"Touto sugite Yomenaaaaaaai!!" 4P Short Stories - Vol. 1 Ch. 14 - I Decided to Protect You for Life [by Yuu Morikawa]

[Tatherwood]

@Pokari Are you Dumbfuckistanian? Cause that would explain it. 'Muricans are too dumb and puritan.
Let's see.
Cambridge dictionary, incest: "sexual activity involving people who are closely related and not legally allowed to marry". Notice the 'AND'.
American dictionary: "sexual activity between people who are too closely related to marry". Merriam-Webster, which is also American, gives something similar. This would technically include step-siblings, cause in some countries they wouldn't be able to LEGALLY get married even though there's no real reason to forbid it. Just like there's no real reason to forbid gay marriage.

As I said, if you're 'Murican it would explain it. But you're still wrong.
"A lot of us care about more than that". Okay. Gimme reasons.
1) Health. Non-issue, they're not related.
2) "Can't pack up and leave". Perfectly valid argument. Personally I think it's just one step further than classmates or co-workers, though. We spend 8h/day in our classroom. That's half the day, once you take out sleeping, which doesn't fall in any category. Once you add travel times, extra curriculars, etc., you spend more time in class than at home. So I see the same problem with having a bad break-up with a classmate. Are you gonna say that should be illegal too? Or that it's yucky?
Okay. Let's move on a few years. They're not 16, they're 22, in college, each living separately. You're now 100% okay with the relationship, I hope. Since, you know, they can pack up and leave?

I mean, you say "Beyond any subjective yuck factor, in particular some of the non-health-related problems of incest are still a problem in this scenario". If you wanna discuss THIS scenario, and not talk in general about irl... In THIS scenario they literally reincarnated to be able to be together. I'd say that utterly atomizes the "can't pack up and leave" argument.


I'm actually curious about this discussion. I know I'll never convince you, but I wanna see your arguments, cause so far everyone I've discussed this with was unable to give me more than 3-4, and they were all as moronic as the 2 above. And just as simple to dismantle (really, I don't know how 2 of them ACTUALLY brought up health. STEP-siblings). I wanna see if you have actual arguments.

Btw, I know you won't accept this as an argument, and I'm not using it as a GOOD argument, but have you ever met 2 siblings who really, REALLY hated each other? I don't mean sibling rivalry, I mean really hate. I have.
Human relationships are complicated. The whole "can't pack up and leave" is true, but it doesn't apply ONLY to romantic relationships. You're a minor, you're stuck in that home with everyone who lives there. Using that as an argument AGAINST dating your step-sibling "cause it's wrong" feels just stupid, but anyway.

 

[Pokari]

@Tatherwood:

So, interesting as the conversation is, this is starting to get outside the topic of the chapter we're talking about. But not yet 100% completely...! So here we go XD (Apologies that it's kind of a wall of text)

Spoiler

Regarding the definition of the word "incest":
A) I do hail from 'murica, alas. The puritanical ideology leftovers... are what they are.
B) Actual usage (which is what dictionaries seek to encode) definitely includes steb-siblings (*gestures broadly to body of evidence in other manga comments sections*)

...Arguing over the finer points of the definition beyond this is probably meaningless. I think we can both see where each other are coming from, and trying to assert the "one true definition" is an exercise in futility. This is English, and all that that implies (all the way down to our ever-ongoing epistemological arguments about how words are-or-should-be defined XD)

Regarding the ethical and safety implications:
A) Reasons it's a normally a problem (all a bit inter-related):
- Large potential for too strong of power relationships within a family, for various reasons (more of a problem at younger ages or larger age-gaps, but hardly exclusively so)
- The physical/financial inability to pack up and leave (already mentioned—and in the absence of health or power-dynamic problems, the #1 issue, I feel)
- The social difficulties that can be caused by a relationship gone bad in any deeply embedded and tightly-knit social group (people might take sides with an abuser for social reasons or reasons of trust, or people might just want everyone to get along and in so doing normalize the abuser's actions, and it can be socially difficult to talk about things going wrong for any number of reasons)
- ...but which is worse when compounded with the social difficulties of leaving everything behind even if you do physically pack up and leave (family kind of stays family, often, and the social capital loss of leaving behind your family and everyone they know, can be huge)
- Finally, as a footnote, for blood-relations, the obvious health issues (obviously not applicable here)
B) A classmate is a terrible example; avoiding being alone with a random classmate with whom a relationship has gone sour or abusive is mostly completely doable (especially in comparison), and you'll almost never have to, say, worry about what they might do in the middle of the night (taking out sleeping from the consideration is a mistake! Having to sleep in the same area as an abuser with no protections is about as bad as it gets), and there's almost none of the same social pressures... it's just not remotely comparable. At least do dorm-mates as the example. But that's almost always still way easier to get out of (and it's worth pointing out that for many of us, we'd at that point go back to our family and ask for help...!); taking people away from their family however (or leaving of one's own volition) can be very difficult; heck, often it's not something people can legally do, of their own volition, without being brought back by the police, until they're adult, without things going (successfully) through courts first (and even then the consequences can be horrible, like if you end up in America's foster child system...!). That's a totally different scale of "can't leave". (I say "until an adult": Sometimes, for reasons, leaving is still not really pragmatically doable 'till even after that, but I think we need not quibble over those details for this discussion)
C) After the age of maturity, and after gaining financial independence, and arguably after also reaching a certain level of emotional maturity... So... more like 25 or so than 22, these days, I think, for most of us XD... then it does indeed become much less of a problem. I would not simply say "100% okay," as you did: It's likely to be an awkward and tricky situation, requiring some insight and delicacy. There are still extra things to go wrong, compared to normal. But yes, full grown-ass step-siblings marrying should be generally okay.
D) You say: "In THIS scenario they literally reincarnated to be able to be together. I'd say that utterly atomizes the 'can't pack up and leave' argument."—Why? It ameliorates it, certainly. I mean, if we assume they're maybe both capable of, I don't know, booking it off into the woods and living in the wilderness or something, maybe. And it definitely presents reasons that might reasonably overrule other objections; simply asking them to stay apart at this point might be so extraordinary a cruelty as to trump many other considerations. But! Shoujo logic aside, there's no guarantee that their relationship is not going to go sour from here. And even if they're grown-ass adults inside, the world isn't going to acknowledge that, they have no financial or legal power, so they may still be stuck together without enough power to separate if something goes wrong.
E) As an aside, (not terribly important to this conversation, but with some bearing on the context of my original post), I reserve the right to think some fictionally-depicted relationships might be creepy because of their employment of the aesthetics of incest in a nominally ethically-okay relationship. The authors are making a decision for such a sibling relationship to exist—quite differently from people in real life—and so I get to be suspicious about their motives.
F) Regarding siblings hating each other, a couple things. One, it's kind of simply unavoidable, in a way that dating one's siblings isn't. The existence of an unavoidable bad thing does not justify an equally-bad, avoidable one. Two, physical-violence between siblings is easier to talk about, and to get third-parties to mediate, than relationship abuse. And, also, as a somewhat shaky, third complaint: It would be... nice if people could at least trust the family members that do love them, rather than having to be wary of both the ones that hate them and the ones that love them (oversimplifying a lot; so many family relationships are intrinsically of a love/hate kind of nature, for instance).

 

[Tatherwood]

@Pokari Huh. Maybe I should use Spoiler too to keep the text wall hidden xD
As for whether we're straying or not... While we're certainly going into irl territory, we're still linking it to the topic of this chapter, and your specific comment. If you grow tired of the discussion, by all means we end it, but I don't think it's disconnected.

Now then.

Spoiler

First, as far as the usage of the word goes. As a translator and language teacher, I mostly agree with you. Language evolves and we evolve with it (or rather, it evolves with us). But at this point (a point where we have conflicting 'data'/definitions) we need to take a stand. If you're American, then it stands to reason you use American English and of course American dictionaries.
Me being European, and having had formal education via Cambridge, obviously go for British English and British dictionaries.
At this point I would say we should check etimology. I have not taken a deep dive, obviously (that's too much even for me XD), but originally the word was "for close relatives". And again, etimologically speaking, "relatives" meant "by blood".
The tldr, if you'll allow me to be blunt here, is: you Americans changed the meaning. And you did cause, I feel, there are quite some puritan views to LOTS of things on that side of puddle. To use a different example to prove the point, though I know it has nothing to do with this. In America most of you guys call someone attracted to a 16yo a "pedophile". Now, I'm NOT saying it's not wrong, ethically, morally, legally, whatever. But a 16yo has 99.99% of the time the body of a grown adult already. That is NOT the body of a child. It's simply preposterous to say "pedophile". That is NOT what it means.

I don't want to say something childish like "ha, I win". Again, it makes sense that you'd use your definition. But really... it's not incest. It's not for the vast majority of the world... It's like you people suddenly starting to call a lake, a river. ...it's not a river...
I mean, what are we (the vast majority of the planet) supposed to do? Change the meaning of a word because YOU guys change it? Globalization has its limits... How about you not change it in the first place? Or if you do, at least get some awareness. You can say "well, that's considered incest in my country". Okay, fine. Then it makes sense that your set of values follow that. But it IS not incest, if we try to speak of it as a fact.

As for the arguments.
I feel like many of your points are...let's say mostly right. However, I feel like we're straying from the point here.
Okay, let me say this: correct me if I'm wrong cause maybe I misread you.

-You said: "at this length I can pretend the whole weird implied incest angle isn't a thing". From that, it SEEMS to me that you're implying "cause that's yuck, and ew" (considering you used words like "weird"). Which is fine. Incest is a popular tag in porn and hentai, but hey, if you find it yucky that's totally understandable.
-To which I replied: "Well, it's not incest"

From there, my arguments were for the whole "yuck" thing, and how it's "wrong" (again, going off the yuck).
What I'm trying to say is, are your points here reasonable? Mostly yes, yes. But I feel like you're saying "it's a difficult relationship". Well...yes? Mostly cause society actively saying that it's wrong, but yes, you're right, it'd be a difficult relationship. But HOW does "difficult" equal "wrong"?
"It's wrong to date your step-brother cause if you break up family dinners will be awkward". Excuse you?

It may be that I totally misread you and you did NOT, in fact, mean "wrong", but simply "difficult". Not sure how that would make you feel relieved about not having to experience the "whole weird implied incest angle". I'm 99% sure I didn't misread this, but you know, just in case...

If you in fact meant wrong... then I don't agree with over half of your points. As I said, yes, "difficult". But "wrong"?
Let me put another example. I am dating my classmate, THEN our divorced parents meet, start dating, get married. Now my gf is my step-sister. Will you seriously come up to me and tell me my relationship is wrong? MINE? Excuse me, we were dating BEFORE our parents met. How is it our fault? Why is suddenly our relationship "wrong"? "Difficult"? Sure. But wrong?


And we have, in fact strayed quite a bit. Your points (and my reply here on the second half) are about how dating your step-sibling would be wrong/difficult. But originally we were discussing whether that's incest or not.
After this discussin, and seeing you're American, you 100% believe incest is wrong. I'd bet money on it (that IS a totally different discussion xD). And going off American tradition, step-siblings are incest, which would be why it makes you uncomfortable, I guess.
The problem was...it's not incest.
You said "Beyond any subjective yuck factor, in particular some of the non-health-related problems of incest are still a problem in this scenario". They're a "problem". As in difficult. Sure. But not "wrong", or "weird"...

 

[Esor]

This one need to be isekai-ed

 

[Gurdy]

It's Domestic GF all over again

 

[frierenpot]

it's not incest if you shout No Chromo

 

[winfrank]

zense coupling

 

[xerxxxlugner]

wholesome incest?!