Is it Morally Permissible for Siblings to Have Sex?

If birth control is used, is there any moral reason for siblings from abstaining from sex?  When I asked this on a religious forum a few muslims were disgusted with me.

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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on September 9, 2010 at 5:28pm
1. birth control has relatively no connection to incest. It is a device used to control the number and timing of a couple's offspring.
2. I hesitate to make "moral judgements" of people who engage in incest. I will admit that I find it appaling and do not understand it at all. But, as a person that makes judgements based on the humanistic wordview I hesitate to condemn an action based on my own emotions. However, I would like to point out that there is a biological reason that most humans do not engage in this behavior. This behavior CAn be seen among certain species of animals, howrver, natural selection seems to have programmed the human mind to avoid it. Running experiments on human sexuality thsy have shown that human females seem to be almost universally "turned off" sexually when exposed to the pheremones of their male relatives. The closer, genetically to the woman the male relative is the more she seems sexually unarosed, or even repelled by his pheremones. As anyone who knows anything about pheremones would know, the human animal doesn't detect pheremones consciously. They are taken in with the olifactory sense [the nose] but they are odorless. the fact that phereomones only affectbpeople completely unconsciously highly suggests a very primal biological origin.
If you think it through, it makes sense that people will usually not be attracted to their close relatives. A person's biological siblings carry over 99% the same genetic structur as they do. No matter how different they ma apperar from the outside.

Natural selection most likely robgrammed people not to engage in intercourse with their siblings beoause any offspring produced would have a significantly shallowed gene pool. When one looks at royal families in the past [among whom marrying siblings was not uncommon] the devastating genetic effects of such incestual procreating is revealed. Genetic disorders run rampant among families with incest that produces children. Shortened lifespans, psychosis [a certain french king of the 1600s who was a product of generations of incest thought that he was made of glass], lowered intelligences, hemophilia, inadequate immune systems, sterility, severe birth defects and skyrocketing levels of mischarage, stillborns, and infant death, among other devastating genetic complications.
In other words, perhaps it is a good thing that natural selection has taught us not to have sex with our close relatives.
Permalink Reply by Eoganacht on September 9, 2010 at 7:29pm
If it is between two consenting adults, then I have no problem with it. If they had children, then I would be worried about the genetic welfare of the child. It wouldnt be something that i would do personally (it would be strange).
Permalink Reply by Chelsea Sherman on September 9, 2010 at 7:47pm
Since pretty much everyone here agrees that its okay for siblings to have consensual sex. Where is the line drawn?
Is it okay for me to have consensual sex with my mother? Or my grandfather? If it's not then why?
(Obviously I'm just using me as an example.)
Permalink Reply by Reggie on September 10, 2010 at 12:24am
If no harm is done, then why not indeed?
Permalink Reply by Keith Johnston on September 10, 2010 at 12:00am
Since morality is evolved through society's ideas of right and wrong then no. In modern western society it could not be considered morally okay.
However there may be or may have existed at some point societies where this was considered fine.
Permalink Reply by Reggie on September 10, 2010 at 1:06am
Yep! But nothing about morality in that.
Permalink Reply by Awol on September 10, 2010 at 7:55am
The word "disgusting" keeps cropping up in this thread. I think to answer the question we need to look at the anatomy of disgust.

We find many things "disgusting", the smell of rotting meat or faeces for example. And incest is no different. Evolution has told us these things are unhealthy the reaction of disgust is just the mechanism to get the message across. just because living in close proximity to rotting meat and faeces will make you sick directly and incest will compromise the health of your offspring indirectly is irrelevant.

So is it immoral? Probably not more so than eating rotting meat and faeces, but probably no less "disgusting".
Permalink Reply by T A A on October 11, 2010 at 11:33am
"evolution has told us"...
Apparently evolution forgot about non Abrahamic societies... duh, evolution has nothing to do with this! Genetic abnormalities can be detrimental or useful, statistically speaking, the chances of them being useful are much greater since useful genes will have higher reproductive succes than detrimental genes. I have thought of my brother and sister with a certain je ne sais quoi feeling, I found them to be quite attractive in those moments. Did I act upon those feelings, no, but not through some sense of disgust, but because I've never asked them and never received any signals from them that they'd be interested in such an exploration. Had they given any signs, who knows what different paths life may have led us down.
Permalink Reply by Jewelz on September 11, 2010 at 5:34pm
If a female friend admitted to me that she enjoys having sex with her brother. I'd probably be a tad disgusted.

However, if I were a guy and a set of hot identical twins declared their lust for each other and invited me to a threesome, that would be full of win.

It's all relative.
Permalink Reply by Reggie on October 11, 2010 at 1:14pm
However, if I were a guy and a set of hot identical twins declared their lust for each other and invited me to a threesome, that would be full of win.

Get out of my head!
Permalink Reply by Kris Potter on October 11, 2010 at 11:12am
There is no immorality present between two consenting partners.
Permalink Reply by Michael on December 19, 2010 at 4:01am

If siblings grew up apart, never knowing (not in the biblical sense) each other until they met in the same manner strangers would, would the absence of the knowledge of their kinship make it a morally unacceptable? I'd say not.

The problem I see arises when siblings are brought up together. In every family there are degrees of power and influence. An older sibling may pressure a younger sibling, which can have other consequences, such as the younger developing a warped attitude towards the pressure and power-play in that relationship and in their life in general.

Other than that, from my experience with my siblings, we rarely sat down at the dinner-table without starting a fight, which I think is the way it should be.

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