Incest

[Sundae]

OT, but part of the drift.

Re kissing cousins - there was a debate recently about the prevalence in the British Muslim community for cousins to marry (keeping it all in the family) and higher than average birth defects among the same group.

The radio programme I listened to about it wasn't very helpful, consisting mainly of a phone-in of BMs calling the report racist and identifying healthy members of their own family - missing the point that the plural of anecdote is not fact. Still, it was an interesting point.

Personally, I think the abhorrance of incest is evoluntionally triggered - and I believe that knee-jerk homophobia is too. That's not to say that people can't be educated out of the latter. After all, unless religion enters the equation, many men who find gay sex repulsive are turned on by lesbianism - and from a viewpoint of purely reproductive origin a gay man is a dead end, whereas a lesbian woman can be forced to reproduce.

In fact many liberal and caring men I know still have the gut reaction to men having sex with men, even when they have gay friends and are totally supportive of homosexual rights.