There is a straight line to be drawn from July, 1961 to the arrest of Columbia University Professor David Epstein for charges of an incestuous affair with his own daughter. The daughter, we are told, was 20 when the affair (allegedly) began.
The 1961 connection is not with the (alleged) deed, but with the nature of its defense. A commenter on Columbia's newspaper site wrote, "Wait, why is consensual incest a crime? It might not be appealing to everyone, but if they're adults and they consent, who cares what they do?" A commenter at Huffington Post wrote that a "four year prison sentence is extreme -- considering they are both consenting adults." Salon writer Tracy Clark-Flory observed that there "are no allegations" that the daughter didn't give consent. "It isn't a clear-cut case of child abuse," Tracy wrote.
Whoopi Goldberg defended Roman Polanski's rape of a minor girl: "It wasn't rape rape." So I guess that this wasn't incest incest. Or something. That mere consensuality is the determinant of the legality of a sexual act is a direct outgrowth of July 1961.
Read the rest!
Update: "Switzerland considers repealing incest laws." I'm glad I don't try to write humor; it's almost impossible to write satire now because real life outdistances the imagination.
The upper house of the Swiss parliament has drafted a law decriminalising sex between consenting family members which must now be considered by the government. ...Maybe Daniel Vischer has a little secret . . .
Daniel Vischer, a Green party MP, said he saw nothing wrong with two consenting adults having sex, even if they were related.
"Incest is a difficult moral question, but not one that is answered by penal law," he said.
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