Genetic Sexual Attraction: Should They Remain Illegal and Greatly Discouraged?
News channels have been widely spreading the news of a young woman who broke two conventional norms: 1) losing her virginity to her biological father and 2) her plan to marry her father and move to New York to start a family.
“(My mother) doesn’t live in the same town as us and we visit her, together, a couple of times a month. Occasionally we slip up and call each other “babe” or other goofy little names. She acts like there’s something up but she doesn’t know what the hell it is,” the young adult, who won’t disclose her identity, explains.
We’ve all heard the classic and cliché saying: “We can’t help who we fall in love with.”
Well, do you truly believe mankind doesn’t have enough control over ourselves that we can’t steer clear of those that societal norm states we shouldn’t be attracted to?
Since being coined in the U.S. in the late 1980’s after adopted children were given easier access to their records and were reconnecting with their blood relatives, genetic sexual attraction has stirred up a widespread of negative attention. This unconventional form of relationship, which is illegal in a majority of countries, is defined as: genetic relatives, who have been separated since birth or just barely met, who experience a strong physical or sexual attraction.
According to theguardian.com, post-adoption agencies are greatly taken back by the high number of reported cases of GSA. “So far, because of the taboos surrounding GSA and its variable and complex nature, the frequency of these cases is almost impossible to quantify, although some agencies estimate that elements of GSA occur in 50% of reunions.”
Adoption agencies are aiming to eliminate the sudden and terrifying frequent emotions, as well as present the dangers of incest, felt by adoption reunions that they: 1) warn those aiming to trace a relative of the phenomenon and 2) educating counselors to provide therapeutic guidance to adoptees and their families.
The article also presents the unfortunate reality: since GSA is associated with such negative stigma, conducting research on it has been very difficult as many who partake in GSA relationships tend to shield themselves greatly. The question: is GSA biological, social or environmental?
New York psychotherapist Joe Soll believes it’s mainly biological. This “romance” that develops between a mother being reunited with her child she gave up for adoptions is similarly related to a mother’s undying attraction to her newborn baby. Since adoption took place, the mother never ha
d the opportunity to for-fill that part of her natural desire to connect to her newborn infant. “These people regress to a very early stage of development. The relationship is sensual, but we don’t call it ‘romance’ or being ‘in love’ when it’s breastfeeding, cradling and stroking, or when it’s a mother and baby gazing into each other’s eyes. Often, people tell me all they want to do is snuggle up together. A woman reunited with her adult son felt an overwhelming urge to suckle. There’s an urge for intimacy, which they were previously denied.”
In the 1960’s, Professor Arthur Wolf, a psychologist at the prestigious Stanford University in California, traveled to Taiwan and ended up living in Chinese communities for extended periods. He took note of an interesting pattern of arranged marriages, known as sim-pua, where brides were sent away from the youngest age being 2 years old; they were to be raised in her future husband’s household. “Although the age at which the girl went to the future husband’s family was between three and five, in some areas of Taiwan they were under two. Many who entered these marriages were, in fact, nursed by their future mothers-in-law.” When Wolf asked some of these surviving mothers-in-law why they did this, he was taken aback by their candour. “They explained that the children weren’t treated as daughters: they were referred to as ‘little daughter-in-law’. They’d say, ‘It’s better to raise your son’s wife, because she will listen to what you tell her and won’t always be talking about your son behind your back.’ It was the classic mother-in-law strategy!”
Wolf concluded after his analysis of 25,000 minor marriages that many of them ended in disaster: divorce and few offspring. He notes that if the bride was given away under the age of five, she was more likely to end in divorce and have lower sexual satisfaction with her husband, since the first three years of life are critical in determining sexual attraction. For the brides who were set away over the age of 5? It was no difference from arranged marriages between those 16 and up.
Do you think GSA relationships should remain illegal and greatly discouraged? Or, since other traditional countries have practiced similar forms openly, should the remaining countries be more accepting of these present unconventional relationships?
Xoxo,
Chrissy
This Girl Just Admitted To Losing Her Virginity To Her Biological Father. (n.d.). Retrieved January 17, 2015, from https://lockerdome.com/elitedaily/7333054926562324
The Traditional ChineseFamily & Lineage. (n.d.). Retrieved January 17, 2015, from http://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/familism.html
Genetic Sexual Attraction: 18-year-old woman opens up about marrying her father. (n.d.). Retrieved January 16, 2015, from http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/genetic-sexual-attraction-18-year-old-woman-opens-up-about-marrying-her-father/story-fnet0gt3-1227188412830
(n.d.). Retrieved January 17, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2003/may/17/weekend7.weekend2
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