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So… Gay Marriage is legal now. What next? Will all kinds of love be legal in the next decades or centuries? Will America work on supporting incest now? According to Wikipedia, you may get up to life imprisonment for incestal relations in our states. And if I'm correct, there were laws like that for LBGT in the past, yes? So, will incest be legal in time?

I was really hoping this would be a discussion of "So what's next for the LGBT community" but I was sadly mistaken

Oh, sorry. I could start a thread about it if you want.

No, I can make my own thread if I really want it. I'm just saying I got a little blind-sided here

I certainly hope not, but I don't think that the ethical logic of gay marriage operates at all like the ethical logic of sex crimes like incest. Gay marriage is built off the principle of consent between two individuals, whereas sex crimes are fundamentally an attack on one person by another. There might be people who try to defend sex crimes, but they are using a completely different logic to do so.

Let's see if the forums can do any better with this subject than the site comments~

Since ~the 1990s the view of pedophilia is that it should be considered a sexual orientation and normalized, as opposed to a learned sexual behavior with attached social stigmas.

Dr. James Cantor (link to some personal short essays on his most popular work), considered one of the top 3 leading research psychiatrists of the brain in regard to sexual disorders, says 1 in 5 men are predisposed to be sexually attracted to children. He says its so hardwired into the brains of pedophiles that a functional MRI (which is not the same as the standard hospital MRI) can be used to individually recognize and diagnose pedophiles in clinics.

In 2013, the APA officially began to distinguish pedophiles who are attracted to children but do not act, no longer considering them to be "pedophiles" or having a psychiatric condition.

{ The change in the DSM, a kind of Bible among medical professionals, lawmakers, and drug and insurance companies, doesn't just apply to pedophilia, but to several other deviant sexual desires listed in the manual. It represents "a subtle but crucial difference that *makes it possible for an individual to engage in consensual atypical sexual behavior without inappropriately being labeled with a mental disorder,"* explains the APA in its DSM-5 Paraphilic Disorders Fact Sheet. }

What exactly does it mean for someone who is attracted to minor children to be made allowed to engage in "consensual atypical sexual behavior" without being considered mentally ill?

The HuffPo article that covers this change even specifically states:

{ The DSM has consistently evolved in its views on sexuality. As Jillian Keenan points out at Slate, the first version of the DSM called any kind of homosexuality a mental disorder, but in the 1960s it was changed to say that people who were comfortable being gay didn't have a psychiatric condition. }

Even more recently, the New York Times published a feature on normalizing non-acting pedophiles, making out their plight to be even worse than those of homosexuals.

{ The psychologist Jesse Bering, author of “Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us,” writes that people with pedophilia “aren’t living their lives in the closet; they’re eternally hunkered down in a panic room.” }

These articles for pedophile rights always conclude with paragraphs similar to the Times:

{ A pedophile should be held responsible for his conduct -- but not for the underlying attraction. Arguing for the rights of scorned and misunderstood groups is never popular, particularly when they are associated with real harm. But the fact that pedophilia is so despised is precisely why our responses to it, in criminal justice and mental health, have been so inconsistent and counterproductive. Acknowledging that pedophiles have a mental disorder, and removing the obstacles to their coming forward and seeking help, is not only the right thing to do, but it would also advance efforts to protect children from harm. }

but they never quite explain what that means. What are we asking these people, who have committed no crimes except morally corrupt lewd thoughts, to come forward and do? Certainly we can't commit anyone to rehab against their will, even if they admit they're a pedophile. What do we do with the people who admit they're pedophiles but don't willfully volunteer for treatment? Can we legally demand it of them if, as Dr. Cantor's research shows, we can identify them as pedophiles through MRIs? What would change if pedophiles were given the "right" to identify themselves without discrimination?

These are not hypothetical or loaded questions, they're questions nobody really has a solid answer for at the mo, hence great discussion starters.

Its kind of funny you say "I certainly hope not". Decades or centuries back, the same thing would be said about gay marriage, as previously stated. It was unheard of back then. If I'm correct, people would be executed for it, yes? And look, it's legal now.

But again, they're separate issues. Decades or centuries back, the popular American conscience abhorred lots of other kinds of sexual deviance that are accepted in the popular culture now. For the majority of the twentieth century, I'd imagine 50 Shades of Gray would be met with much more outrage and hostility than it has been today.

It's the debate between license and liberty. It's a matter of liberty for gay couples to have their unions validated with the same legal rights by the state. It's a matter of license for society to condone fringe acts of sexual deviance. And yes, sodomy has traditionally been considered an act of sexual deviance, but remember that sex is only one aspect of marriage. The push for gay marriage has been more about the allowance of rights as liberties when it comes for allowing gay couples to live in society without ostracism.

I'd explain it myself, but Wikipedia already has it in pretty much the way I was going to phrase it anyway, so…

"In logic and critical thinking, a slippery slope is a logical device, but it is usually known under its fallacious form, in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any rational argument or demonstrable mechanism for the inevitability of the event in question."

Personally, i'm putting my money on Polygamy. Both Polygyny and Polyandry of course, as well as the Homo-Polygimus variants for multiple same-sex, mixed sex, a-sex, and even trans-sex partner marriages.

Personally I think polygamy isn't exactly bad. If everyone's consenting who cares really what they're doing. Even if it isn't proven to be a stable human method of bonding that's their problem you know? More money for the divorce lawyers. As for incest it should probably stay illegal because of the very real danger of inbreeding and children being harmed before they even draw breath. Then again you could also make the argument that people with genetic disorders should not be allowed to reproduce to protect future children and then it becomes kind of a gray area. As for pedophilia it's pretty obvious that's never going to have a substantial movement as the negative repercussions of that are very obvious and ingrained in first world societies. Maybe myself and some others would be more open to reducing the age of consent a year or two but that's about it. 13 year olds aren't going to be having sex with anyone anytime soon in the US.

And yeah just like Crimson I thought this would be about maybe the T in LGBT getting the next big movement or the LGB pushing for social acceptance now that most of the legal discrimination is out of the way, I'd be glad to discuss that.

EDIT: Oh yeah almost forgot to discuss bestiality. This one's probably more unlikely to happen than pedophilia because of social norms and such. Personally I'm not sure how I think with bestiality since it's kind of gray just like incest. While animals can't consent to sex, there's the whole other argument of animal rights and how we kill them all the time anyways legally so why not fuck them? I'm leaning more towards the no on this one though just like incest and of course I doubt LGB rights are going to lead to any of this.

How is people thinking bestiality is the next logical step after gay marriage "reasonable"?

There's no reason for the government to dictate what consenting adults can do with each other.

Short answer: polygamy

Yeah I'm essentially on the same page as Sam with polygamy. It's painted in a pretty bad light in most of society but I personally put it in the category of "If it's consenting adults who the fuck cares". Of course emphasis on the consenting part.

>"What's after Gay marriage?"

Let's not limit ourselves to just looking at the "marriage" part of that line and check how marriage can further evolve. Instead, let's look at the "gay" section again:

Here's a good piece of info: Infographic: Legally Married vs. Legally Fired

"Only 21 states have passed legislation that bans discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in vital areas of life, including employment, housing, and public accommodations. Similarly, only 18 states explicitly protect transgender people from discrimination. This means that in 16 states and counting, same-sex couples can legally marry and can then be legally fired from their jobs, evicted from their apartments, denied credit, refused hotel rooms, and discriminated against in education all because of their sexual orientation."

Gay couples have gotten the right of marriage, but they are still not free from legal discrimination nationwide. When you go to transgenders, they are facing legal discrimination in even more states.

So I'd say fixing that could be considered a good 'next step'.

I could see polygamy getting abused for tax reasons and then you have to deal with the numbers of people involved, which would be a nightmare paperwork wise. Is it just one extra spouse or an unlimited number? Are the marriages just between one man and multiple women and vice-versa or are there multiples of both sexes involved? If so are they all married to each other or just the ones that are sleeping with each other?

As pedophilia, that will never be legal because children aren't good at making important decisions and are likely to be abused. Non-acting pedophiles might become more accepted because its neurological and not a learned behavior, and the way virtual reality tech is going in a few decades they can get off to cgi children and not real ones.

I don't see a problem with incest other than inbreeding, most marriages in history were between cousins anyway. (Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were actually cousins)

Human and animal marriage will probably never be legal like the right-wingers assume because animals can't consent to marriage (or sign a marriage licenses) Bestiality in general is actually legal in some states still because no one has made any laws against it, and it's legal in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, Russia, Finland, Hungary, and Romania.

Polygamy, eh? Yeah, I see that next. The only people who I see have a problem with it are Christians. After all, one of the commandments is No Adultery.

It's doubtful incest or pedophilia will ever be legalized due to the compelling government interest in ensuring safety--incest leads to severe genetic issues, and pedophilia fucks up the kids that are involved in the relationship. Since gay marriage doesn't have any compelling government interest to ban it, SCOTUS gave the stamp of approval.

That's why I'd say polygamy will probably be next to bat. The best you can argue against it is that it leads to dysfunction in a household and can get really complicated when divorce time rolls around. I'm not sure either would count as a compelling interest. Reynolds v US didn't even question the constitutionality of banning polygamy, just that it couldn't be protected by freedom of religion.

Playing a little Devil's Advocate, many of the things that are considered taboo are done as such revolving around harm. Consent, health, and trauma are large points around many issues.

• Consent plays into how a person feels in the future about what they did in the past. Health and harm are pretty direct, and trauma/psychological harm are like that but come more from not being able to properly consent or consent in any sense.
  • For animals, they're not going to feel traumatized if they're humping you and you decide to let them or less savory and more participatory…things. Short of tying them down, they aren't going to be traumatized in the same way we can see pets or livestock react severely to being otherwise mistreated such as being raised to fight.
  • For polygamy, that's pretty straightforward. There are arranged marriages that happen all of the time. As long as it's arranged and not actually forced, those sorts of marriages happen all of the time. Promiscuity isn't going to be a concern, as having sex outside of marriage with people who are not committed to each other is more dangerous than having sex with a man or woman who has sex with the same two or three other men or women.
  • For incest, there's the obvious harm of the chance at producing a child with severe mental disabilities. But you have a similar chance with women of a certain age, and even though they may be encouraged to adopt or have children via other means, it's not against the law for even a 50-year old women to give birth. And it certainly isn't against the law for them to have sex. And it most certainly isn't against the law for them to have sexual relations that don't necessarily include vaginal penetration. So if taboo and harm tend to be the issue with incest, then taboo is not a matter of legislation anymore, and harm can be avoided or accepted as it is with other situations (like with people who have sickle cell trait). So what is left if the two are of age?
  • For pedophilia, you have a different situation. Actually, the issue here is psychological only as much as it is cultural. I don't even want to look it up out of fear, but I remember hearing that some psychologists suggest masturbating children in order to get them to calm down. Now this is when they're very young, so they wouldn't remember. And even though children won't be able to produce sperm or eggs until puberty, children can have basic sexual arousal and immature sexual interest before then. I think this would be more difficult to "justify," because I don't see a world where a child would grow up and be able to shake the thought that they had sexual relations with their parents. But I'm positive that it happens more often than anyone would admit that brothers and sisters have sexual experiences with each other, even if they don't turn into relationships at any point or even if the experiences are very infrequent, if not just happening once or twice ever.

But I’m positive that it happens more often than anyone would admit that brothers and sisters have sexual experiences with each other,

You forgot the headliner for /b/:

The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.

{ Actually, the issue here is psychological only as much as it is cultural. I don’t even want to look it up out of fear, but I remember hearing that some psychologists suggest masturbating children in order to get them to calm down. }

Not quite the same study, but the APA has been defending adult-child sex for fifteen years at least (and their 1998 study got an official rebuke from Congress for its disturbing implications). It's called "the Rind et al. controversy" if anyone wants to wiki it, but I'll summarize:

The analysis of adults who had been sexually abused as children concludes that the negative potential of adult sex with children was overstated and that ‘the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from their child sexual abuse experiences.’ It recommended that the phrase "child sex abuse" be changed to "adult-child sex" (the more modern movement calls it "intergenerational intimacy"). Despite the controversy surrounding it, in 2005 Heather Marie Ulrich, with two colleagues, replicated it in The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice and confirmed its main findings.

The paper and its replication are constantly cited by the groups seeking to remove age of consent laws today.

How about we just

In the future Kanye will clone himself and then marry his clone

Ehh… I don't think Kanye will be alive by the time we invent cloning machines…

For incest marriage…it's one of the few times where "think of the children" sentence should be taken seriously.

Unless one of the members of the couple is infertile. Then it shouldn't hurt anyone.

Well, here are a couple of points, but it was a much longer post:

• You can have sex to not have children. For example, there are married couples who do not want to have children right now or ever. They have medical procedures or are vigilant with their use of contraception to prevent having children.
• You can just simply accept the risk as older women do when having child birth. On this NHS page, it shows that women have an massively increased risk of having a child with Downs Syndrome as they age:

20 years of age has a risk of one in 1,500
30 years of age has a risk of one in 800
35 years of age has a risk of one in 270
40 years of age has a risk of one in 100
45 years of age has a risk of one in 50 or greater

• And according to statistics from a Slate article (which you should consider but consider with a grain or seven with salt with its biases,) it's just as or even more risky for a woman in her 40's to have a child regarding birth defects as it is for siblings. [emphasis added]

The British Down's Syndrome Association has posted a chart showing the risk of producing a baby with the syndrome at various maternal ages. From age 20 to age 31, the risk doubles. From 31 to 35, it doubles again. From 35 to 38, it doubles again. From 38 to 41, it more than doubles again. Each delay multiplies the risk as much as cousin marriage multiplies the risks of all birth defects combined. By age 45, the probability of Down syndrome alone roughly matches the 4 percent cumulative risk of birth defects from cousin marriage.

Which brings us to the Elizabeth Edwards question. As Suz Redfearn reported in Slate four years ago, Edwards gave birth to her two youngest children, Emma Claire and Jack, when she was 48 and 50 . Redfearn thinks Edwards used donor eggs. Edwards won't say. If Edwards used her own eggs, the Down syndrome chart puts her probability of the disease at 1 in 11 for Emma Claire and 1 in 6 for Jack. That's two to four times the risk of any birth defect from cousin marriage.

Should women be allowed to have babies well into their 40s? If so, how can you justify restrictions on cousin marriage? For that matter, what about sibling incest? Theoretically, given a pool of recessive disease genes, reproducing with a sibling instead of a first cousin quadruples the risk of defective offspring. This probably overstates the actual effect, since population studies don't show quadrupling as degrees of consanguinity increase. But even if the birth-defect rate is a worst-case 17 percent, that's no higher than the risk of Down syndrome at the age when Elizabeth Edwards had her fourth child.

I think with that incest should objectively come to be treated as something similar to workplace relationships. You don't bother with it, because having sex with someone you live with or have other meaningful relationships with is very awkward and can cause deeply seeded emotional issues. You have a potential for a power imbalance by having sex with a boss or supervisor, and you have an imbalance with your parents, aunts or uncles.

• If the only reasons against incest is taboo, then know that the taboo comes from the health risks and religious considerations.
• If the health risks can be avoided, then there is little remaining reason to outlaw it. It becomes a matter of inconvenience and consideration.

• For example, MSM (i.e., men who have sex with men) have much higher chances of all sorts of STI's for various reasons (e.g., higher chance of encountering someone with an STI, being a "bottom" increases the likelihood of tearing which opens up the bloodstream to STIs, a decreased use of condom use since pregnancy isn't a concern, etc.)
• With gay marriage being prevented from being banned, an institution that more than implies sex, the government is saying that gay sex is OK.
• If that's the case with these known health risks in the MSM community, which can be understood and minimized, and gay marriages are now allowed, then I figure that the health risks involving incest can be understood and minimized in corresponding ways.

• Same for older women who have children. The chances at Downs and other birth defects increase substantially as you get older and is known in the US by the CDC and in the UK by the NHS (regarding age and Downs listed above).

• If older women aren't outlawed against having children and their risk is noted and substantial, then I don't see any issue with family members who are of age engaging in relationships.

I still think it's "icky," but I also think anal sex is "icky."

The so-called “slippery slope fallacy” isn’t a fallacy at all, but a reasonable prediction based on current trends. What conservatives and tradtionalists would call “the slippery slope”, liberals call “progress”.

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding on the "slippery slope." The fallacy (it is a philosophical fallacy) isn't necessarily incorrect, but it doesn't necessarily make it correct either. That's why it's a fallacy. You can't acknowledge one situation and assume that other somewhat similar situations will follow through.

You can claim this in an argument, but only after referring to that other specific situation's nuances. Further, what happens in another situation shouldn't necessarily be a reason for preventing the situation being discussed at the moment.

So when it comes to fertility, an older woman having unprotected sex has infinitely greater chance of producing a deformed offspring than sex between infertile siblings.

I have to admit I completely forgot the consequences of incestal marriage and having children. Sorry.

Furries.

Take his DNA, Store it, Clone him in the future.

Big thing would be polygamy, but, like people have mentioned, the problem with it is that we'd have to completely redefine tax codes and laws and etc.

How about we focus on getting LGBT anti discrimination laws? Ones that prevent people from getting fired or evicted or something because they're LGBT?

This list is a list of states that don't have anti discrimination laws. In fact, an unfortunate side effect of legalising gay marriage is that discrimination will increase… so I think that should be the priority.

While I have nothing wrong with polygamy being legal, it presents far more legal challenges than gay marriage does. The major issue is that with multiple partners you are splitting the benefits across more than two people. I'm not really sure what the best resolution here is to be honest.

I don't really see polygamy becoming legal any time soon. Other than the already mentioned Tax and legal difficulties, the difference between Polygamy and Homosexuality is that the latter has a lot of evidence of it not being the persons choice while Polygamy so far has none and at this point in time, is more of a Life Style choice, meaning it doesn't have the same arguments protecting it like homosexuality does, which is why I don't like people thinking Gay Marriage is gonna slope into Polygamy. Outside being about Marriage, they have little to nothing in common.

True, but ultimately it shouldn't be up to whether it's a lifestyle choice or not. You should still be allowed to have the marriages.

I always kind of found the "you were born that way" thing a bit iffy just because if evidence suggested that it wasn't it would undermine the whole purpose, when ultimately you should just be allowed to marry who you want to marry, as long as they're consenting adults.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be legal (I'm on the fence myself) but that the same arguments don't apply to both. It's widely accepted now that Homosexuality isn't a choice, so denying them equal rights is clear cut discrimination, where as Polygamy doesn't have that, and the argument then is should the Lifestyle Choice be allowed, which is a different argument.

Ah, I see what you're saying now. You're totally right on that. I personally have always had an issue with people acting like something has to be a human rights violation in order for it to be legal, and I agree, it's definitely a violation of homosexuals to deny the legal benefits of marriage. Just seems kind of sad that that's what it takes to get change really.

And honestly, to build on that, it's quite hard to prove those things too. Look at transgender people and people with other identity disorders, they've spent literal decades trying to prove they weren't insane and they deserve basic human rights as well. It's honestly a mess of a mentality in my opinion because it holds actual equal rights back. But I guess that's what it takes!

But I agree with you and I see where you're coming from.

{ It’s widely accepted now that Homosexuality isn’t a choice, so denying them equal rights is clear cut discrimination }

That's interesting logic considering all the things that aren't considered choices nowadays.

Like pedophilia, which you are all still ignoring.

Well, there is research behind Homosexuality, I haven't seen any for Pedophilia.

Regardless, I doubt Pedophilia has a serious chance

You don't chose to like a single thing.

You chose between things you like, you don't chose if you like something.

You chose if you want to eat chocolate or vanilla icecream, but you don't chose to like either one.

pedophilia isn't a choice, its someone you are born with, its no different than any other sexuality or fetish.
Some people are just born with unfortunate fetishes.

I've posted two studies from the APA that state the "negative potential of adult sex with children is overstated" which is the most cited study by champions of removing age of consent laws completely.

I also posted the link to the studies that confirm/explain why pedophilia can't be considered a choice any longer in my first post in this thread (and that the APA has officially stopped considering it a mental illness/disorder, leaning "sexual orientation" instead).

You're telling me you're looking at all of this, the exact same social acceptance process homosexuality and transgenderism went through (down to the initial action of the APA delisting them as mental disorders), and still don't think it has a chance?

{ pedophilia isn’t a choice, its someone you are born with, its no different than any other sexuality or fetish. }

So denying them equal rights is clear cut discrimination, as the logic of the post I was quoting infers? We should stop discriminating against them based on their "not-chosen sexual orientation" and let them live near schools and parks like any other regular person until a kid gets kidnapped and raped?

I was just pointing out that "it isn't a choice" is a really bad basis for granting certain lifestyles legal rights.

That's a good priority, but it'll be very hard. We still have racial discrimination--demonstrated by the Charleston Shooting-- in America.

I haven't read this entire thread yet, but with the Paedo Hunt in full swing, it don't see it having a chance anytime soon. There is simply too much widespread social stigma against it.

There is still a problem due to the whole "consent" thing, and the laws and social idea that children can't give consent. Homosexuality causes no harm and both parties can give informed consent, so there was literally no argument against besides prejudice and religious values. Pedophilia has the consent problem, which I don't see being lifted any time soon, not with how overprotective parents are nowadays. Another problem is that if we allow Children consent on relationships, it would bring up what else we should allow them to consent for. It's not a direct line from Homosexuality to Pedophilia, there are key differences that separate the two.

Just like there was widespread social stigma surrounding the gays.

Casual reminder that as recently as 1996, 68% of Americans opposed gay marriage and only 27% were willing to state their support. Isn't it amazing what a liberal campaign of "UR A FUCKIN BIGOT RACIST SHITHED IF U DONT AGREE W/ME" over ten years can do? Don't underestimate the SJW, no matter how crazy what they're spouting off must seem to "rational people".

{ There is still a problem due to the whole “consent” thing, and the laws and social idea that children can’t give consent. }

Hence the movement to get rid of the age of consent completely. In showing that there was no negative effect from adult-child sex, the researchers show that young children are capable of giving informed consent on sexual actions.

There are also civil courts who find girls 14 and under perfectly able to consent to sex and thus be held responsible for their actions. California Supreme Court admits juveniles "may be able to consent in certain situations".

You really think SJW screaming did anything? It was Equal Rights groups (you know, people who actually do something) raising awareness and debunking a lot of myths while widespread medical research was being done and publicized showing Homosexual not to be a choice. Also, 1996 was 19 years ago, plenty of time for a new generation to gain it's voice.

{ t was Equal Rights groups (you know, people who actually do something) raising awareness and debunking a lot of myths while widespread medical research was being done and publicized showing Homosexual not to be a choice. }

Which is fundamentally different from equal rights groups raising awareness and debunking a lot of myths while widespread medical research is being publicized showing pedophilia not to be a choice…… how?