Incest is best, according to an 18-year-old American girl who ‘has always identified as bisexual’, and there I was, thinking that ‘identify’ is a transitive verb.
Though she and her father have been ‘dating’ for two years, they now realise co-habitation without marriage is sinful. Consequently they plan to move to New Jersey (the only state where incest is legal), tie the knot and have children.
According to the young lady, this is the most natural thing to do because she and her parental fiancé have much in common.
Specifically, they are both aroused by neck biting, which these days would be sufficient grounds for marriage even in the absence of genetic affinity.
Several papers on both sides of the Atlantic have carried this story, with none being unfashionably judgemental. Some have commented on the possible genetic implications for the happy couple’s offspring, weighing the odds of innate defects.
Generally speaking, 25 to 50 per cent of children born to this form of parental love develop problems, ranging from idiocy to infertility. Some papers cited the scientific evidence, but, as a man of the humanities, I’d be more interested in the moral aspects of such unions.
Playing devil’s advocate, one could mention that incest produced two tribes mentioned in the Bible, Maobites and Ammonites.
Both were started after Lot and his two daughters escaped from Sodom for moral reasons. Somewhat incongruously Lot then got drunk on two consecutive nights and ‘knew’ his daughters, who each gave birth to a son.
Genesis doesn’t mention any genetic defects suffered by the boys, who each went on to beget children and eventually produce the two aforementioned tribes.
Now, the Biblical threesome had a few valid excuses, which our two neck biters can’t claim.
First, having escaped from Sodom and settled in a cave, they genuinely thought they were the last people on earth. Their opportunities for hanky-panky were considerably more limited than in any American state, with the possible exception of Alaska and the river bottoms of Louisiana.
Second, the daughters had a genuine demographic concern about their father’s seed going to waste, thereby consigning the human race to perdition.
Our neck biters can’t possibly have the same excuse, for they must realise that mankind is unlikely to come to a screeching halt just because they desist from incest.
Third, Lot’s daughters still didn’t feel that such arguments would cut much ice with Dad. That’s why they got him so pissed that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing or to whom.
Mind you, when the daughters got pregnant, Lot must have cottoned on to what had happened, if only on the balance of statistical probability. After all, the concept of immaculate conception hadn’t yet been introduced, and he was the only male in the cave, which to Lot meant the world.
However, Genesis doesn’t go into that kind of detail, proving yet again that the Bible isn’t journalistic reportage and shouldn’t be read as such.
In any case, the paternal neck biter was completely in command of his faculties when he ‘lay’ with Daddy’s little girl. In fact, according to her account, they had discussed the situation rationally before she sacrificed her virginity at the altar of paternal love.
The word ‘degeneracy’ moves to the forefront of my available lexicon, but using it would be judgemental, which is the last thing one can afford to be these days.
In any case I’m sure that before long the loving couple will be treated as pioneering trailblazers. Since American jurisprudence has borrowed from us the reliance on precedent, the trail the neck biters have blazed will eventually lead to a further expansion of the concept of marriage.
If two men or two women can marry, why not father and daughter or mother and son? Oedipus, schmedipus, they say, as long as he loves his Mum.
In an unrelated episode another young American woman, a devout Christian, has struck a counterblow for sexual propriety.
Veronica Partridge, a pretty, happily married woman, has decided not to wear leggings any longer. Unlike the neck biters, she knows her Scripture, specifically the Sermon on the Mount.
There Jesus explained that “whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her have committed adultery with her already in his heart.” And adultery, as we all know and lament, is a sin specifically mentioned in the Decalogue.
Mrs Partridge noticed that, whenever she wears leggings, every man over age five commits this brand of adultery by looking at her thighs and bottom. Against every modern commandment, she partly blamed herself for inflaming men’s passions and leading them astray.
Excuse me? What kind of troglodyte rubbish is that? A woman can walk stark naked and blind drunk through a deserted street at night, but if a lone passer-by as much as lays a finger on her he’ll end up in the pokey faster than you can say ‘it’s never a woman’s fault’.
And now a woman (!!!) says that what she wears may just affect what a man does! Nonsense, absolute bloody nonsense.
It’s those oglers’ own fault, and they are jolly lucky that we have no law – yet! – punishing rape committed in one’s heart.
While applauding Mrs Partridge’s Christian probity, and complimenting her on her old-fashioned views, one still thinks she needn’t have bothered.
She is indeed a shapely young lady, and most men would find it hard not to look when she wears revealing clothes. But Mrs Partridge also sports a huge nostril ring, which should quickly douse any leggings-inflamed passion with ice-cold water.
Any man of taste would be appalled by this demonstration of unleavened paganism. Even if, unlike Mrs Partridge herself, he isn’t a devout Christian.
If you can stand some avuncular advice, dear, keep the leggings but lose the nose ring. God will forgive you for the former but just may punish you for the latter.