. According to Alan H Bittles in an article for Population and Development Review, 1994 about a third of African groups either accept or prefer same-blood marriages to external unions.

South America

There are only two countries in South America which currently allow ACI: Argentina and Brazil. Argentina and Brazil do not yet allow CIAO marriage, though they along with Ecuador, Uruguay and Colombia allow Same-sex marriage.

The rest of (mostly formerly Spanish) South America, is staunchly incestophobic, at least in law. Brazil, with the largest population of Roman Catholics in the world, and a former colony of Portugal, like Portugal itself, is more tolerant of CIAO people than all the other former Spanish colonies in South America, except Argentina, even though Spain allows ACI and is not as incestophobic as all but one of its former colonies.

Central and North America

Only three states in Central and North America currently do not have incestophobic laws – New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Ohio, though Ohio does not accept ACI between adults who are lineal descendants.

2.2 Internalized incestophobia

Internalized incestophobia refers to negative stereotypes, beliefs, stigma, and prejudice about ACI-oriented sexuality that a person with ACI sex attraction turns inward on themselves, whether or not they identify as CIAO. The degree to which someone is affected by these ideas depends on how much and which ideas they have consciously and subconsciously internalized. These negative beliefs can be mitigated with education, life experience and therapy, especially with CIAO-friendly psychotherapy/analysis. Internalized incestophobia also applies to conscious or unconscious behaviours which a person feels the need to promote or conform to cultural expectations of heteronormativity or Homonormativity. This can include extreme repression and denial coupled with forced outward displays of heteronormative or Homonormative behaviour for the purpose of appearing or attempting to feel "normal" or "accepted."

Expressions of internalized incestophobia can also be subtle. Some less overt behaviours may include making assumptions about the gender of a person's romantic partner, or about gender roles. Some researchers also apply this label to CIAO people who support "compromise" policies, such as those that find de-facto CIAO unions acceptable and CIAO marriage unnecessary.

Extrapolating from studies of homophobic behaviour, it is a reasonable assumption to make that people who have internalized incestophobia are likely to have repressed Oedipal /ciaosexual desires.

'Internalized sexual stigma' is a term that can be used in place of internalized incestophobia. An internalized stigma arises when a person believes negative stereotypes about themselves, regardless of where the stereotypes come from. It can also refer to many stereotypes beyond sexuality and gender roles. Internalized incestophobia can cause discomfort with and disapproval of one's own CIAO sexual orientation. Ego-dystonic sexual orientation or ego-dystonic incestophobia, for instance, is a condition characterized by having a sexual orientation or an attraction that is at odds with one's idealized self-image, causing anxiety and a desire to change one's orientation or become more comfortable with one's sexual orientation. Such a situation may cause extreme repression of Ciaosexual desires.

In other cases, a conscious internal struggle may occur for some time, often pitting deeply held religious or social beliefs against strong sexual and emotional desires. This discordance can cause clinical depression, and even suicide among CIAO youth. Psychotherapy, such as CIAO affirmative psychotherapy, and participation in a sexual-minority affirming group may help resolve the internal conflicts, such as between religious beliefs and sexual identity.

Informal therapies that address understanding and accepting of non-normative orientations may prove effective.

2.3 Social Incestophobia

The fear of being identified as CIAO might be considered as a form of social incestophobia. Some theories suggest that incestophobia, like homophobia is based on an individual's fear of being identified as a member of a socially unacceptable group and being targeted for social and legal punishment. Thus incestophobia could result when an individual with Oedipal or Ciao feelings has a fear of being publicly humiliated if their CIAO sexuality is exposed, even if they have never acted on their CIAO feelings. Some people might be both homosexual and CIAO, and living in countries where both homosexuality and same-sex marriage are legal, but where ACI and CIAO marriage are not. If such individuals are incestophobic, then it might be more a case of their fear of exposure as being CIAO, and the possible loss of popularity and possible conviction and imprisonment in an incestophobic society rather than with any insecurity about their ‘abnormal sexual orientation.’

Those afflicted with incestophobia are likely to come from all backgrounds and classes, as is the case with mental illnesses where the causes are man-made and ideological.

Theorists have argued that a person who expresses incestophobic thoughts and feelings does so not only to communicate their beliefs about CIAO people as a minority group, but also to distance themselves from this minority and its social status. Thus, by distancing themselves (differentiating themselves / discriminating against..)from CIAO people, they are reaffirming their (superior) role as a heterosexual/homosexual in a hetero-homo-LGBTIQ - normative culture, thereby attempting to prevent themselves from being labelled and (mis) treated as an (oppressed and under-appreciated) CIAO (or other socially unacceptable and thus persecuted minority group).

While Evans' book does not include CIAO and Polyamorous sexuality in his framework of sexual citizenship (which has only five types of secondary (second class?) sexual citizenship: homosexuality, bisexuality, transvestism and transsexual -ity, youthful sexuality and female sexual citizenship, many western countries including in Australia have given those those 5 "second class sexual citizens" have full legal rights, (including marriage rights.)

This analysis may help explain incestophobia ( and other phobias that cause discrimination) where a person may posit violent opposition to "the Other" as a means of establishing their own identity as part of the majority and thus gaining social validation, when in fact they may harbour just as many CIAO or Oedipal desires, fantasies or thoughts as any other person.

“The incestophobe, may in fact be in denial about their own CIAO orientation, experience, and like the narcissist putting on a false self, pretends to the outer world as much as to himself, to be something he is not, and cannot be (‘perfectly normal.’)”

As with homophobia which can be viewed as a method of protection of male masculinity. a theoretically even larger number of people may be incestophobic in order to appear normal in a predominantly incestophobic society.

Estimates of the number of people who are incestophobic may be of questionable veracity. A recent poll conducted in New Zealand suggests that incestophobia rates in New Zealand may be exaggerated. For instance the poll found that 33% of adults under 30 years thought that ACI should not be a crime

One psychoanalytical theory may explain incestophobia as a threat to an individual's own Oedipal-sex impulses, whether those impulses are imminent or merely hypothetical. Simply, incestophobia it may be a person’s neurosis that is a psychological defence mechanism that protects the individual from the perceived threat of an attack on his ego and identity that believes he will receive from his superego (and other people) if he identifies as a Ciaosexual. This threat causes repression,denial or reaction formation neurosis.

3.Distribution of attitudes

Further information: Societal attitudes toward adult consensual incest-oriented sexuality.

In France, incestophobes recently tried to make incest illegal, though ACI has been legal in France since 1810. However the legislators who succeeded in putting incest back onto the legal books, failed to make adult consensual incest a crime, and merely helped stigmatize further those who had been subjected to statutory rape as minors by a family member, and doing very little to prevent the problem.

” Mrs Marie-Louise Fort and some of her fellow deputies wished, having collected the testimony of victims of incest and heard a large number of professionals involved in the care of these victims, propose to Parliament a text to specifically register incest in our criminal code.” “On 27 January 2010, France reinstated laws against incest. The new law, however, defines incest as rape or sexual abuse on a minor "by a relative or any other person having lawful or de facto authority over the victim". Incest between consenting adults is not prohibited.” Legality of incest#France, Belgium, and Luxembourg

American Democrats and Republicans have differing attitudes towards CIAO people.

In New Jersey and Rhode Island ACI is not illegal, and Ohio only criminalizes ACI between parents and adult children. Mary Pat Angelini, a Republican Party politician, who served in the New Jersey General Assembly from January 8, 2008 to January 12, 2016, attempted to re-criminalise incest in her state.

Between January 2010 and November 2014, many individuals around the world have been jailed due to their real or perceived CIAO sexual orientation; some have been beaten and killed.

In the past under Jewish laws against incestuous relations, CIAO people were burned as a punishment. Capital punishment in Judaism for incest involved the pouring of molten lead into the mouths of those convicted the crime. Thus the fear and paranoia, incestophobic neurosis about the idea of being caught for such an offense must have been very great. While ACI is not illegal in modern nuclear-armed Israel, and at least 39 other countries, many countries, mostly influenced by Judeo Christian Islam-based empires had introduced harsh laws against ACI. Some countries have modernized more than others, their people becoming more secular and scientific in their thinking while others remain caught up in antiquity, still dominated by large and powerful religious groups which hold tightly onto the instruments of power.

Incestophobia is not evenly distributed throughout each society or state but is more or less pronounced according to age, ethnicity, geographic location, race, sex, social class, education, partisan identification and religious status. As can be expected, the person’s location in different countries, religious views, lack of CIAO feelings or experiences, and lack of interaction with CIAO people may influence such views, as with homophobia. Note :

The anxiety of heterosexual individuals who fear being identified as CIAO may be an example of incestophobia.

In New Zealand, attitudes to CIAO people may vary on the basis of partisan identification. National Party voters are far more likely than Labour party voters to have negative attitudes about people who are not heteronormal heteronormativity or homonormal homonormativity such as CIAO, judging by a poll carried out in New Zealand in July and August 2021. The poll found that 68% of National supporters want to keep ACI illegal, while only 51% of Labour voters polled supported this.

The tendency of both National Party voters in New Zealand and Republicans in the USA to view sexual minorities such as CIAO people negatively could be based on incestophobia, religious beliefs, or conservatism with respect to the traditional family.

It can be assumed that incestophobia levels vary by region as with homophobia levels; for example, statistics show that the Southern United States has more reports of anti-gay prejudice than any other region in the US. It is not improbable that incestophobia levels have some correlation to legal punishments meted out to CIAO people in individual states. The wide difference in punishments of ACI in the various states and territories of the USA, for example, makes the laws seem inconsistent, and with no apparent basis in logic or rationality, quite arbitrary. i.e. ACI is illegal in New York ,

but legal in the adjoining states of New Jersey and Rhode Island.

To paraphrase a comment in 1998 by author, activist, and civil rights leader Coretta Scott King " (Homo)incestophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood."

Negative feelings towards CIAO people may also be associated with other discriminatory behaviours. Incestophobia, i.e. hatred of CIAO people, anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia are likely to be comorbitities.

Social constructs and culture can perpetuate incestophobic attitudes. Such cultural sources can include:

Music and music videos, Churches, The Arts, Films and literature that project negative CIAO stereotypes.

3.1 The horrific seven costs of incestophobia

The ‘horrific seven costs of incestophobia’ outlined by Jane Dow are: (1) Financial costs to governments of police detection, apprehension of suspects, prosecution, legal defence (where defendants cannot afford their own council) incarceration, and rehabilitation, and social welfare costs after the criminals have been made unemployable and homeless. Loss of taxes and productivity to the state due to victims of incestophobia being made unemployable.

(2) Costs of victim of incestophobia through loss of job, career, income, investments (loss of mortgage properties through lost inability to keep up repayments) etc.

(3) Loss of family and friendships do to stigma of criminal record for ‘sex crimes’. High psychiatric costs to the state for loss of enjoyment of life, due to resulting social isolation and loneliness.

(4) Loss of children from relationship and the psychological cost they pay from being taken being away from parents and put in foster homes, orphanages, state care. (If state is the carer, the quality of care is so low, and the abuse of children in state care so common that children are worse usually off. A high percentage children placed in state care end up in prison.)

(5) Loss of safety and physical and security for the victim and family members of incestophobia when their privacy is lost due to publicity of open court case and their pictures and names are placed in the newspapers. They may be physically as well as verbally attacked.( cost to the state for treatment of medical and psychic injuries). (6) The cost (physical and mental) to the individual CIAO person where, because of laws against CIAO, they are afraid to report instances of domestic violence from a partner to authorities for fear of being charged with incest and jailed.

(7) The cost to the nation in the form of shame and humiliation when the public finally realizes the error of its own and the state’s persecution (in their name) of CIAO people as what it is - the great and harmful self-injury of society against itself, which benefits no one.

(Another potential cost to the state, (after incest laws are overturned) may be large financial penalties when CIAO organizations successfully launch class action suits retrospectively for compensation for injuries to CIAO people who were incarcerated (illegally detained) and denied their human rights).

4 Efforts to combat incestophobia

At the present time Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, do not condemn laws that make consanguineous sexual relations between consenting adults a crime. Since 1994, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has not ruled that such (incestophobic) laws violate the right to privacy that are guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (as it did in the case of homosexuality). As such, despite the UN's inaction on this matter, countries that maintain such laws are clearly in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

In 2008, the Roman Catholic Church did not issue a statement which "urges States to do away with criminal penalties against CIAO persons." Whereas the UN Assembly called for an end of penalties against homosexuals in the world. In March 2010, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a recommendation on measures to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity, described by the Secretary General as the first legal instrument in the world dealing specifically with one of the most long-lasting and difficult forms of discrimination to combat. Arguably this could be interpreted as a call to combat discrimination against CIAO people, since their sexual orientation is ipso facto, towards consensual adult incest (i.e. Consensual Incestuous Adult-Oriented=CIAO).

To combat incestophobia, the CIAO community may need to use events such as CIAO pride/humility parades (these have been held simultaneously but discreetly in close proximity with LBGT parades, however for the most part, CIAO political activism (See CIAO pride) is conducted on-line. Public CIAO activism is seen by some in the CIAO movement as counter-productive, at this stage. In fact CIAO people can be on any place on the sexuality spectrum, from conservative to radical and the fear of CIAO pride and CIAO activism may be another example of the persistence of incestophobia existing among heterosexuals, homosexuals, and some CIAO people themselves.

In addition to public expression, i.e. petitions and legislation should be designed, controversially, to oppose incestophobic acts, (such as hate speech, hate crimes,) and laws that discriminate against CIAO people on the basis of their CIAO orientation (such as the laws against CIAO relationships and laws banning CIAO marriage. Successful preventative strategies against incestophobic prejudice and bullying in any location need to include teaching pupils about historical figures who were CIAO, (i.e. Abraham and Shapur I) or who suffered discrimination because of their (even only reputed) CIAO sexuality.(i.e. George and Anne Boleyn.

What Warren J. Blumenfeld argued in his book about homophobia might be equally true of incestophobia, that “it gains a dimension beyond itself, as a tool for extreme right-wing conservatives and fundamentalist religious groups and as a restricting factor on gender-relations as to the weight associated with performing each role accordingly.”

If what Blumenfeld said about homophobia also applies to incestophobia then Incestophobic “bias causes young people to engage in sexual behaviour earlier in order to prove that they are conventional.”

It is possible that anti-CIAO bias(incestophobia) may have contributed to the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic since even if a only a few people suffering incestophobia tried to avoid a CIAO relationship by becoming ‘conventional’ and sexually promiscuous either as gay or straight and got infected with HIV, they could have infected many others.

Anti-CIAO bias prevents the ability of schools to create effective honest sexual education programs that would save children's lives and prevent STDs (sexually transmitted diseases. If someone is in a stable CIAO relationship they are less likely to engage in risky promiscuous behaviour with strangers, and less likely to acquire an STD such as HIV. Incestophobia could be reduced through exposure (learning about CIAO experiences), explanation (understanding the different challenges faced by CIAO people), and experience (putting themselves in situations experienced by CIAO people by working alongside CIAO co-workers or volunteering at a CIAO community centre).

5.1 Distinctions and proposed alternatives

Alternative terms to describe prejudice and discrimination against CIAO people have been suggested. Some of these alternatives show more semantic transparency while others do not include -phobia:

One alternative to incestophobia is ‘CIAOphobia’- less transparent perhaps than ‘consanguinophobia’ but linguistically simpler and easier, and also more exact and less ambiguous.

CIAOnegativity is based on the term CIAO-negativism, parallel to homo-negativism used by Hudson and Ricketts in a 1980 paper; they coined their term in order to avoid 'homophobia'. Like homophobia, incestophobia, may be regarded by some as being unscientific in its presumption of motivation.(i.e.fear).

Davis Gregory M. Herek preferred the term ‘sexual prejudice’ over homophobia, heterosexism ( and probably incestophobia) as being descriptive, free of presumptions about motivations, and lacking value judgments as to the irrationality or immorality of those so labelled.

To paraphrase Herek "It’s (the term incestophobia) critics note that incestophobia implicitly suggests that anti-ciao attitudes are best understood as an irrational fear and that they represent a form of individual psychopathology rather than a socially reinforced prejudice.

5.2 Opposition to the term "incestophobia"

Studies of homophobic men found that “homophobic men seemed to have higher levels of measured arousal. This lead the researchers to hypothesize that the homophobic group under-reported their arousal, giving some credence to the idea that homophobes are in denial or repressive of homosexual urges.”

Such research may also provide credence to the idea that incestophobes tested in similar fashion to homophobes will very likely show they are in denial or repressive of their Oedipal sexual urges. People and groups that are incestophobic are very likely to strongly object to the use of the term "incestophobia."

An example of this might perhaps be found in the case where a petition to de-criminalise ACI was sent to the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish parliament. That the committee members unanimously decided not to discuss the petition, rejecting it in less than two minutes. Perhaps it was the petitioner’s comment offended: “Wouldn't legalizing ACI and not wasting tax payers' money on prosecuting and sentencing ACI people to jail for years, save a great deal of public money which could then be used to better educate all people about the risks of having a child with birth defects and how to avoid them? If children have to be taught to hate, and racism, incestophobia, homophobia, and class hatred are learned and become a sort of mass hysteria, conditioned into us, how do we de-institutionalise such hatred and mass paranoia?”

5.2.1 Non-neutral phrasing

Use of incestophobia, incestophobic and incestophobe may be criticized as pejorative against ACI rights opponents. Some behavioural scientists might argue that 'incestophobia' is usually used when somebody is making a pejorative evaluation of certain open and debatable value positions, (anti CIAO)( much like the former criminal charge or labels of 'incest' or ‘incestuous’ used against CIAO people), arguing that the term may be used as an ad hominem argument against those who advocate values or positions of which the user does not approve.

In 2012 the Associated Press (AP) Style Book was revised to advise against using non-clinical words with the suffix -phobia, in "political and social contexts." Thus implying that using a term like ‘incestophobia’ could suggest severe mental disorders, and should be substituted with "anti-CIAO" or similar phrasing.

Incestophobia does not necessarily have to be interpreted in a strictly clinical sense. Some could say that calling someone an 'incestophobe' when they only have an aversion to incestuous practices themselves, and perhaps say that CIAO people disgust them, may be inaccurate, because an incestophobe is someone with an abnormal fear of CIAO people.

But to others, an incestophobe is someone who is simply afraid of CIAO, or not attracted to it or people who are. And that is probably most people in an age of horror movies about incest such as Psycho_(1960_film) and many others that portray CIAO relationships negatively. While not everyone is morbidly or pathologically afraid of CIAO people or their activities, some behave badly towards CIAO people.

Many such people are labouring under the misapprehension that CIAO people are paedophiles who abuse children, a falsehood, or fake news manufactured and perpetuated by the media, particularly yellow journalism which thrives on sensationalism and exploiting the public’s morbid preoccupation with sex and crime for profit. Describing these people as 'incestophobic' (even if it was not their fault because they were the victims of disinformation campaigns by the media, church and governments in the past), is not done to chastise them, but to inform and educate them of the fact that they have been misinformed about CIAO people and that they need to become better informed. The term therefore is not used abusively, but didactically.Didacticism Someone who hears themselves being described as incestophobic or as ‘that incestophobe’, may then have a chance to study themselves and become more aware by investigating if the description is true. Then then they are able decide whether or not to change themselves. They might, for instance, find one of the many websites dedicated to informing people about CIAO such as the Jane Dow website,’Consanguinamory’ , 'Full Marriage Equality'. , 'The Finalmanifesto'

Others say that 'labeling' people with the term 'incestophobe' is a political tactic designed to 'demonize' people (argument ad hominem) instead of engaging in fair and open debate. As such, it is mere 'name calling' and a type of abuse which is the same as when people are 'objectified' and belittled, and de-humanised by having insulting labels thrown at them. So far it seems more likely that CIAO people are the ones who are suffering the most abuse of this kind, with the term Motherfucker for example being hurled around as a term of abuse in real life and in a great number of modern English language and other movies which are continually being broadcast around the world. The word is intrinsically incestophobic even when not be used directly to express hatred towards Ciao people.

This term seems to have become the preferred term of abuse in the movies in the period since the 1980s during which same sex marriage has been fought over and won by the LBGT community and in which pejorative and abusive anti-gay terms fell out of popular use in the entertainment industry.

Incestophobes have an irrational fear of CIAO people because Ciao people are only interested in each other; they do not spread STDs around the world by having many casual sexual relationships; and their total contribution national and international birth defects total, is tiny compared with the large number of children born with birth defects from non-CIAOs. (possibly over 98%)

In fact 'incestophobia' may not only be an irrational fear or neurosis in susceptible individuals and groups, but a mass psychopathology.

Psychopathology but also a socially reinforced prejudice which can be used by states to distract large numbers of people from the serious problem of the substantially (and possibly preventable) large contributions towards birth defects and congenital diseases made by various large industries and corporations, from exhaust fumes in the transportation/travel industries to many other teratogenic and mutagenic, toxic chemicals, etc. in paints, plastics, furniture, in housing and offices, legal drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, radiation from nuclear and coal power generation, etc. The regular prosecution and jailing of CIAO people, as scapegoats and whipping boys

on which to put the blame for the evil of birth defects, allows governments to be seen to be doing something about birth defects, while the major culprits, big business, usually under-regulated and protected from criminal prosecution by powerful political cronies and corporate lobbyists, are made to be blameless in the eyes of ordinary citizens, none the wiser, due to disinformation, censorship, de-platforming and political Spin_(propaganda)

Perhaps using the term ‘incest negativity’ when referring to anti-CIAO people might be preferred by some to the term ‘incestophobia’ because it does not imply extreme or irrational fear, but rather an aversion or dislike, however irrational or bigoted. Many people have a morbid fear of snakes even though they live in countries where there are no snakes because they were brainwashed by society and the media to hate and fear snakes.

People can learn attitudes of hatred and fear ‘by osmosis, without the intervention at any time of reason, just as children learn to speak and communicate in certain ways, (such as with a particular accent) unconsciously simply by listening, observing and copying the people around them as they grow up.

Thus many people can tend to incestophobia and not know why. When confronted, they might just say ‘This is how I feel. It must be my gut instinct kicking in.’ Such people underestimate the power of nurture over nature.

Some people are so well indoctrinated by their small religious group that they have a deep and morbid fear of doing anything at all that the group does not approve of. Thus Puritans in the early American colony at Massachusetts taught their children that celebrating Christmas and the giving and receiving of Christmas cards and gifts were satanic acts. These children surely would have been terrified to see someone dressed as Santa coming into their town. Making people have fears is surely one of the important roles that religions play in the art of social control. For once people’s fears are known they are easy to manipulate. And when people have insufficient fears, fears can to be manufactured.

Inculcating incestophobia into individuals or an entire society could be one way of encouraging them to break up from their existing family or nation system and to encourage them to amalgamate with larger outside groups, such as members of a new and far-off colonial acquisition, or to be absorbed into an expanding foreign empire. Some close-knit societies refuse to allow inter-marriage with members of a colonizing country, making it difficult for members of the colonizing country to acquire land through marriage. Incestophobic laws imposed on people who traditionally enjoyed consanguinamous marriage, could help increase the speed at which land might be transferred from native peoples into the ownership of the new settlers.

Anti-miscegenation laws which were outlawed in the USA in the 1960s,after the landmark case of Loving v. Virginia had a similar rationale to anti-CIAO incestophobic laws, as they too were based only on bigotry, ignorance and disinformation.

Anti-CIAOism / incestophobia, like anti-miscegination seems to have germinated along with the ideas of social Darwinism and the pseudo science of eugenics. Inbreeding and intermarriage were thought to weaken the dominant race of the Empire, and eugenics was expected to strengthen and consolidate the Imperial gene pool and thus help protect the Empire against rival states by maintaining healthier soldiers and workers; Liberal economics and imperialism, fed on the false belief, delusion that science and human ingenuity would allow perpetual growth and consumption of material goods even on a planet with finite resources. While socialist Empires may also have succumbed to this delusion to some extent, state-sponsored incestophobia in the majority of socialist countries, was not taken to the extremes as elsewhere as elsewhere: CIAO marriage was not permitted but CIAO relationships were not criminalized in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, People's Republic of China, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghiz Republic, North Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, or Uzbekistan.

Less incestophobia and more legalized CIAO relationships may be beneficial environmentally. “The huge populations in which we live make a delicate balance of kinship alliances meaningless and such incest as there might be would be a drop in the genetic ocean for the population at large and not affect it at all.”

Incestophobia encourages rapid disintegration of the cohesive cultural patterns in families, increases divorce rates and the number of broken families, as it encourages miscegenation and interbreeding,( see Alliance theory of Claude_Lévi-Strauss ) Incestophobic laws and associated marriage prohibitions forcing groups of men to give away their women in exchange for women outside their group,

(mixing incompatible cultural values) often leads to more family conflict and may contribute to higher migration rates, greater social polarization and unbalanced economic growth as immigrant-receiving countries and emigrant-losing countries, expand and shrink in an inequitable re-distribution of wealth and population. Rapid economic growth occurs at the expense of the environment (i.e. climate change, pollution, land, water and air degradation, high energy consumption, over population, globalization, unemployment, homelessness, pandemics.

In this rapidly globalising world, ‘context’ is a slippery word and what is ‘normative’ is decidedly relative to that part of the world in which the observer is standing. Looking at the terms incest and incestophobia from a wider range of national perspectives will give the inquirer a greater understanding of the true state of affairs regarding this complicated and controversial subject.

Books

• • Moses and Monotheism, Sigmund Freud, 1939. Vintage Books 1967
  • Ancient Society or Researches in the lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization by Lewis Henry Morgan, 1871
• Humanities Press 1970
  • Incest. The Nature and Origin of the Taboo by Emile Durkheim,(translated by Edward Sagarin) and The Origins and the Development of the Incest Taboo by Albert Ellis; Lyle Stuart Inc. 1963 LCCN 63-7913
  • Interrogating Incest, Feminism Foucault and the Law by Vicki Bell, Routledge 1993 ISBN 0-415-10104-2
  • Sanity Madness and the Family by R.D. Laing and A Esterson, Taverstock Publications 1964 Penguin Books 1972 ISBN 0140211578
  • What Freud Really Said by David Stafford-Clark, 1965. Pelican Books 1977 ISBN 0140208771
  • Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, Wordsworth Editions 1996 ISNB 978-1-85326-467-2
  • Sasanian Persia -The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Touraj Daryaee, I.B. Tauris 2014 ISBN 978-1-78076-378-1
  • The Right Not to be Criminalized by Dennis J Baker, Ashgate Publishing 2011 ISBN 978-1-13-827372-6
  • Consanguinity in Context by Alan Bittles, Cambridge University Press 2012 ISBN 978-0-521-78186-2
  • Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud, Vintage Press/ Random House 1946
  • The Red Lamp of Incest- An Inquire into the Origins of Mind and Society by Robin Fox, University of Notre Dame Press, 1963 ISBN 0-268-01620-8
  • In-Laws and Out-Laws. Kinship and Marriage in England by Sybil Wolfram, Croom Helm Ltd.1987 ISBN 0-7099-2796-7
  • The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier. Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attraction Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu, Beacon Press 1971 ISBN 0807015385 [1]

Fiction

• If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister? (1967) Theodore Sturgeon

Plays

• • ‘Under Plain Cover' in Plays For England, by John Osbourne, 1963 Faber and Faber

Movies

• • ‘Close My Eyes' by Stephen Poliakov with Alan Rickman and Clive Owen

Articles

Bergelson, Vera ‘Vice is Nice, Incest is Best: The problem of a Moral Taboo.’

Blatt, Caroline S ‘Incest Statutes and the Fundamental Right of Marriage: Is Oedipus Free to Marry?’ (1984)

Roffee, James A 'Incest in Scots Law: Missed Opportunities in the Scottish Law Commission Review'

Zhou, Y Carson ‘Delimiting the Lawrence v Texas Right to Sexual Autonomy’ (2016

8 External links

How Homophobia Hurts Everyone By Warren Blumenfeld

9 Notes

This article "Incestophobia" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Incestophobia. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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