December 11, 2010

With the arrest of Professor David Epstein for incest, let's revisit the praise for the 1997 father-daughter incest memoir "The Kiss."

I've already started the conversation here about David Epstein. (I show you that Justice Scalia has explained the law on the subject: A father has a constitutional right to have sexual intercourse with his adult, consenting daughter.) I know most of the commentary around the web amounts to little more than ugh. (Come on, people. Hasn't the Supreme Court taught you by now that your disgust is not a proper foundation for law?) Now, let's move this conversation forward. There was a time, it was during the Clinton administration, 1997, when a golden literary light shone on the subject of incest. There was a "beautifully written memoir" by Kathryn Harrison that everyone was talking about:
Her narrative is spare and stark, written in a present tense that perfectly conveys how her experience happened ''out of time as well as out of place.'' ''We meet at airports,'' she begins, plunging the reader straight into the hell of the incestuous affair. ''We meet in cities where we've never been before. We meet where no one will recognize us. . . . these nowheres and notimes are the only home we have.''

Then she goes back to the start of her experience, when she first meets her estranged father as an adult. ''My father looks at me, then, as no one has ever looked at me before.'' Having not seen her since 10 years earlier, when she was 10, he is enthralled by her resemblance to him. When she drives him to the airport, he kisses her goodbye and ''pushes his tongue deep into my mouth: wet, insistent, exploring, then withdrawn.''

She writes: ''In years to come, I'll think of the kiss as a kind of transforming sting, like that of a scorpion: a narcotic that spreads from my mouth to my brain. The kiss is the point at which I begin, slowly, inexorably, to fall asleep, to surrender volition, to become paralyzed. It's the drug my father administers in order that he might consume me. That I might desire to be consumed.''
"The Kiss" — makes a great Christmas gift for Dad.

170 comments:

Fen said...

he is enthralled by her resemblance to him

The ultimate for a Narcissist.

Harvest and cultivate a sex slave from your own DNA.

What could possibly go wrong?

David said...

Come on, people. Hasn't the Supreme Court taught you by now that your disgust is not a proper foundation for law?

Best, most concise description of contemporary Constitutional jurisprudence I have seen.

Automatic_Wing said...

No, this one is alright since Dad hasn't seen her since she was 10 and he couldn't have groomed her to be his lover. And because it was beautifully written, of course. With a spare and stark narrative. That counts for a lot.

The other one is just gross. Lock the bastard up now!

Anonymous said...

I think that the best artist work ever about incest is Angel Heart, the 1996 movie starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet and Charlotte Rampling.

Incest is evil. This needs no explanation.

Incest is the way that a father breaks down his daughter into a life of prostitution. It's a training method. There is no doubt that this produces a hyper-sexualized woman, and that can be very entrancing.

That's not always the intention or the ultimate outcome, but that is the method that a father uses to pimp his daughter out.

The psychological damage produced by incest is so severe that I seriously doubt whether any woman (or man) enters into that relationship voluntarily. Maybe I'm wrong. Human experience is nothing if not infinitely variable.

Mother/son incest is virtually unexamined territory. Yet, I believe it is just as prevalent as father/daughter incest.

Anonymous said...

There is, by the way, a classic work about mother/son incest and the evil it produces:

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, BC 429.

William said...

Except in the case of really cute twins, I am against all forms of incest. However, I do not think we need laws against it anymore than we need laws against eating vomit. It is a patently wrong and harmful act and only extremely damaged people would engage in it. If the incest taboo doesn't inhibit their behavior, a law will almost certainly be ineffectual.....On a Freudian level there are all sorts of incestuous cross currents that exist within a family, but these currents are subterranean. If they rise to the surface, they swamp the boat.

Saint Croix said...

Here's what she says about it now.

"I am someone who felt murderously angry at my father. I have fantasized about killing my father."

Clyde said...

@ Maguro

So if Epstein's daughter writes a "beautifully written memoir" about their affair, then he's off the hook? Feh.

Joe said...

The daughter was 21 when the relationship started. It's nobody else's damn business.

Fen said...

What could possible go wrong?

"I am someone who felt murderously angry at my father. I have fantasized about killing my father."

Indeed.

Saint Croix said...

a law will almost certainly be ineffectual

oh, horseshit. It's like saying rape laws are ineffectual, because rapists keep raping.

Outlaw the bad shit. If they do it, lock 'em up.

Fen said...

Jason: The daughter was 21 when the relationship started. It's nobody else's damn business.

No, she was a minor when the relationship started.

Quaestor said...

Of course the difference is in the case of Oedipus the incest was involuntary.

If involuntary incest merits blindness and exile, what are we to do with this scum? Too bad Jesus ruined crucifixion (In the republic and the early empire incest was the only crime for which a citizen faced the cross)

Freeman Hunt said...

What the hell has gone wrong with people when so many of them are defending incest dad on the basis of the daughter being over eighteen? A parent and child are the same as any two consenting adults? Are you kidding me?

Just the beginning of this episode has exposed, at least to me, how incredibly damaging the idea of "anything goes between consensual adults" has been to society. It appears to have primed people to accept obvious evil. Taking advantage of your parental relationship with your twenty-one year old child is one such obvious evil.

I now think arguments in favor of acceptance of homosexuality should abandon this "consensual adults!" line of reasoning. There are others that are better.

John Bragg said...

The first few mentions, I assumed that Epstein was the father of the author of The Kiss.

Saint Croix said...

The daughter was 21 when the relationship started. It's nobody else's damn business.

What if they're drowning puppies? Then you're signing warrants and invading the sanctity of the home.

And what is this 21 shit? For somebody who is willing to ignore the whole fucking world's antipathy to incest, you seem very provincial when it comes to age requirements.

GMay said...

Sign me up for this libertarian shit, by golly. Everything does happen in a vacuum!!

Unknown said...

I get the impression Lawrence will go the way of Plessy v Ferguson and the Carter Court's revocation of the death penalty one day.

Automatic_Wing said...

@Clyde - That was intended to be sarcastic. Guess I need to add /sarc tags or something.

@shoutingthomas - I never thought Oedipus was really about incest at all. It's more about how you can't cheat destiny.

Ann Althouse said...

"What the hell has gone wrong with people when so many of them are defending incest dad on the basis of the daughter being over eighteen?"

Not everything that's bad needs to be a crime. Most of the bad things people do to their friends and family are not crimes and couldn't very well be crimes. In this case, both the father and the daughter seem to be committing the crime. If he's raping her, get him for rape. If he's an immoral sleazeball, shun him and denounce him. Should he go to prison? Should she? Read me the statute and tell me why only he goes to prison.

Anonymous said...

Most of the bad things people do to their friends and family are not crimes and couldn't very well be crimes.

I'm neither qualified nor particularly interested in whether this is a crime, but I do know that it's evil.

I also doubt whether locking up one or the other of the participants will do anybody any good.

This is one case where punishing the perp probably isn't going to improve the situation. As much as I'd get satisfaction from seeing the perp punished.

The punishment will have to be left to God.

holdfast said...

Ann - so the Fed Gov't should write a 2000 page law FORCING me to purchase a product I may not want just for my sin of not being dead, but we are arguing about how to strike some of the most ancient crimes off the books? Please. This stuff matters - maybe if it had never been a crime it wouldn't matter, but when something is actively de-criminalized, like sodomy in the Lawrence case, it sends a message of not just acceptance of indifference, but also approval.

That said, in light of Lawrence, I don't know what legal argument there is to support making incest between adults illegal (which is why Lawrence is so awful). Oh well, I guess Obamacare will pick up the tab for all the genetic freaks and therapy.

GMay said...

Freeman Hunt said: "Just the beginning of this episode has exposed, at least to me, how incredibly damaging the idea of "anything goes between consensual adults" has been to society. It appears to have primed people to accept obvious evil. Taking advantage of your parental relationship with your twenty-one year old child is one such obvious evil."

Wait until the age of consent issue starts coming up as it started to in the other thread (and now this thread). The age lines for sexual relations are just as arbitrary as the family ties, but watch the folks who rail against the Tyranny of the
State
for prosecuting a dad for fucking his daughter. Pin them down for an age of consent, and watch their mind-numbing consistency for the right of consenting adults to fuck their kids suddenly fall apart. Suddenly their aversion to state-inhibited ickiness starts to go away.

Why? It's perfectly natural right? It has historical precedent in enlightened western society right?

It's philosophically surreal. And icky.

GMay said...

"Read me the statute and tell me why only he goes to prison."

Anyone who thinks it was her idea to allow her dad to stick his penis inside her as soon as she was legally able to consent is either naive in the extreme or has her own daddy issues.

wv: glymen


heh

Freeman Hunt said...

And what is this 21 shit? For somebody who is willing to ignore the whole fucking world's antipathy to incest, you seem very provincial when it comes to age requirements.

That's exactly what I came back here to comment on.

Prohibition against incest, an obvious evil = not sacred.

Age of consent, which is totally arbitrary = sacred.

Say what?

Fen said...

Ann: Should she? Read me the statute and tell me why only he goes to prison.


“furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual” ...“the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.”

She's the victim. The idea that this started when she reached 21 is naive. As a minor, he cultivated her the same way all pedophiles do. The fact that she's now an *indoctinated* adult doesn't excuse that.


"the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice"

Thats madness. Our code of law is a codification of morality. If thats thrown out, then whats to prevent us from behaving like the animals: my co-worker is competing against me for resources and mates, so I will kill him. And be back from lunch by noon.

MayBee said...

Except in the case of really cute twins, I am against all forms of incest.

You know, that is a really good point.
Popular culture seems to be fine with the idea of two sisters being naked together, performing sex acts.
But a brother and a sister or a father and a daughter is unacceptable.

It's odd, and I don't know what to make of it.

chickelit said...

@Fen, Shouting Thomas: people who have no particular belief in God, probably lack any sort of concept or belief in evil. The two go to together after all.

Besides, don't forget that evil spelled backwards spells live

KCFleming said...

Reposted re: incest
G.K. Chesterton wrote in "The Thing" (1929):

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away."

To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.
"

Meerkat said...

For sexual harrassment, I guess the reason for the law is the involvement of money, not the power imbalance?

I would think the parent in the relationship would have a biologically built-in power advantage.

Unknown said...

Before, this thing was more rarely heard about because it either wasn't happening or localization of news.

The event would have been dealt with locally, many times brutally.

Shunning can work at that level, but how the hell do you effectively shun someone who simply moves to another state?

Find a way to actually enforce shunning and you have a foothold on convincing me it shouldn't become illegal.

Freeman Hunt said...

Read me the statute and tell me why only he goes to prison.

Prosecutorial discretion. She could go to prison, but it would be quite odd to decide to prosecute her.

Saint Croix said...

Not everything that's bad needs to be a crime.

Yeah, okay. Not everything that's bad needs to be a constitutional right.

Unknown said...

chickelit --

"people who have no particular belief in God, probably lack any sort of concept or belief in evil. The two go to together after all."

Pardon me? Is this your actual belief?

By the way folks, remember only a couple of months ago I pointed out unwarranted attacks on atheists?

See above.

AllenS said...

Too bad the guy isn't a Muslim. He could have the daughter whacked.

MayBee said...

I had a friend in college who told me she sometimes engaged in tongue kissing with her (married) brother. They just loved each other so much, a normal kiss didn't seem like enough.
She said.

The normal boundaries were just not there.

Quaestor said...

Ann wrote: Should he go to prison? Should she? Read me the statute and tell me why only he goes to prison.

I don't buy this uber libertarian guff. Society is not merely a corporation of sovereign individuals. Society does have an interest in individual behavior. Evolutionary biology has a lesson to teach here. I'm not advocating social Darwinism, but the claims of libertarianism sometimes contradict the evident facts of human social imperatives.

Society is the outraged party. Both father and daughter in this case ought to be condemned.

However, it is very difficult if not impossible to intimidate a man into performing sexually since evolution has programed males to react in an opposite fashion in an intimidating circumstance. Therefore the assumption must be that the father was the "senior partner" in the outrage.

Moose said...

...and not only is not illegal, but who are we to judge? They're both of the age of consent? So then we have no grounds to judge them socially - we're just stupid and ignorant and normal.

How dare we....

chickelit said...

Fen said:
The ultimate for a Narcissist.

I'd like to emphasize the "cheese" in Narciso

Oligonicella said:
Pardon me? Is this your actual belief?

Why yes, it is. Based on observation.
_______________
wv "Berrea"

Comrade Stalin could not be reached for comment.

KCFleming said...

Progressives advocate for complete sexual freedom, while simultaneously demanding near-complete economic control.

Unable to see how social mores undergird the very society that brings forth the wealth they wish to confiscate, they hack at its roots from every angle.

The seeming absurdities when discussing the consequences following legalization of gay marriage that once brought hoots and howls of ridicule have come to realization, day after day.

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

chickelit --

"Why yes, it is. Based on observation."

Self-selected limitations, no doubt.

Morals don't depend from religious belief.

John Kindley said...

Epstein and his daughter were probably only having sex to establish a test case by which to challenge the constitutionality of the incest laws.

KCFleming said...

It is passing strange when the ancient proscription against incest is brought to the dock and compelled to explain itself.

But because it is a truth borne of generations, its very existence is its only proof.

Once challenged, it falters, its painful lessons fated to be relearned, like the loss of herd immunity in mass vaccinations.

Freeman Hunt said...

Not everything that's bad needs to be a crime. Most of the bad things people do to their friends and family are not crimes and couldn't very well be crimes.

Name an equally bad, legal thing a father can do to his daughter.

chickelit said...

Oligonicella said...
Morals don't depend from religious belief.

My wife argues the very same line.
I try to argue the historical written record.

Fen said...

I see where you're coming from Olig, but I don't think he meant to give offense to athiests.

I'm guilty of the same slips and am now realizing I need to check myself and treat athiests with the same tolerance as I do religious folk.

GMay said...

chickelit proclaimed: "Why yes, it is. Based on observation."

Then your powers of observation suck.

Also, I could just as easily and childishly condemn you for the actions of the Westboro Church or any other jackass who dutifully attends church and brandishes their religion to compensate for their utter lack of morals.

Grow up.

Freeman Hunt said...

Also, I remember Althouse getting angry at some diehard libertarians for their seeming blindness to the real world consequences of their ideology. Maybe that blindness isn't limited to hardcore libertarians?

Fen said...

Meh. Tolerance is the wrong word, Awareness is better.

kent said...

I think the Professor is channeling Anais Nin.

chickelit said...

GMay said:

Then your powers of observation suck.

You've obviously got issues about religion in general and can't parse specifics.

I don't see you as worthy of having a conversation with.

Unknown said...

chickelit --

"I try to argue the historical written record."

Actually you don't, unless you give equal or more credit to the preceding Mideastern deities for our moral behaviors.

Fen said...

what could possibly go wrong?

The Polaroids her father takes of her naked: "The expression on my face, flat and dispossessed, is one I see years later in a museum exhibit of pictures taken of soldiers injured during the Civil War."

Fen said...

what could possibly go wrong?

"What remains inexplicable is how Ms. Harrison survived not only incest but also rejection by both her parents as a young child, which led in turn to bouts of anorexia, bulimia and suicidal depression."

GMay said...

chikelit: "You've obviously got issues about religion in general and can't parse specifics.

I don't see you as worthy of having a conversation with."


Because your reading comprehension and ability to reason also suck.

Again, grow up. Or get a clue. Your choice.

Fen said...

/via TheOtherMcCain

Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters: Epstein accused Republicans of ”taking hypocrisy in their personal lives to new levels of self-indulgent weirdness.”

Kirby Olson said...

They should be able to get married. People are so intolerant today! Love is love is love.

And love is all you need.

Trooper York said...

"Name an equally bad, legal thing a father can do to his daughter"

Teach her to be a Red Sox fan.

Trooper York said...

"Name an equally bad, legal thing a father can do to his daughter"

Let her get adopted by Madonna.

Trooper York said...

"Name an equally bad, legal thing a father can do to his daughter"

Let her make a reality show down the Jersey Shore with some guy named the situation.

Trooper York said...

"Name an equally bad, legal thing a father can do to his daughter"

Let her grow up to be a lawyer.

Trooper York said...

"Name an equally bad, legal thing a father can do to his daughter"

Introduce her to his friend Joe Francis.

Trooper York said...

"Name an equally bad, legal thing a father can do to his daughter"

Leave her alone with his friend Mick Jagger.

Trooper York said...

"Name an equally bad, legal thing a father can do to his daughter"

Drop her off at Roman Polanski's house for a photo shoot.

Banshee said...

Professors and bosses and people in your direct chain of command are often forbidden by laws and regulations to engage in sex with students and subordinates, even though everyone involved is a consenting adult.

Frankly, if people are direct relatives (and know it), the same thing applies. It's an abuse of psychological power.

Freeman Hunt said...

Is this Let's Prove Hardline Social Conservatives Right Day?

They said that if we supported gay rights, we'd start softening up on things like incest and polygamy. Most people, myself included, found that ridiculous and insulting to gays. And yet, today I see people doing just that!

Banshee said...

And yes, obviously fathers and mothers wield overwhelming psychological power over their adult sons and daughters.

The reverse may sometimes be true, but then, sometimes subordinates control superiors. Not often, though.

Methadras said...

Ann Althouse said...

Come on, people. Hasn't the Supreme Court taught you by now that your disgust is not a proper foundation for law?


Oh, so is this why foreign law is used or considered in SCOTUS jurisprudence?

Methadras said...

Ann Althouse said...

Should he go to prison? Should she? Read me the statute and tell me why only he goes to prison


Is this Socratic?

Gabriel Hanna said...

I think it is obvious that incest should be illegal, though of course discretion needs to be used in prosecuting those who engage in it.

Here's why: consenting adults or not, the family unit does not survive sexual jealousy. Every member of the family is expected to put the family's good over his own. If family members see each other as potential sex partners the family will break down.

Opposed to that we have the "whatever consenting adults do is right" philosophy--but for some reason, most of the people making that argument don't call for the minimum to be repealed. Sex with your daughter is one thing, but deciding what wage you are willing to work for is just too perverted.

Fen said...

If family members see each other as potential sex partners the family will break down.

*nods*

Same with Marine Corps combat units.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Fen:

Same with Marine Corps combat units.

And the Spartans?

Anonymous said...

Back in 1994 Reason magazine interviewed Dave Barry. He identified the biggest problem people have with libertarianism:

The argument was that if it wasn't illegal to have sex with dogs, naturally people would have sex with dogs. That argument always sets my teeth right on edge.

... I got a few letters, mostly pretty nice. One or two letters saying, "Here's why it wouldn't work to be a libertarian, because people will have sex with dogs." Arguments like, "Nobody would educate the kids." People say, "Of course you have to have public education because otherwise nobody would send their kids to school." And you'd have to say, "Would you not send your kids to school? Would you not educate them?" "Well, no. I would. But all those other people would be having sex with dogs."


Is coprophagy illegal? If it isn't, we'd better hurry up and make it illegal! Otherwise everyone -- well, all of those people, not us, of course -- will be imitating Divine in Pink Flamingos.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@murgatroyd666:

Is coprophagy illegal? If it isn't, we'd better hurry up and make it illegal!

This happened in my state-a man was arrested for having sex with a horse but Washington had no bestiality law. Well, we do now.

It's okay for society to be disgusted by things and make laws against it. We are no living under the rule of one of Plato's philosopher kings--who would have made marriage and poetry illegal too.

Fen said...

And the Spartans?

I would ask them, but their civilization fell.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Fen:

I would ask them, but their civilization fell.

It only lasted about five times as long ours has.

MayBee said...

They said that if we supported gay rights, we'd start softening up on things like incest and polygamy. Most people, myself included, found that ridiculous and insulting to gays. And yet, today I see people doing just that!

Freeman is speaking for me today. In every post.

Fen said...

Well, we can go back and forth before I pull the plug on the relevance of ancient VS modern warfare.

But since you appear well-versed on the topic, I'm geniunely curious what your take on this is:

The Sacred Band of Thebes, a separate military unit reserved only for men and their beloved youths, is usually considered as the prime example of how the ancient Greeks used love between soldiers in a troop to boost their fighting spirit. The Thebans attributed to the Sacred Band the power of Thebes for the generation before its fall to Philip II of Macedon, who was so impressed with their bravery during battle, he erected a monument that still stands today on their gravesite. He also gave a harsh criticism of the Spartan views of the band:

"Perish miserably they who think that these men did or suffered aught disgraceful."


Do you know what the Spartan criticism was? My source leaves it out.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Fen:Do you know what the Spartan criticism was? My source leaves it out.

No, sorry, I don't. I do know that little is known of Sparta other than what their critics and enemies wrote; the Spartans were superstitious about writing things down. So you have to sift what people say about them.

Indirect praise of Spartan institutions is found in Plato.

Anonymous said...

This happened in my state-a man was arrested for having sex with a horse but Washington had no bestiality law. Well, we do now.

Was it a female horse or a male horse? ;^)

Odd that a man could be arrested for having sex with a horse -- which probably would view the act as an annoyance, at worst -- yet it would be entirely legal for him to kill the same animal.

I once saw a video of a young woman engaging in a sex act with a horse. She was collecting semen from a stud racehorse. She was remarkably calm during the procedure; the horse seemed ... distracted, and wasn't particularly aware of her presence.

Anonymous said...

Now, sex with a spherical cow -- that would be perverse!

Gabriel Hanna said...

@murgatroyd666:

Odd that a man could be arrested for having sex with a horse -- which probably would view the act as an annoyance, at worst -- yet it would be entirely legal for him to kill the same animal.


It certainly is odd. But, as I said, we don't live under philosopher kings and our judges are supposed to consult the Constitution we wrote, and not the Platonic ideal that dwells in the void.

People have notions that can't always be justified by pure reason and aren't consistent with their other notions. If you don't like it, dissolve the people and elect another, that's the usual course taken by people who feel free to use force to impose the dictates of Pure Reason.

John Bragg said...

The fact that Father Epstein and Daughter Epstein are the scum of the earth is not in dispute, let me make that clear.

Althouse makes the case that, under the constitutional reasoning of Lawrence, laws against adult incest are unsupportable. Further, the practice of prosecuting only one partner and not both raises questions of equal protection.

My question: can Father Epstein and Daughter Epstein, displaying extreme deviant behavior, be considered for commitment in a mental institution? I don't know that they meet the criteria, if the criteria is being dangerous it's doubtful, but this seems more mental sickness than crime. Coprophagy (dung-eating) is a good parallel.

Kirby Olson said...

The man who had sex with the horse died, right?

He ruptured.

That's how they found the animal brothel, which was in the city of Bothell.

They had to explain the dead body.

Apparently if you have sex with a horse, a British man explained to me, you have to use a capping device that shrinks the horse's penis. Otherwise, your insides explode.

Amateur hour nutcase.

In England, they've got it worked out to a tea.

Quaestor said...

Gabriel Hanna wrote: And the Spartans?

I think you're confusing the Spartans with the Thebans, specifically the so-called "sacred band" which was the professional corps of their citizen army. The notion that the Thebans corps was composed of homosexual lovers is mostly derived from John Dryden's translation of Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas where he translates φλοςϊ as "lovers," which in the 17th century didn't have the same connotation as today. One objection that historians have to this interpretation is that among the Greeks sex was not an activity for equals.

The Spartans viewed sex with the unit as a breach of discipline. Spartan units were organized by age groups with men who had entered the boys barracks at age seven for ten years of training. During that time they were sexually available to their seniors who might take advantage of that situation or not. However, that kind of relationship within the unit was forbidden as disruptive.

Anonymous said...

People have notions that can't always be justified by pure reason and aren't consistent with their other notions. If you don't like it, dissolve the people and elect another, that's the usual course taken by people who feel free to use force to impose the dictates of Pure Reason.

As opposed to the people who feel free to use force to impose the dictates of being squicked out, of course.

Or the people who feel free to use force to impose the dictates of the One True God ... which He would do Himself if only He could.

Quaestor said...

Typo

"The Spartans viewed sex with the unit as a breach of discipline."

Should read

The Spartans viewed sex within the unit as a breach of discipline.

Sorry.

AllenS said...

If you're a man and have a desire to have sex with an animal, may I suggest waiting for the right unicorn to come along. The wait will be well worth it.

David said...

If he's raping her, get him for rape. If he's an immoral sleazeball, shun him and denounce him. Should he go to prison? Should she? Read me the statute and tell me why only he goes to prison.

As a prosecutor I'd be looking at rape, but it would depend a lot on her testimony. Fathers have a lot of power over daughters, and use of that power can be a breach of trust. My initial inquiry would always include what powers the father used to entice the daughter. I say this knowing that it is also possible that the daughter could be the enticer, and if she is, and is of age, rape prosecution is out.

In the old, old days, we would have had a witch trial, so perhaps this is an improvement.

MadisonMan said...

For which side during the trial would MacKenzie Phillips be the expert witness?

Mark O said...

"but it would be quite odd to decide to prosecute her."

Odd? Did she break the law? I thought the idea was consent.

Of course, it is unremarkably true that women are treated much more softly by the criminal system.

This would be, seemingly, Freeman's default position. Odd?

Rialby said...

Freeman: Age of consent, which is totally arbitrary = sacred.

Uh, not necessarily. You will find many on the Left who believe that the age of consent is completely arbitrary.

Oh, and I agree with your other comment. I'm not one of these people who think gay marriage is the end of the world. If gay men want to pursue monogamous lifelong relationships, I say - bully for them. The problem isn't that though. The problem is that there are people who believe that, like all the things Judeo-Christian civilization has given us, marriage between is an artifact of a horrible time.

The fight to change the definition of marriage for gay couples is just one step on a long journey to change the definition for everyone. Don't believe me? Ask them.

Blair said...

I don't think anyone is prepared to defend incest. It is clearly ick. But outlawing things just because we don't like them? That's even ickier. The United States was founded because a British king and his government decided to outlaw certain practices, mainly religious ones, because they didn't like them. If you start making laws based on what a majority find detestable, you end up with a fascist society.

People should have the right to make their own choices in life, even if they have devastating consequences for themselves. Arresting them for messing up their own family dynamic is ludicrous. They have already punished themselves.

Bestiality is a slightly different matter. Animals can't really consent, and it could constitute cruelty to animals. So a case can be made for bestiality laws. But consensual adult incest? You would have to prove some sort of harm to external parties. The possibility of inbred children would be the only compelling case one could make.

BJM said...

@Joe
The daughter was 21 when the relationship started. It's nobody else's damn business.

Apart from the moral and social hoohah, what if a child had been conceived? There can be serious biological ramifications when closely consanguineous humans procreate.

Once medical science discovered how congenital birth defects were transmitted, western civilization acknowledged the genetic risks of human inbreeding and the modern societal taboo/laws against incest and first cousins marrying ensued.

Romans often married siblings to retain power and property and it was very common for first cousins to marry to retain familial property rights as females could not inherit property, this continued into the modern era.

In the 1814 novel "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen, the 19th century's most popular novelist, protagonist Fanny married her first cousin Edmund with whom she had been raised. During Queen Victoria's reign and the early 20th century, first cousins commonly married resulting in congenital birth defects, such as hemophilia, that plagued the European royal houses of the 18th & 19th century.

So, yes it is our business to discourage dangerous behavior. Should Epstein or Harrison be jailed? Probably not, but both should be shunned, which is unlikely in our prevailing media driven culture where deviancy is rewarded.

KCFleming said...

"Arresting them for messing up their own family dynamic is ludicrous. They have already punished themselves."

And the rest of us have to survive their damaged family members; the ripple effects are not negligible.

MadisonMan said...

Bestiality is a slightly different matter.

I'm reminded of the non-crime in Wisconsin last year. Was it in Wisconsin? Now I'm wondering about my memory. Anyway, someone dug up a corpse and had sex with it. Having sex with a corpse was not a crime, prosecutors discovered, although digging up the corpse was. (You might be wondering why bestiality reminded me of this -- at first I recalled that the person dug up a dead horse).

What purpose would imprisoning either of these people (Prof. Epstein or his daughter) for incest serve? Underlining that society finds their behavior icky? Is that really why we need laws? I guess I'm disagreeing with Pogo -- I do not consider the ripple effect here negligible.

Anonymous said...

By the way folks, remember only a couple of months ago I pointed out unwarranted attacks on atheists?

That doesn't mean anything.

Godlessness feeds modern liberalism.

Modern liberalism is destructive to society.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Blair:

Animals can't really consent, and it could constitute cruelty to animals.

What consenting adult is harmed by cruelty to animals? That's just you imposing your standard of squick on everyone else, which inevitably leads to fascism, apparently.

Why is cruelty to animals wrong? Please give the rational basis.

knox said...

the best artist work ever about incest...

LOL

Don't forget every cheesey historical miniseries that's ever aired on cable.

Ralph L said...

Romans often married siblings
That's news to me. Link?
Pharoahs married their (presumably half-) sisters, but I've never heard if non-royal Egyptians did. Maybe they saved that for the king.

The Hapsburgs were notorious inbreeders, until their underbite and fat lower lip made eating difficult. At least one Rothschild married his niece. Is that kosher?

Fen said...

The daughter was 21 when the relationship started.

Again, thats bunk. The relationship started when she was a minor. Pedophiles groom their victims. He probably started cultivating her as sex slave when she hit puberty. Maybe even before.

Its nobody else's damn business.

Battered. Wife. Syndrome.

Freeman Hunt said...

Odd? Did she break the law? I thought the idea was consent.

Of course, it is unremarkably true that women are treated much more softly by the criminal system.

This would be, seemingly, Freeman's default position. Odd?


The would only work if my position would reverse if it had been a mother/son thing, but it wouldn't, so it doesn't.

Fen said...

I would ask them, but their civilization fell.

It only lasted about five times as long ours has.

That means very little. Scaling. Our time is more compressed with a much greater population density. The negative consequences that would destroy a civilization would have taken centuries to play out in their era, but only decades in ours.

traditionalguy said...

Here is the post modern story:But they were born that way as a Father and a Daughter. So, how can they be blamed for that? The sexual affair is nothing more than a normal relationship between an older man and a 20 year or so younger woman. No one can control sex. On the other hand the story told by the Ancient of Days has to do with a curse upon these two, and also on everyone who allows that conduct to go unpunished, because that is an abomination to Him. Who do you bet will win this contest in the end?

Gabriel Hanna said...

@traditionalguy:

On the other hand the story told by the Ancient of Days has to do with a curse upon these two, and also on everyone who allows that conduct to go unpunished, because that is an abomination to Him.

Did that curse apply to Abraham and his half-sister Sarah?

Gabriel Hanna said...

@tradguy:

Deuteronomy 27:22 Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.

Genesis 20:12 And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.

The Bible says a lot of things, my friend. You have to pick and choose which ones fit your preconceived morality; and then you pretend you got it from the Book.

Anonymous said...

Remember when Sen Santorum said this?

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

And liberals were all atwitter about how stupid he is and how laughable that was?

Uh-huH....

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Jay:

And liberals were all atwitter about how stupid he is and how laughable that was?


Don't forget that gay marriage in no way shape or form will ever lead to legalized polygamy or legalized incest...

Remember that guy in "There's Something About Mary" who invented the Seven Second Workout? Ben Stiller said, "you'd better hope no one comes up with a six second workout". And he responded, "THAT'S CRAZY! WHO WOULD EVER WANT THAT?"

Slippery slopes aren't always real, but they shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

Fred4Pres said...

You are all so judgmental. These are consenting adults. What is the problem?*

*Yes the snark is high on this.

I am for gay marriage. But this is why I promote gay marriage being passed democratically, not with some philosopher kings on the bench deciding the issue for us. Because you can make the same arguments for adult incest as you can for same sex marriage.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Fred4Pres:

You said all I wanted to say. It's our culture, all of us together. Judges are only part of it.

Anonymous said...

Come on, people. Hasn't the Supreme Court taught you by now that your disgust is not a proper foundation for law?

Best, most concise description of contemporary Constitutional jurisprudence I have seen.
-------------
My take: that's also what Martha Nussbaum and other current scholars are aiming for the law to be, to include gays and remove the emotion of disgust from the laws. She also wants to include sex as work.

Equality under the law on steroids, and argued for deeply.

traditionalguy said...

Gabriel...Wasn't Abraham the first one to be reckoned righteous by God by faith? That doesn't always break a curse without the faith to claim the work done on the Cross by the Seed of Abraham has broken your curse. How do you read that? The Law and Grace are always like two hands clapping, and one hand by itself doesn't get you a good result.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@tradguy:

Talking about Grace vs Law moves the discussion significantly from where it was. This discussion is about the Law. You claimed God's sanction for that Law, and I pointed out that God made prominent exceptions for His favorites...

Big Mike said...

There's a lengthy discussion over in Wikipedia about the Old Testament's rules regarding incest. Despite those Biblical proscriptions, the Old Testament includes stories about Lot having children by his daughters and Abraham marrying his half-sister Sarah. In that same era Pharaohs pretty famously married half sisters and apparently even full sisters.

That doesn't change the facts that (a) this is the 21st century AD, not 21st BC), (b) Epstein had sex with his minor child, and (c) The Kiss is absolutely not a suitable present for a father.

(Epstein will get off with a wrist slap, if that, because he is one of the anointed Ivy-educated elite.)

Freeman Hunt said...

Despite those Biblical proscriptions, the Old Testament includes stories about Lot having children by his daughters

After they thought the world had ended and everyone else was dead. Even then, they had to trick Lot and get him obliviously drunk to make it happen.

Not that any of that matters to this case. Just trying to be precise.

Unknown said...

Jay --

"That doesn't mean anything.

Godlessness feeds modern liberalism.

Modern liberalism is destructive to society."

I am godless. I am very anti certain trends in modern liberalism. The attempt to broaden acceptance of deviant sex is one. Doesn't seem to be working that way with me.

They would be all up in my grill if I spoke out at one of their rallies just as fast as they'd be up in yours. Even after I declared my godlessness.

It's not the religion. That's just a weapon they wield against conservatives who are by and large religious.

Those who wield their weapon of religion, ignoring collateral damages, are doing the same thing.

Anonymous said...

Well, I know what the conservative arguments are for prohibiting this. What I'm wondering are, what are the liberal ones?

Disgust? Plenty of people feel the same way about homosexual intercourse.

Power? So shall we prosecute Bill Clinton for taking advantage of a power imbalance in diddling his intern?

Inbreeding? This pair had no children, and plenty of methods of contraception exist. Further, are you arguing it would be okay if she were his son instead of daughter?

Non-consensual due to childhood "grooming"? Assumes facts not in evidence.

Undermines family bonds? What's the state interest in preserving a family where the children have reached adulthood? Why does it justify punishing adult incest, but does not require, say, prohibiting no-fault divorce?

traditionalguy said...

Gabriel...You are correct as usual. But the Law and its sanctions are also God's will. The poor miserable Muslims are stuck with that same Law , but refuse atonement by grace. So my point of view sees this as an issue within the Sin concept, the righteousness concept, and judgement for sin or righteousness. Oh never mind.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@stevenehrbar:

Inbreeding? This pair had no children, and plenty of methods of contraception exist. Further, are you arguing it would be okay if she were his son instead of daughter?

Since we don't make unrelated couples undergo genetic counseling for things like Tay-Sachs, sickle cell anemia, or cystic fibrosis, clearly the prohibition on incest is not based on fears of reinforcing recessives. Because if it were, we'd make unrelated couples have genetic counseling.

The analogy to the argument that since infertile couples are allowed to marry, so should gay couples, should be obvious...

If you start throwing out laws based on "there's no rational basis for that", you have no protection against those who wish to throw out laws you do support.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@tradguy:

So my point of view sees this as an issue within the Sin concept,

Right, but whether Epstein and his daughter get SAVED is up to the Lord, but the question is if one is going to jail why not both or neither, and talking about Sin and Grace is not very helpful.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Freeman Hunt:

hey had to trick Lot and get him obliviously drunk to make it happen.

Is that seriously your defense of Lot? Do you know how drunk I'd have to be before I thought it was okay to have sex with my daughter? Well beyond too drunk to perform, I can promise you that. Dead of alcohol poisoning first.

Mark O said...

"The would only work if my position would reverse if it had been a mother/son thing, but it wouldn't, so it doesn't."

There's nothing quite like missing the point. Or even missing it with elan. Worse yet is the fact that I generally love everything Freeman writes. Oh well.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Mark O:

Worse yet is the fact that I generally love everything Freeman writes.

I like what Freeman writes too, most of the time; I just don't always AGREE.

Mark O said...

As odious as this obviously is to most everyone, homosexual sex is equally odious to many people. Do we legally condone the latter because of better public relations? Freeman assumes a victim in her argument, but is that just because in the ordinary course of incest one of the parties is too young to consent? The law permits many things I find contemptible and punishes many I find unobjectionable. If, however, the law permits gay sex how can it preclude any other form of consensual sex? As a matter only of legal application, I cannot see that polygamy can be banned or even incest, if consensual.

If, as we are taught by Loving and others, there is a right to choose the person you love and have sex with, what’s the outside boundary of that argument?

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Mark O:

If, as we are taught by Loving and others, there is a right to choose the person you love and have sex with, what’s the outside boundary of that argument?

Damn right.

Since I'm not religious, nor a worshiper of Pure Reason, I prefer to let social friction sort it out, because that is what happens anyway.

I am very nervous that one day the courts will go too far, and then the people of this country will decide that they are no longer legitimate sources of authority. The consequences of that will be far worse than the consequences of permitting or banning outright gay marriage or polygamy or what have you. The courts need to do a little more deferring.

When women got the vote, when slaves were freed, there had to be laws passed to make that happen. There is nothing today which rises to that level of injustice, yet the courts seems to think that they get to decide all these questions for everyone.

traditionalguy said...

Gabriel...This time I disagree with you. The issue in a court is always the Trial Judge's and the Juror's view of sin and righteousness. They hang their hats on that peg so quick that all the appellate courts you can find cannot put together a different set of facts...unless it is a made up one. The Fact Finders that are persuaded by a trial lawyer to believe as he believes are ten times as powerful than any Appeal Judge trying to craft laws.

Freeman Hunt said...

Mark, you said I was easy on women, but I'd be just as hard on a mother as I am on this father.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@tradguy:

The issue in a court is always the Trial Judge's and the Juror's view of sin and righteousness.

Maybe I am naive but I thought that the judge and jury could only impose punishments on people who broke a law. I didn't think they had authority to punish the wicked and reward the righteous. I thought courts applied the law.

It's a common tactic in criminal trials; a man on trial, say for murder, and the prosecution points out that he's a shoplifter, and adulterer, and a failer-to-return-library-books--and the defense points out rightly that he is not on trial for being a bad man but for having committed a specific murder.

Joe said...

Again, thats bunk. The relationship started when she was a minor. Pedophiles groom their victims. He probably started cultivating her as sex slave when she hit puberty. Maybe even before.

First, a pedophile has sex with children under the age of 12. They don't groom their victims--they just RAPE them.

Second, that's made up crap. Grooming victims? What stupid movies are people watching here? Nobody fucking cultivates their children as sex slaves. This is beyond retarded.

Joe said...

Of course, we HAVE to make sure the adult daughter of Epstein isn't at all culpable for her actions. What's the story here, that an adult woman would never voluntarily have sex with her father?

What's next, that an adult woman would never voluntarily have sex with anyone? After all, women can't make such choices. They must be groomed for sex.

Bender said...

Excellent reasoning there. Don't bother to address the merits, just call it stupid and retarded.

If this woman had had sex with a total stranger instead, the mere fact that he is twice her age indicates that she has daddy issues. Something wrong happened to her growing up to want to do that.

Or do you think that your wanting to have sex with your 90-year-old grandmother is a perfectly healthy desire, not at all indicating that you are one sick f*** to want that?

If this incident was not wholly consensual, then the father did something really wrong and should be prosecuted for it. If it was putatively "consensual," then something bad involving her father happened to this woman when she was growing up. Either way, daddy done a bad thing.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Bender:

You're only assuming what you were asked to prove. Your assumption is that no normal woman would want to have sex with her father, therefore her father must have "done something" to her.

But the whole point at issue is, what was this thing that was done? You can't say, you just assume that it must have been because no normal woman, etc.

This is exactly the argument used to support women who murder their children.

Why can't it be the FATHER who's not culpable? After all, no normal FATHER would want to have sex with his daughter, therefore something bad must have been "done to" him by persons unknown.

Fen said...

Joe: First, a pedophile has sex with children under the age of 12. They don't groom their victims--they just RAPE them.

Second, that's made up crap. Grooming victims? What stupid movies are people watching here? Nobody fucking cultivates their children as sex slaves. This is beyond retarded.


"Before the molestation takes place, the perpetrator goes to great lengths to cement his or her relationship with the child to insure compliance. This behavior is called “grooming.”

According to INTERPOL, “The majority of sex offenders groom their victims.”

FBI agent Kenneth V. Lanning lays out five stages of the grooming process: identifying a possible victim, collecting information about the intended victim, filling a need, lowering inhibitions, and initiating the abuse."

Joe: Grooming victims? What stupid movies are people watching here?

I think we can now discount everything you have to say on the topic.

And maybe wonder what your true motives are.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Fen:

And maybe wonder what your true motives are.

Don't go there, Fen.

Remember in the 80's when there were supposedly transgenerational Satanic cults that would molest and murder children who had been raised, or if you will "groomed", for that purpose?

And remember how law enforcement and therapists all swore it was true, and questioned the motives of those who disbelieved it?

Don't remember that? People are STILL in prison because of that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse

Fen said...

uhm what happened to my comment that you're responding to? Its just gone.

BJM said...

@stevenehrbar

Inbreeding? This pair had no children, and plenty of methods of contraception exist.

Yes, but none are 100% effective and some common methods have higher failure rates than one might think. I guess that's why it's called an unexpected pregnancy.

@RalphL

You're right, I didn't proof read very well, should read Roman Egypt. However in cultural anthropology this distinction can become murky as the Anglo-Saxon word sibling originally meant one's kin within seven degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Changing our mores to accept close consanguineous sexual relationships flies in the face of common sense, science and history.

However, I doubt this salacious example is a slippery genetic slope. Had Epstein been John Q. Public at Podunk U, and his daughter working at the Wal-Marts, we and the NYT wouldn't be so interested.

We peasants do so enjoy the spectacle of one of the elites taking a header off the Ivory Towers. Saves wear & tear on the ole pitchfork, you betcha.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Fen:

uhm what happened to my comment that you're responding to? Its just gone.

Them's the breaks. Better thus... if it had been deleted by Herself it would say so.

Fen said...

It was after Bender's 9:38....

Fen said...

/take 2

Joe: that's made up crap. Grooming victims? What stupid movies are people watching here? Nobody fucking cultivates their children as sex slaves. This is beyond retarded.

"Before the molestation takes place, the perpetrator goes to great lengths to cement his or her relationship with the child to insure compliance. This behavior is called “grooming.”

According to INTERPOL, “The majority of sex offenders groom their victims.”

FBI agent Kenneth V. Lanning lays out five stages of the grooming process: identifying a possible victim, collecting information about the intended victim, filling a need, lowering inhibitions, and initiating the abuse."

Joe: Grooming victims? What stupid movies are people watching here?

We can now discount everything you've said on the topic.

And maybe wonder what your true motives are.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Fen, I really wish you hadn't reposted that.

I know you're all anonymous and you're talking to pixels, not people's faces, but accusing another commenter of being in league with pedophiles is well beyond the bounds of civilized discourse.

Fen said...

I don't fire warning shots.

Kirk Parker said...

Mark,

As an experiment, you might ask Freeman what she thinks of my state's very own most notorious older woman, Mary Kay Letourneau.
s

Fen said...

This is beyond retarded.

Especially when "the bounds of civilized discourse" have already been broken.

Revenant said...

The daughter is an adult, physically and legally.

If the court finds that she is not capable of making adult decisions then she should be stripped of the rights adults possess (e.g. voting, marrying, etc) and remanded into the custody of a legal guardian until such time as she is found to be capable of acting as an adult.

If the court doesn't make such a finding then she's as guilty as the dad and should face the same penalties. The whole "he talked me into it" thing is crap. I know a guy who let himself get talked into driving home from a party because the other guys in the car were even drunker. Guess how well THAT excuse went over with the judge?

Ralph L said...

therefore something bad must have been "done to" him by persons unknown.
Probably his own father. L&O SVU says most pedophiles were victimized as children themselves, and if it's on TV, it must be true.

If she initiated the affair, what sane father wouldn't repulse her?

Do we know for certain if they are blood relatives, and does the law make that distinction?

Revenant said...

accusing another commenter of being in league with pedophiles is well beyond the bounds of civilized discourse

Think of the comment as a signal flare alerting you to the presence of gross stupidity.

BJM said...

@Gabriel

I am very nervous that one day the courts will go too far, and then the people of this country will decide that they are no longer legitimate sources of authority.

Hello! Election 2000?!

How strong the blow back depends on who's ox is being Gored by the court.

Since we don't make unrelated couples undergo genetic counseling for things like Tay-Sachs, sickle cell anemia, or cystic fibrosis, clearly the prohibition on incest is not based on fears of reinforcing recessives. Because if it were, we'd make unrelated couples have genetic counseling.

Standby.

Cousin marriage in the UK and genetic testing

Interestingly enough the link is to John Hawks, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at WU Madison...small world, eh? One might almost say incestuous.

Ralph L said...

Scarlett, you know the Wilkes' always marry their cousins!
And he's a Protestant!

Revenant said...

Hello! Election 2000?!

The American people accepted the results of the 2000 election.

That's why, e.g., John Kerry referred to the man as "President Bush", not "Bush the Usurper".

BJM said...

@revenant

Of course Bush was confirmed and sworn in, but this was the first time in my lifetime that half the American people considered a sitting president illegitimate for eight years. We usually grouse for a while, oppose policy we don't like and the fringe protests, but the left went into full blown BDS right after the court decision. Even after their overwhelming victory in 2008 the fever swamp is still aggravated about it.

AllenS said...

I won't comment any more until I see a picture of the daughter. Maybe she's like totally hot.

MamaM said...

I won't comment any more until I see a picture of the daughter. Maybe she's like totally hot.

Naturally irresistible.

Anonymous said...

I am very nervous that one day the courts will go too far, and then the people of this country will decide that they are no longer legitimate sources of authority.

I'm already there, dude.

Anonymous said...

but this was the first time in my lifetime that half the American people considered a sitting president illegitimate for eight years.

"Liberals" are not "half the American people" and not even "half the American people" in fact voted in that election.

MadisonMan said...

Today's Second reading, a letter to St. James, is very appropriate

Do not spend your time judging your neighbors. A variation on Judge not, lest ye be Judged.

Attendance was way down this morning.

Fen said...

Rec: The whole "he talked me into it" thing is crap

Tell it to Elizabeth Smart.

Joe said...

“The majority of sex offenders groom their victims.”

Over a short period of time, not decades. And when they talk about grooming, it's flattering and working their way in, not some weird brainwashing technique.

In normal human language, it's called befriending.

Joe said...

If this woman had had sex with a total stranger instead, the mere fact that he is twice her age indicates that she has daddy issues.

What a load of condescending, misogynist shit. Of course, that's what most this thread is, so why stop now?

I swear we took a time machine back a hundred years when women were meek, delicate things incapable of making any decisions and if they did choose anything outside the norm (meaning whatever we as society says is the norm) they must have mental issues.

Freeman Hunt said...

And when they talk about grooming, it's flattering and working their way in, not some weird brainwashing technique.

In normal human language, it's called befriending.


No it isn't. Does "befriending" usually include concentrated efforts to break down the personal boundaries that are part of any healthy friendship? Does it usually include efforts to make aberrant behavior seem normal? Does it include emotionally isolating the other person?

MamaM said...

No Joe, it's not called befriending. It's called using. Friendship involves mutual respect.

James in Belgrade said...

All the people talking about how she's 21 (and of legal age) when the affair began seem to be ignoring some noteworthy questions:

1.) Was she attending college at that age? If so, who was paying her tuition? (Or was she getting free tuition at NYU because of her father?)

2.) Plenty of adults in their 20s get financial support from their parents. Was she receiving any kind of allowance from her parents after she was done with college?

The power imbalance between a parent and an adult child does not have to be purely psychological, especially when the adult child is in their early 20s. And if the answers to the questions I've posed are known to the prosecutors, this may explain why they've chosen to only go after the father.

Revenant said...

but this was the first time in my lifetime that half the American people considered a sitting president illegitimate for eight years

It didn't happen during your lifetime, either.

Revenant said...

Tell it to Elizabeth Smart.

Elizabeth Smart was a child, not an adult. Please pay attention.

Revenant said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Revenant said...

All the people talking about how she's 21 (and of legal age) when the affair began seem to be ignoring some noteworthy questions: [...] who was paying her tuition? [...] Was she receiving any kind of allowance from her parents after she was done with college?

The reason those aren't "noteworthy questions", James, is best illustrated by yet another question:

"Would YOU fuck your dad if he offered you money?"

Honestly, now. Maybe she and her father are both just twisted people (nature can cause this as easily as nurture). Or maybe something happened to make the two of them this way. Or, hell, maybe they're both innocent; crazier things have happened.

But saying "it's not her fault, he paid her?" Since when is doing something immoral forgivable provided you only did it for the money?

Moneyrunner said...

I interpret Ann’s comments as supportive of incest since the legal reasoning behind the legalization for homosexual marriage and incest are one and the same. I would like to see a principled Liberal define the limits to sexual combinations. Perhaps there are none. If so, can we assume that the ACLU will be siding with Professor Epstein, or any of the polygamous families in Utah. Why should laws against prostitution not receive many more legal challenges than crèches in public parks; there seem to be more prostitutes peddling their wares that Christians willing to defy the law. Under the emerging standard why should there be an arbitrary age of consent? Remember those videos in which members of ACORN were willing to work with a couple who wanted to import young girls from Central America to work in a brothel? If the girls consented should Lawrence be used as a precedent to actually set up such a lucrative little business – assuming it paid taxes and collected social security and Medicare payments; giving the government its cut? Regarding bestiality, the possibilities are endless. I don’t buy the “animals can’t consent” BS. Why is that even an issue? Do cows consent to being milked or slaughtered? Just curious if there is a limit and why?

Fen said...

Tell it to Elizabeth Smart.

Rev: Elizabeth Smart was a child, not an adult.

You miss the point. Elizabeth Smart had several opportunities to escape. Including one instance in front of an FBI agent. That she didn't do so must mean she consented to what was happening to her, according to your own arguments.

Please pay attention.

You've become a bit of bitch lately, spoiling to start a fight with me. Why is that?

Fen said...

Joe: What a load of condescending, misogynist shit. ..women were meek, delicate things incapable of making any decisions

Stop seeking revenge for some woman that made you her cuckhold and realize that this is not about a man and a woman, its about a parent and his child.

Fen said...

Joe: Over a short period of time, not decades.

Years. Probably from the time she it puberty.

And when they talk about grooming, it's flattering and working their way in, not some weird brainwashing technique.

You gone from denying the existance of Grooming to misrespresenting it. Like I said upthread, we can discount everything you've said on the topic.

What a load of condescending, misogynist shit.

Misogyny is the hatred of women. So you've got it backwards.

Why don't you just retire from the thread before you make yourself look even more foolish.