2008 Woodie Awards
Australian couple defies taboo for love
Tanya Ludlow
Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: Perspectives
They say they are in love, and by all appearances, appear to be so. Sure, at 61 he may be more than twenty years older than she is at 39, but as the late R&B singer Aaliyah crooned, "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number." They live together, along with their nine-month-old daughter and her two children from a previous relationship, and are, as he said, "a normal, happy family like any man would be with his wife and children." John and Jennifer Deaves are also more than just a happy couple. They are father and daughter, which means that John is both the father and grandfather of their child.
John separated from Jennifer's mother when Jennifer was just a baby, but after only a few weeks of being reunited 30 years later, John and his daughter Jennifer began having a sexual relationship. I am sure on hearing this story, or watching the news clips showing the couple cuddling and smooching, most people had the same reaction as I did, which was "ick!" Their community and family are appalled, as was the Australian judicial system that put them on probation and banned them from having sex in the future. But as Jennifer points out, they are consenting adults and they aren't hurting anyone, so why is it anyone's business?
This raises an interesting point. Although incest between immediate family members is an almost universal cultural taboo, if the family members in question are consenting adults why is it illegal? After all, there are a lot of things which society disapproves of, such as adultery, which are perfectly legal. Even bi-racial marriage was at one point considered immoral and illegal in many states. Obviously, the "ick" factor cannot be used to determine the legality of human action, as it varies wildly from person to person, and in addition seems tied to its historical context. Generally, it seems that our criminal laws are imposed to discourage people from harming other people, which leaves incest between consenting adults in a curious predicament.
In his Pulitzer Prize finalist book The Blank Slate, linguist Steven Pinker discusses the perplexity of "moral dumbfounding;" the idea that something, even if you can't explain it in rational terms, still "feels" wrong. A group of researchers conducting a psychological experiment gave test subjects a few scenarios in which there was no real "victim" but which the test subjects also found disagreeable. Some of the scenarios were culture specific, such as the following: A family's dog is hit by a car and dies. The family then cuts up the dog's body, cooks it and eats it for dinner.
John separated from Jennifer's mother when Jennifer was just a baby, but after only a few weeks of being reunited 30 years later, John and his daughter Jennifer began having a sexual relationship. I am sure on hearing this story, or watching the news clips showing the couple cuddling and smooching, most people had the same reaction as I did, which was "ick!" Their community and family are appalled, as was the Australian judicial system that put them on probation and banned them from having sex in the future. But as Jennifer points out, they are consenting adults and they aren't hurting anyone, so why is it anyone's business?
This raises an interesting point. Although incest between immediate family members is an almost universal cultural taboo, if the family members in question are consenting adults why is it illegal? After all, there are a lot of things which society disapproves of, such as adultery, which are perfectly legal. Even bi-racial marriage was at one point considered immoral and illegal in many states. Obviously, the "ick" factor cannot be used to determine the legality of human action, as it varies wildly from person to person, and in addition seems tied to its historical context. Generally, it seems that our criminal laws are imposed to discourage people from harming other people, which leaves incest between consenting adults in a curious predicament.
In his Pulitzer Prize finalist book The Blank Slate, linguist Steven Pinker discusses the perplexity of "moral dumbfounding;" the idea that something, even if you can't explain it in rational terms, still "feels" wrong. A group of researchers conducting a psychological experiment gave test subjects a few scenarios in which there was no real "victim" but which the test subjects also found disagreeable. Some of the scenarios were culture specific, such as the following: A family's dog is hit by a car and dies. The family then cuts up the dog's body, cooks it and eats it for dinner.
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