The Talk Ch. 01

While this wasn't technically true, since adults in their forties are prime candidates for heart-failure, my wife was astoundingly healthy. She worked out quite a bit and still maintained a fantastic figure. In all honesty, my wife could easily pass for a woman in her late twenties, if she wore the right clothes. The faint streaks of gray in her hair, however, were dead give-aways to her age, but I thought they were sexy as hell on her. What's more was that her sexy figure, even at the age of 43, inspired me to stay fit as well, which was something I'm sure she didn't complain about.

David rubbed his knee. "Ow!" he cried at his sister. "What was that for?"

Sue glanced up at him and said, "For playing such a cruel joke. You KNOW that baby is mine!"

The room fell to a deafening silence at that and Sue just blinked at us, puzzled. "What?" she said innocently. "Too far?"

Kathy got down from the couch and sat on the floor so that she could look at our daughter eye-to-eye, even from across the room. "In a word: yes. We can joke about all kinds of things, sweetheart, but that's not one of them."

I could sense the mood in the room had quickly changed from frivolous to serious in the space of a few scant heartbeats. I decided to back my wife up on that score. "She's right, Kitten. We know you two have probably already lost your virginities by now, which is something about your personal lives that we respect completely, but even JOKES about incest... that's crossing the line."

"Why?" Sue asked with her innocent, blue eyes wide and doe-like. "I mean... okay, you're right- I can't speak for David, but, yeah, I've had sex before. And I went into it informed. I studied it, top to bottom... no pun intended," she added with a wry smirk. "Anyway... Techniques, positions, facts, myths, the science behind it and the psychological effects it can have on people. I daresay that I'm probably one of only a handful of kids my age who knows as MUCH as I do on the topic. I even studied incest, as a part of that research, and you know what I found out?" She didn't wait for an answer, but kept on. "I found that all the taboos are a load of crap."

David made to get up, obviously uncomfortable about where the conversation might be headed. "Um, maybe we had better not-"

Sue pushed her back against his knees, which forced him to sit back down in the chair. "No," she said in no uncertain terms. "I think we should talk about this."

Kathy looked me with uncertainty in her eyes, but all I could do was shrug my shoulders. We'd never shied away from other topics of serious discussion before. Why start now? I looked at my daughter and said, "Okay, then, Susan. Knock us out. Tell us the truth about incest." I had learned, long ago in my profession, that to avoid a topic would only leave it unresolved and run the risk of it becoming a more serious issue down the road. If someone feels strongly enough to bring a sensitive topic up in a discussion, it's best to just let them have their say and let it go at that.

Susan was quiet for a moment as she collected her thoughts and then said, "Okay. Here's the straight dope. Incest, while illegal, isn't exactly the big risk that people make it out to be. Ancient Egyptians, which we read about even when we were kids, had a culture that lasted thousands of years, right?"

"Yes," Kathy said, "but what does that have to do with incest?"

"Everything," Sue said, as though we'd missed some sort of crucial but obvious point. "The Pharohs of Egypt were, like, considered gods, okay? They were considered to be direct descendants of the Sun God Ra, the prime god of Egyptian lore. Too good, high and mighty for them to breed with the lower folk, the common people. The way they maintained that lineage was through incest. A king would have children, right? A son and a daughter. He could marry other wives if he wanted to, but the son and daughter would HAVE to get married and have kids of their own, in order to keep the rule of kingship intact. Only a descendant of Ra could rule the empire and pure blood rulers were the only thing they would accept as rightful heirs to the throne. The line of Ra lasted more than 800 years, unbroken. If incest is as dangerous as people make it out to be, how do you think the Egyptians were able to keep the bloodline going for so long?

"The fact is, non-related couples have about a 2 to 4 percent risk of conceiving a defective child. First cousins run about a 4 to 7 percent risk. Full-blood brothers and sisters? About 6 to 9 percent. Parent-child couplings? About 7 to 10 percent, and that's PUSHING it. And with medical science the way it is now, genetic screening makes it possible to find out how stable a zygote is going to be before it even reaches maturation to fetus." She looked up at David. "David and I could have sex, right now, and if he impregnated me-"

"Whoa!" David cried out and visibly cringed at the idea. "Don't drag me into this!"

Susan huffed. "I'm just trying to illustrate a point, David. Don't wig out. Anyway... if David was to impregnante me, we could find out within DAYS whether or not the child would be healthy, and chances are very good that it would be. Actually, they're pretty DAMN good. Between 94 and 91 percent certainty that the child would be in perfect health. And what's more is that our child, if it's a girl, could get impregnated by her own father, my brother, with the same exact chances as though she were me- an average of 92 percent that THEIR child would be in prefect health."

To be honest, I was kind of stunned. I had no idea that the figures, mathematically and scientifically, could actually SUPPORT the act of incest as being more or less on par with conventional procreation. I had grown up hearing about how brothers and sisters, if mated, would have two-headed babies or missing fingers and toes as a genetic certainty, across the board. "Where did you find this out, Susan?" I asked. I was genuinely curious. I'd never heard these figures before.

"It's in all the medical journals, Dad," she said frankly. "Last year we had a piece in the newspaper-" and by this she meant the school paper "-which covered the topic some. The student who wrote the article quoted some pretty well-known sources, so I checked them out on my own, out of curiosity. There IS a slightly higher genetic risk for incest, but it's nowhere near what people have been led to believe. As a matter of fact, when it comes to the topic of incest, belief is at the very heart of the matter and so totally germaine."

Kathy leaned forward a bit, fully taken in by this information. "How so?" she asked. "I mean... okay. We, your father and I, were raised to believe that incest is wrong. Is that what you mean?"

Sue shrugged indifferently. "Sorta," she said. "but not quite. It kinda goes back to the Egyptians, the ones who kept their power structure through incest. Remember the Hebrew exiles, right? Cast out of Egypt for breaking their bonds of slavery and revolting. That's the story, in a nutshell, right? Well... those Hebrews, they left and they were forced to pretty much start up their own society, their own culture and nation. And, like any group of fundamentalist believers do when exiled, they wanted to make their society the exact OPPOSITE of their former oppressors, the Egyptians. If the Pharohs kept in power through incest, the Hebrews wanted to do it through democracy or divine right, rather than heritage. As far as the Hebrews were concerned, they already HAD their own family line of heritage, through their mothers, which made them all the Children of David, right? The Chosen People of Yahweh, God. In their minds, any one of them could end up being the King of the Jews, by birthright, but that was different from being simple leaders and governors. I mean, the King of the Jews wasn't due to take his place on the throne for years and years and years, so SOMEBODY had to keep the chair warm for him, as it were, whether they got it by birthright or not.

"So they had their priests, who were considered the most learned and educated and, therefore, the most responsible people, take the control as a council. And in order to keep the power structure fluid, they decided to outlaw incest or inbreeding in general amongst the faithful. I mean, the council leaders couldn't be EVERYWHERE, could they? Not out in the far-off farms or small villages, right? So they had to rely on their faith and religion to keep people in line. So they came up with the Code of the Hammurabi which, like, had this no-incest law in it, along with lots of other laws and a specific law that said clearly, 'You must make an exact copy of this book and follow it to the letter in order to receive the favor of God.' And people wanted to please God, so they did it. They followed it to the letter and copied it. And spread it. So... incest became outlawed by the religion, even though it wasn't an official civil law."

Sue took a deep breath and watched our faces as we thought it over. Having raised our children to openly investigate various religions, my wife and I had become pretty exposed to the histories of all the major religions, too. What Sue had just told us not only made sense, it fit in pretty much perfectly with history.

"Whoa," David breathed. "And since Christianity was basiclly just Judaism revisited and revised by Jesus, lots of those laws just stuck, right? Like... it was totally impossible to separate the canonized laws from the cultural laws, they became one and the same?"

"That's a different topic altogether," Kathy interjected. "But essentially, son, you're right. From the Jews came Christianity, from Christianity came Catholicism AND Islam and from Islam came Baha'i. And a few in-between all those, too. But they all point back to Judaism, which, if Susan is right, was the first to outlaw incest." Her brow furrowed slightly. "But what about the monarchies of England and other countries?" she asked our daughter. "Inbreeding and incest kept the bloodlines of all the European kings alive for centuries. And most of them were Catholics. And the Vatican has a pretty dim view of incest."

Sue nodded, glad to share this unique information, and her sandy-blonde hair bounced slightly with enthusiasm. "Before Christianity came to Europe, most of the continent was pagan, really. And also very patriarchical rather than the Judaic matriarchical heritage-base. Early Europe reveled in masculine bloodlines, the men being seen as the powerful and lordly. Even though they took to Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, like ducks to water, they still had their very deep pagan roots and traditions. Hell, most of what Christianity is today is mostly pagan in nature, though nobody really wants to admit it. For more than four hundred years, England didn't hold to the whole separation of church and state ideology that the US has today- the king was considered, as with the Egyptians, chosen by God. Therefore, his children, princes and princesses, were divinely destined to rule. The Christian church, still finding its legs in Europe, wasn't about to mess with that kind of mojo just yet- it was still too new to throw its weight around like that. So they sanctioned the King-as-Divine-Ruler concept until they were sure that the new religion had a strong enough foothold of power on the continent. Then, when the Vatican was strong enough, it started to put leverage on the kings, teaching them the 'true' law of God, and how incest in particular was considered a venal sin, a way to usurp God's power on Earth rather than carry it on. Needless to say, it took quite a bit of convincing, but it eventually stuck and the right king came in at the right time- he put an end to it. He made it illegal, with some pressure on the House of Lords in England, for anyone with a stronger blood-relation than 4th cousins to marry or have children."

"King James?" I guessed.

Sue looked at me. "Yes, but not only him. He had the backing of the church as well, which by then had a lot of power among the common people. Once it was on the legal books, it stuck. After a while, though, people started to see just how much of a grab for power that really was, and relaxed the law a little bit. You'd be surprised to know that more than 60 percent of the marriages in Europe are comprised of inter-family couplings, from first-cousins on down the line. Direct-relation-couplings are still outlawed, but the reasons behind those laws still point to religion... and hold absolutely no medical or legal water anymore."

"Because of what scientists have learned?" David asked. He was no longer mortified by the topic but now seemed pretty interested.

Sue shrugged. "Partly that, but there's also the rule of the Egyptian Empire, history, to show us how feeble the beliefs really are: closely-related couplings yield pretty low risks, all things considered. I mean, we're talking about recessive genes that have to be coupled almost exactly. Twins could even have sex and kids and still have a relatively low risk threshold. And, believe it or not, triplets offer even LOWER genetic risks than twins do- fraternal twins, of a male-female split, that is. If two people with cystic fibrosis, totally unrelated to one another, were to have a child, they'd run a 1-in-4 risk of having a child with the same disease- and there's no law against THEM having kids, is there? But a brother and sister, whose risk-factor is significantly lower than a cystic-fibrosis couple? Break out the prison chains! It's incest!" She threw her hands up in the air in mock outrage.

David sat back in his chair, mystified. "Holy shit," he said.

Sue's nose crinkled up and said with a smirk, "Precisely. Bullshit that was perpetrated by holy men: holy shit."

David was quiet for several long, thoughtful seconds. "There's also the matter of energy."

Kathy raised an eyebrow. "Energy? What do you mean?"

David shifted in his chair uncomfortably for a moment and then said, "Well... remember that book, 'The Celestine Prophecy'?" We all nodded. All of us had read the book at one point or another, but we'd all agreed that the information it "shared" wasn't really anything new, even though it had been shared in new ways. "Well, the energy that kids try to get from their parents... it's kinda like a synergistic incest, if you think about it. And all matter is energy, right? So... a child coupling with a parent is, like, the most intense and realistic sharing of energy or power from a parent to a child." Then he cast a meaningful glance at Kathy and added, "Or from a child to a parent, where mother-son couplings are concerned."

Kathy's face went slightly red at the thought, but she said nothing.

I, however, could see exactly where David was headed with this. "Hold on," I interjected cautiously. "You're a grown adult now, son. You don't NEED that kind of energy anymore, least of all from... either of us."

David rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean it like THAT-"

"Yes, you did," Sue said simply. David shut up immediately and stared down at his sister with a scornful look. She seemed utterly unperterbed, though, and coyly smiled. "Well, you DID. Let's look at the facts here, David- you're not going to school, you're not doing that much on the social level, you're not dating anyone and haven't for a long time, you've got an extremely poor sleeping schedule. All the signs point to you having low energy. Whether you're willing to admit it or not, you might just be fishing here, saying in a subtle way that you really DO want some energy," she looked over to her mother, "from Mom."

Kathy shook her head, still visibly embarrassed at how the discussion had turned to her. "No way," she said with absolute conviction and a wave of her hands. "Out of the question. I've already got a lover, thank you, and I'm quite happy with him." She glanced over at me meaningfully. Even though sex between my wife and I has indeed been wonderful over the years, we HAD discussed the possibility of expanding our sexual experiences to include others, like joining a swinger's club or something of that nature. Initially it had only been fantasy-talk and idle chit-chat, nothing seriious. The fact of the matter was that we were still both very happy with each other in bed and didn't really have a desire to bring anyone else into it. Not yet, anyway.

I pointed a finger at my daughter, who seemed to be eyeing me in un-daughterly ways, and said, "And don't YOU go getting any bright ideas, Kitten, about suddenly claming to be tired all the time and needing 'Daddy's special energy-boosters.' Whether it's a medical risk or not, it IS still against the Law of the Land, and we won't be breaking any laws in this household." I declined to remind anyone of the fact that I had had a vasectomy and couldn't impregnate my own daughter, even if I wanted to- which I most certainly didn't.

David's eyebrows arched slightly. "But it's okay for us to experiment with drugs and to have premarital sex without upsetting you guys?" he asked with a smile. "Isn't that hypocritical?"

Then I glowered at my son, somewhat miffed at the way he had phrased the question. "First of all," I said, "we do NOT condone what you did- with pot or with your girlfriends in the past. We DO respect your right to make your own decisions and we trust you to use the guidance we've given you as your parents to make the right choices. But we don't always LIKE some of the choices you make. Second, even hinting at calling me a hypocrite is very much not appreciated, especially coming from you."

David's smile disappeared and he cast his eyes downward. "Sorry," he said. "You're right. That was rude. My bad."

Most people would say "it's okay" as a response, but I had learned that being truthful at all times was preferable. And questioning my ethics was NOT okay by me. So I said, instead, "Thank you." I softened my tone some and continued. "Listen, I can understand your curiosity about all of this. And I admit that it IS intriguing, but just because something is interesting doesn't mean we should go right out and do it at the first available opportunity. There's emotional and psychological concerns to worry about, aside from everything else. We taught you two that sex between two people, ANY two people, can be a very powerful and emotional thing. Between family members who know each other extremely well, it can be life-altering and shouldn't be stepped into lightly. If you really feel the need to talk about it some more, I'm open to that- but ONLY that."

Susan took the floor again, this time more demurely. "No," she said softly. "I think I've said all I needed to say. I just wanted to make a point. That's all. I'm actually kinda sorry that I even brought it up now."

"Oh, honey, don't be," Kathy said gently. "Your dad and I have ALWAYS supported your interest in learning things. Knowledge is an important gift you can give to yourself and others. And it looks like you've learned quite a bit about this particular topic. But for the time being, let's just leave it at that. You've informed us about something we never knew before, and for that I thank you." She stood up, a silent and peaceful way to declare the conversation at an end. "If you all will excuse me, I'm getting pretty tired and it's fairly late. I think it's time for me to get to bed." She looked at me with a quick, meaningful glance, but said nothing to me directly. Then she came over to our kids. Susan stood and they embraced in a warm hug. "I love you, sweetheart," Kathy said into Susan's ear. "We're not angry." Mother and daughter parted from the embrace and Kathy leaned down to kiss David on the cheek and then stood up. Then she said, "But you're STILL not sleeping with us OR each other. The law is the law. Got it?"

David seemed to feign ignorance. "What? Why, the thought never-"