how should you deal with siblings or cousins that are sexually active with each other?

Question

Note: I don't have children myself, nor do I intend to have any, but I think it could be an interesting question.

Suppose you have 2 children (gender is irrelevant for this question) within 3 years of each other, and both older than 14 (so it's not statutory rape because of R&J laws) who for some reason are having an incestuous relationship, and you found out about this. How should you handle this? And should you handle it differently depending on the legality of incest in your jurisdiction?

While this is a hypothetical, the "for some reason" part of your question is begging more detail. Were they sexually abused as children? Did one sibling coerce the other? In either case, there are clearly some deeper issues to explore beyond simply whether or not one finds incest to be morally objectionable. Even within apparently consensual relationships, power dynamics can heavily influence how much each partner is actually a willing participant (and that is true whether we're talking about relatives or strangers having sex). — Acire, May 10 '15 at 23:14
I've closed this since as it currently stands, there are a lot of possible answers (even your own considers three fairly broad ways the adult would approach the situation), and is more likely to attract opinion than research or objective viewpoints. — Acire, May 11 '15 at 11:48
Perhaps someone's been watching Game of Thrones a bit too much... — Oscar Valdez Esquea, Jun 04 '15 at 15:45

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 10 '15 at 20:08

My view will likely be somewhat controversial, but I thought I'd share it anyway since I don't think they're THAT unreasonable.

Personally, I think there are 3 things to consider:

Is the act of incest illegal in your jurisdiction?
Do you personally think incest is not right?
Is there a strong taboo on incest in your surroundings?

If incest is illegal in your jurisdiction, there is no excuse: you need to stop them. They're breaking the law and they can get into serious trouble because of that.

If incest is legal, but you think it's not right, you have a good reason to tell them to stop it, especially if they are still underage and they need to listen to you. However, I personally think you should thread carefully here: explain to them why you think incest is wrong and why they should stop doing it. Otherwise they might not understand why this is important to you and why they shouldn't do it.

If 1 and 2 are not an issue, but the people that might find out think it's wrong, you should make a judgment call whether you want to risk it. And if there's no legal, personal or social barrier, then there shouldn't be a problem at all.

Contrary to what people believe, incest isn't THAT unnatural. it's not that common, true, but there are a number of animals that do it. And there are a number of quite well-known people that had relationships, and even married, with their relatives (like Einstein, or Darwin).

Finally, consider that this might just be some relatively "innocent" experimentation. There are mechanics in place from nature that prevent most people from falling in love with their siblings or parents. Your children might just be exploring their sexuality, and it's safer for them to do so with each other than with a random stranger that might abuse them.

how should you deal with siblings or cousins that are sexually active with each other?

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