Incest

Incest is sexual activity between family members and close relatives. The incest taboo has been one of the most widespread of all cultural taboos, both in present and in most past human societies. The word is often used pejoratively to refer to other forms of relationships perceived as improper, especially nepotism, other forms of favoritism, and generally narrow and exclusive forms of groupthink attitudes or behavior.

God tells us men fucking men is a terrible thing, but a father offering his two daughters, vestal virgins no less, to a horde of horny buggers is heroic. Now that's straight. … God destroys the faggots with fire and brimstone. He turns a disobedient wife into salt. But he asks us to idolize drunks who sleep with their daughters or offer them to a horny, unruly mob. —Rabih Alameddine

A

God tells us men fucking men is a terrible thing, but a father offering his two daughters, vestal virgins no less, to a horde of horny buggers is heroic. Now that's straight. … God destroys the faggots with fire and brimstone. He turns a disobedient wife into salt. But he asks us to idolize drunks who sleep with their daughters or offer them to a horny, unruly mob.
- Rabih Alameddine on the biblical narrative of Lot and his family confronting the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, as quoted by Wail S. Hassan in Immigrant Narratives: Orientalism and Cultural Translation in Arab American and Arab British Literature (2011), Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-979206-1, page 207.

B

Þe þryddë synnë ys þe werst,
Þe clerk[es] calleþ hyt ‘yncest,’
Whan men take kyn yn felawrede,
And wyþ hem doþ flesshëly dede;
Þe ner[ë] syb she ys hys kynde,
Þe morë plyȝt shal he þere fynde.
Or ȝyf he with a woman synne,
Þat sum of hys kyn haþ endyd ynne,
Þat ys to sey, haþ ley here by,
Þe more plyȝt ys þat lecchery;
Þus hyt seyþ yn þe decre,
He calleþ hyt an ‘affynyte’;
Affynyte hyt makeþ alle an ende,
Hys blode þarto no more may wende.
- Robert de Brunne, Handlyng Synne (c. 1303)

C

Incest, rape and abuse is rampant everywhere, even in our churches, but society is silent. It is a silent epidemic. One in three women will experience a sexual assault in her lifetime and one in six males, yet we don't speak of it, even in our churches
- Diane Chamberlain, in Conduct Unbecoming : Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders (2013), p. 129.

D

Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother.
- The Bible, Deuteronomy 27:22 (KJV).

E

F

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. "Patriotism” is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by "patriotism” I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one’s own nation, which is the concern with the nation’s spiritual as much as with its material welfare — never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
- Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, Ch. 3: The Human Situation, Sect.C "Rootedness — Brotherliness vs. Incest"

G

And yet indeed, she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
- Abraham, speaking of Sarah, Genesis 20:12 (KJV).

H

I

Property like incest holds the family together.
- Harold Innis, The idea file of Harold Adams Innis (1980), p. 150.

J

K

L

They can't censor a gleam in the eye.
- Charles Laughton, regarding post-production efforts to tone down the incestuous nature of the relationship between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her father—as portrayed by Charles Laughton—in The Barretts of Wimpole Street; as quoted in "Hollywood" by Sydney Skolsky, in The Washington Post (March 13, 1935)

None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.
The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
- The Bible, Leviticus 18:6-7 (KJV).

The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.
- Leviticus 18:9 (KJV).

Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's sister.
- Leviticus 18:12 (KJV).

And if a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and see her nakedness, and she see his nakedness; it is a wicked thing; and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people: he hath uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity.
- Leviticus 20:17 (KJV).

And thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother's sister, nor of thy father's sister: for he uncovereth his near kin: they shall bear their iniquity.
- Leviticus 20:19 (KJV).

M

Siguió examinándola, descubriendo palmo a palmo el milagro de su intimidad, y sintió que su piel se erizaba en la contemplación, como se erizaba la piel de ella al contacto del agua. Desde muy niño tenía la costumbre de abandonar la hamaca para amanecer en la cama de Amaranta, cuyo contacto tenía la virtud de disipar el miedo a la oscuridad. Pero desde el día en que tuvo conciencia de su desnudez, no era el miedo a la oscuridad lo que lo impulsaba a meterse en su mosquitero, sino el anhelo de sentir la respiración tibia de Amaranta al amanecer. Una madrugada, por la época en que ella rechazó al coronel Gerineldo Márquez, Aureliano José despertó con la sensación de que le faltaba el aire. Sintió los dedos de Amaranta como unos gusanitos calientes y ansiosos que buscaban su vientre. Fingiendo dormir cambió de posición para eliminar toda dificultad, y entonces sintió la mano sin la venda negra buceando como un molusco ciego entre las algas de su ansiedad. Aunque aparentaron ignorar lo que ambos sabían, y lo que cada uno sabía que el otro sabía, desde aquella noche quedaron mancornados por una complicidad inviolable. … Entonces no sólo durmieron juntos, desnudos, intercambiando caricias agotadoras, sino que se perseguían por los rincones de la casa y se encerraban en los dormitorios a cualquier hora, en un permanente estado de exaltación sin alivio. Estuvieron a punto de ser sorprendidos por Úrsula, una tarde en que entró al granero cuando ellos empezaban a besarse. «¿Quieres mucho a tu tía?», le preguntó ella de un modo inocente a Aureliano José. Él contestó que sí. «Haces bien», concluyó Úrsula, y acabó de medir la harina para el pan y regresó a la cocina. Aquel episodio sacó a Amaranta del delirio. Se dio cuenta de que había llegado demasiado lejos, de que ya no estaba jugando a los besitos con un niño, sino chapaleando en una pasión otoñal, peligrosa y sin porvenir, y la cortó de un tajo.
- He [Aureliano José] kept on examining her [his aunt, Amaranta], discovering the miracle of her intimacy inch by inch, and he felt his skin tingle as he contemplated the way her skin tingled when it touched the water. Ever since he was a small child he had the custom of leaving his hammock and waking up in Amaranta's bed, because contact with her was a way of overcoming his fear of the dark. But since that day when he became aware of his own nakedness, it was not fear of the dark that drove him to crawl in under her mosquito netting but an urge to feel Amaranta's warm breathing at dawn. Early one morning during the time when she refused Colonel Gerineldo Márquez, Aureliano José awoke with the feeling that he could not breathe. He felt Amaranta's fingers searching across his stomach like warm and anxious little caterpillars. Pretending to sleep, he changed his position to make it easier, and then he felt the hand without the black bandage diving like a blind shellfish into the algae of his anxiety. Although they seemed to ignore what both of them knew and what each one knew that the other knew, from that night on they were yoked together in an inviolable complicity. … Later they not only slept together, naked, exchanging exhausting caresses, but they would also chase each other into the corners of the house and shut themselves up in the bedrooms at any hour of the day in a permanent state of unrelieved excitement. They were almost discovered by Úrsula one afternoon when she went into the granary as they were starting to kiss. "Do you love your aunt a lot?" she asked Aureliano José in an innocent way. He answered that he did. "That's good of you," Úrsula concluded and finished measuring the flour for the bread and returned to the kitchen. That episode drew Amaranta out of her delirium. She realized that she had gone too far, that she was no longer playing kissing games with a child, but was floundering about in an autumnal passion, one that was dangerous and had no future, and she cut it off with one stroke.
  - Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), ch. 8.

N

If only we could all escape from this house of incest, where we only love ourselves in the other, if only I could save you all from yourselves.
- Anaïs Nin, House of Incest (1936).

O

P

Q

R

Suppose atomic bombs had reduced the population of the world to one brother and one sister, should they let the human race die out?
- Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954), p. 47.

S

I felt like an animal, and animals don’t know sin, do they?
- Jess C. Scott, in 4:Play: A Contemporary Cocktail of Erotic Short Stories (2009; 2011), p. 46.

Each night I am nailed into place
and forget who I am.
Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.
It's not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkeningly bends over my bed,
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help —
this life after death?
- Anne Sexton, as quoted in Modern Women Poets (2005) by Deryn Rees-Jones, p. 136.

THEODOTUS: Caesar: you are a stranger here, and not conversant with our laws. The kings and queens of Egypt may not marry except with their own royal blood. Ptolemy and Cleopatra are born king and consort just as they are born brother and sister.
BRITANNUS (shocked): Caesar: this is not proper.
THEODOTUS (outraged): How!
CAESAR (recovering his self-possession): Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
- George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Act II; the last statement has sometimes been paraphrased as: The customs of your tribe are not laws of nature.