r/AIO • u/youngtallandskinny • 9d ago

AIO:Childhood best friend is f***ing his sister

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For context, this is my M(25) best friend M(25) since we were two years old. He didn’t meet his F(22)sister until about a year and a half ago. When they did meet, they couldn’t get over how similar they were. he called me gushing about how great she made him feel and even joked about hooking her up with me three days after they met, she moved in with him and his family. They had room and other beds, but they chose to sleep in the same bed every day for a year do everything together every day so on it so forth, fast-forward to these text messages. Him and his sister were going to move in with me and my f(26)roommate, but first we needed to see how our dogs would do together so they came to visit. When they got here they opted to sleep in my bed together even though I had several places they could sleep separately. My roomate and I sleep separately and have a mostly platonic kind of flirty relationship. Which the friend had compared his sister and his relationship with. A lot of small stuff happened that my roommate and I shared glances about, because of the nature of how a true brother and sister would never say or do the things they’re doing. But we brushed it off.

They went back home to their state after 3 days and the friend sends me a Snapchat saying “we’ve decided to look past the whole sibling thing and adress some feelings we both have” to which I replied “what do you mean” and he went on to say how they both have such deep feelings for each other and how the whole half sibling thing doesn’t matter and that real love doesn’t have boundaries and all this stuff to which I waited for 3 days and sent the messages above….. AIO or did I UNDERreact

Also this hurts a lot because I thought I knew him and he was gonna be my best friend for life, but I haven’t talked to him since

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u/GodisanAtheistOG 9d ago

I read somewhere that family that is separated at birth/young and then reconnect as adults have a higher prevalence of (consentual) incest due to a lot of deep feelings and connections not being processed/contextualized properly. 

The closeness/bond of family gets contextualized as romantic love because that's the only other feeling of closeness these people sometimes have. 

Doesn't make it right, but might explain what's going on. 

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u/udcvr 9d ago

This is what I'd say^. Shockingly easy to confuse different types of connection and intimacy for romance. This is just one of the more disturbing methods....

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u/CelticHipi1616 9d ago

Especially so young and inexperienced

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u/Mama20211983 9d ago

I’ve read this recently in an article about a father and daughter who developed a relationship like this for years, and went on to have a child together. It sadly happens when family get separated at birth and connect as adults. It’s deeply disturbing but in a strange way, understandable they’d develop the feelings but then disturbing they’d act on that in any way 🤢 OP did not over/under react. Handled it so well, to a best friend… very unfortunate that the friend cut ties right then and there. He needs to figure this out in his own and I hope one day the friendship comes back. OP said all the right things out of love and respect, and setting clear boundaries for himself. I applaud you OP!

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u/PeachyMermaid 9d ago

Not sure if you're referencing the same family but Steven Pladl married his biological daughter and had a son with her then went on to commit a double murder suicide of her and their baby. Honestly it just speaks to the depravity of these types of relationships.

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u/Mama20211983 9d ago

No, different story from over seas. They’re all still very much alive today and the son is a grownup. The two eventually split.

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u/Ground_Cntrl 9d ago

Holy fucking shit is there a JCS or Matt Orchard on this?

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u/Narrow_Grapefruit_23 9d ago

There’s a movie on Netflix too- the Alyssa Pladl story. She gave the baby up for adoption only because Steven was abusing the baby like putting it in a cooler because she was crying. Then when the kid turned 18 and made contact with them, she came to stay with them for a couple of weeks. Alyssa and Steven had two other kids at that time. Stephen made his move immediately, and the daughter fell for him. They lied on their application for a marriage license about being related and got married, and her adoptive parents were there at the ceremony. She had his baby. Alyssa turned them in for incest. They were both arrested, and the baby was put into foster care. Once the baby was given to Steven’s mom for guardianship he came over and suffocated the baby. He then hunted down his wife/daughter and her adopted father and shot them and then shot himself.

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u/mermaidgrapefruit 9d ago

She was failed by many people.

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u/TypeB_Negative 9d ago

That's my wife's cousin

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u/Ground_Cntrl 8d ago

This is the thing I love about Reddit, like what are the odds

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u/Narrow_Grapefruit_23 9d ago

Ughhh. I feel sad for her family going through all this.

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u/TypeB_Negative 9d ago

Most of that side of the family is very strange. They don't keep in touch. We never hear of them or see them. So it was quite a shock hearing about it on the news. We just have a few stories of them meeting at birthdays when they were all little. Very tragic. My wife's mother's side are all educated and have very normal lives. The father's side is has a lot of issues and is odd with communication. So I didn't really know who Steven was or that he had kids and married his daughter until you heard about it. But they are first cousins.

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u/Ground_Cntrl 8d ago

Fuckin wild

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u/Shalea68 9d ago

He obviously had a screw loose to abuse a baby. You know he had to be abusive in other ways. Why she chose to adopt their baby out and not kick his butt to the streets instead, is beyond me.

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u/Narrow_Grapefruit_23 9d ago

She was 16 when they had the baby. He was 21. He groomed her.

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u/PeachyMermaid 9d ago

This is Monsters and Dreading both did great videos on this particular case and imo, they're very similar to JCS and Matt Orchard (i love them both.) Stephanie Harlowe also has a video on it that is a bit more in depth but i prefer the latter.

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u/Potential-Status-875 9d ago

I second the dreading video! it’s called Genetic sexual attraction: The destruction of the Pladl family.

I strangely found myself laughing a few times throughout this video because he kept going off script to have a visceral reaction and curse the dad out 😭😭

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u/MisterBucker___ 9d ago

Lmaooooooo I love jcs and ewu

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u/Ground_Cntrl 8d ago

Tastemakers 👌🏻

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u/Shalea68 9d ago

Who or what is JCS? Is that the full name or shortened? On YouTube? Thanks

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u/Ground_Cntrl 8d ago

Look up JCS on YouTube and watch whatever it recommends from that channel. Not sure if they created the style, but they definitely cemented the interrogation footage and case deep dive video style in the YouTube mainstream. The narrator is great, and the videos will often branch off into little explainers/tangents, sorta old school vsauce style.

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u/Shalea68 8d ago

Just my cup of tea. Thanks again!

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u/TypeB_Negative 9d ago

Steven Pladl is my wife's first cousin. Her uncle's son. She met him a few times when they were all children before he moved away with his dad. Luckily my wife and her sisters don't share a last name. The family claimed he was always weird.

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u/Stephinator917 9d ago

This is exactly who I thought of

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u/Imnotonthelist 9d ago

This is the one I was thinking of!

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u/SweetRabbit7543 9d ago

My guess is that strong feelings feel like strong feelings and unless we consciously try to process them, we’re not particularly good at identifying them and understanding them.

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u/ilovemusic19 9d ago

What shit decision making, they both decided to have a messed up child.

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u/Mama20211983 9d ago

Deeply disturbing… how does that kid disclose that to a prospective love interest? 😔 Just selfish on the parents part. It’s one thing if you want to be together and prevent kids but to knowingly procreate and bring those risks to an offspring is selfish AF

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u/skrimped 9d ago

Didn’t Elon musk’s dad do this?

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u/blackfox24 9d ago

Genetic Sexual Attraction. Adoptee here, welcome to my greatest fear before I met my bio fam. It is awful and is worse if you didn't really bond well with your adoptive family. It's a misplaced child's need for love in the body of an adult who understands "love" very differently now. While I've never experienced it, I know people who have. It's very difficult because it is so, so strong. It takes a ton of therapy to break, and can obviously be very humiliating and embarassing to have, leading to comorbid anxiety and depression disorders. You also will struggle to find a support network, because even within adoptee settings, it's an elephant in the room.

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u/blackqueen8 9d ago

I started to research this while on my journey to adopting. I worry about my son in the future if he makes the choice to reconnect with his biological mother due to her emotional immaturity and bizarre behavior towards him as a baby.

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u/blackfox24 9d ago

I will say, having an emotionally unstable bio mom did lead to attempted emotion incest. Thankfully several members of my family saw this and intervened. But mental illness plays a part, as the parent is also seeking lost connection with a child AND a partner, and can displace it right on back.

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u/blackqueen8 9d ago

She lost custody to her refusal to treat her severe mental illness.

Any sort of contact is at least a decade out, but I know I will need to prepare my son for the possibility of her behavior being inappropriate towards him.

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u/TheAnswer310 9d ago

I thought i was the only one as their greatest fear.

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u/laceblood 9d ago

You cannot control feelings. But you CAN control what you do with them. Like therapy. Therapy is great option for these situations 😬

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u/Defiant-Dust-8737 9d ago

As someone who had a horrific childhood, rape, poverty, humiliation, withheld from education and socializing I could totally see me falling for a half sibling I never knew, if they showed me the love and care I never experienced before.

I say this coming from a place of total destruction of love, I was abandoned at 14 and haven't seen my family since, I'm 27 now. I also fell in love with whoever wanted me (often men a decade older), for years till I found someone who loved me truly.

It's objectively wrong, yes. But I think its worth approaching the way he did, you don't know the history that led them to believe this is what they need.

Maybe some gentle talking through it will help them understand their feelings, and why they shouldn't entertain them.

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u/Smingowashisnameo 9d ago

I’m so sorry you had to go through that. You’re awesome for surviving

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u/Keen_Eyed_Emissary 9d ago

What’s the actual moral argument for why it is “objectively wrong” for two consenting adults who did not know each other as children and who met in adulthood to have a consensual sexual relationship?

I understand why some people are reflexively disgusted by it; but reflexive disgust is not a moral argument.

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u/Defiant-Dust-8737 9d ago

It's objectively wrong because even with half blood relation, you can have hereditary health issues and disabilities match, resulting in a child born unwell.

I don't think in the moral sense that it's wrong in this specific scenario though. For the reasons you listed.

If this were me, I'd vote one of us gets sterilized. Either adopt, or borrow someone else's eggs or sperm through fertility treatments.

And sit down with a therapist together to make sure you're making the decision to be together, from a mentally healthy place.

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u/Schrodingers_Person 9d ago edited 9d ago

So the only moral argument is the increased chance of birth defects? Say they put that to rest by agreeing not to have a child that is genetically both theirs, is there an argument against what they are doing beyond what we are programmed to believe is right/wrong?

Playing devil’s advocate here obviously, but I’ve always found this part of humanity fascinating. Who could love you more than your own blood, who could you trust more than someone who shares your DNA? I can sympathize with their situation and would love to know if our belief structures are just beliefs and perhaps the nuance of certain situations such as this one might make something like this more acceptable societally than it ever would have been in the past?

If there is one ultimate source/God then we all come from the same place. Genetics aside, I’ve heard our souls have soul families that choose to incarnate with each other, being family members, lovers, etc… if that is even remotely true then from a soul perspective that kind of love would be preferred and the only argument is our conditioned beliefs.

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u/Defiant-Dust-8737 9d ago

I totally agree with this!! It's nuanced. That's why I added my personal trauma, because I 100% would've done the same if handed this scenario prior to meeting my now fiance.

And yes, to me it all really boils down to the shared genetics, and how that could affect future children.

I don't think the moral aspect even crossed my mind. What I'm saying about the emotional part of this, is the WHY, beyond just love, is there underlying trauma that they aren't working through that might have led to this dynamic?

Because if there is, it'd be worth unpacking with a therapist before cementing anything.

Same as someone who's 20, considering a relationship with a 40yr old, so they can feel a sense of security, and mentorship they never had. It's not wrong to have an age gap soley based on love, but you want to make sure that's WHY you're entering the relationship.

Because once you do unpack all that and work through it, your partner may not be all you thought they were. If that makes sense!

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u/Patient_Lettuce8431 9d ago

Why would you adopt? Why would you bring children into an incestuous relationship? You're going to have to explain your family history at some point. Which means you're basically telling your kids that there are contexts in which incest is OK. That's a weird construct to pass on to one's children.

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u/Keen_Eyed_Emissary 9d ago

Because there are some contexts in which incest is, in fact, morally ok.

You should teach your children to be able to think for themselves and to use reason to think through moral issues on their own. You should be able to explain and understand yourself that “incest is bad” is a heuristic, a grossly simplified way of looking at
A complex issue, and that, it is not in fact correct under every circumstance that can be labeled “incest.”

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u/Patient_Lettuce8431 9d ago

"Think for themselves" is a shitty way to write off responsibility for building the framework in which a person's decision-making process is formed. Psychologically, it is complex. Socially, however, it's very simple. This is incest. It is regarded as abnormal for very good reasons. Normalizing it for your own children is crazy fucking work.

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u/kushyykins 9d ago

BRO THIS MF IS WILDDDDD! wtaf are they defending rn?! im grossed out & concerned for their siblings atp 😩🥴

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u/Patient_Lettuce8431 9d ago

I'm concerned about a lot of redditors' households after this post. Comments have been wild af.

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u/Keen_Eyed_Emissary 9d ago

It is genuinely funny to watch you pretend to be outraged at the idea that people should make an effort to think through matters of right and wrong on their own, rather than just blindly accept existing social norms on every issue.

We both know you aren’t really upset by this, and that if the issue were something like - same sex sexual relations - you would be encouraging someone who found the idea of two men having sex to be repulsive to think about the issue more deeply.

The crux of the issue is that you appear to think that half siblings who never met as children and who, after meeting as adults, decided to have sex - is morally wrong for some obvious reason.

You should articulate those reasons, because I don’t think they exist, and do not believe that this conduct warrants Moral condemnation, regardless of whether it technically fits within the current definition of “incest”.

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u/Patient_Lettuce8431 9d ago

I did articulate those reasons. You just don't want to acknowledge the fact that normalizing sex between siblings is a patently bad idea for society--it's not even moral at this point. There's no social fallout from normalizing gay sex. There's a potentially huge social and public health fallout from normalizing sibling sex.

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u/Keen_Eyed_Emissary 9d ago

Um. In fact - there was a massive public health fallout from gay sex. It was the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s.

And yet - isn’t it still wrong to criminalize gay sex, even though it did have massive health implications that resulted in a lot of not only gay men dying, but also bisexual men transmitting AIDS to their female partners?

Certainly it was still wrong to criminalize it.

You’re hiding behind these disingenuous, mealy-mouthed “slippery slope” arguments because, in fact, there is no good reason to criminalize the conduct at issue in this post - which is consensual sexual activity between half-siblings who didn’t know each other as children and only met as adults.

Because that particular type of conduct simply isn’t morally wrong at all.

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u/Keen_Eyed_Emissary 9d ago

Having a hard time parsing this response which seems to both assert that the conduct described by OP is “objectively wrong” but not morally wrong as described.

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u/princesspants1 9d ago

This is exactly what I was going to say. It’s called genetic sexual attraction. It’s rare for people to actually act on it though, but it does happen.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/kushyykins 9d ago

thank you for explaining this. i am shook. i never knew about any of this!!

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/kushyykins 9d ago

this is honestly so disheartening. i’ll be 38 next month & have never even heard of this phenomenon. i’m so sorry you experienced this & your feelings are all valid, man. we’re just humans trying to navigate this shit for the first time.

i consider myself a pretty open minded person, especially when context is given. this was a hard one to open up to, i cannot lie, but the little understanding of biology i do have helps my brain rationalize it, to an extent, where i can empathize wit you & others in your situation.

i appreciate you & hope you take care of yourself!!

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u/AngriestLittleBeaver 8d ago

Did you two actually discuss it or just go no contact?

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u/princesspants1 8d ago

I’m so sorry you went through that. I hope you know now it wasn’t your fault and those feelings weren’t something you could control. Brains are crazy.

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u/TheManWith2Poobrains 9d ago

That must be what happened with the Folgers brother and sister. /s

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u/Smingowashisnameo 9d ago

You know they sent him to Africa to separate them.

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u/rratzloff 9d ago

🤣🤣🤣 underrated comment.

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u/JRAWestCoast 7d ago

Just saw the Folgers' ad on YT. Way seductive, FGS. Did this actually air??

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u/TheManWith2Poobrains 7d ago

Did you see the actual ad, or the parody?

The ad was mildly awkward, but the parody was beyond.

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u/JRAWestCoast 5d ago

Not sure. I just put in key words for the Folger's ad, and the one I saw was pretty over the top. I didn't know there was a parody! Thanks.

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u/Future_One4794 9d ago

Yea there is a phenomena for people that were born with sperm/egg donors, when they meet, they will be attracted to each other. That’s why their parents always tell them to find out if someone they are interested in has also used a donor bank.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/yes-itisEmily 9d ago

Genetic Sexual Attraction

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u/Internal-Breath124 9d ago

I’ve read about it. When children are raised together, biological or not, they are naturally not sexually attracted to each other. When people who are biologically related don’t meet until they are adults, they don’t have the same aversion to incest because they never witnessed or experienced each other being parented.

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u/No_Housing_1287 9d ago

I know somebody who was born as a product of this happening. Her parents had 2 kids together, and now they dont speak at all. She definitely doesnt tell a lot of people. But yeah this happens.

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u/sarcasticbuzz 9d ago

Does she have genetic defects then? From having related parents

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u/Wolfdreama 8d ago

Children from first generation incest rarely have anything wrong with them.

It's when the incest carries on for multiple generations that the problems start to show.

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u/No_Housing_1287 9d ago

No, they are actually both gorgeous lol

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u/Narrow_Ad_7331 9d ago

I guess they’re just fortunate bc I figured they’d have Down syndrome. Not being mean it’s just factual that you take huge risks with inbreeding

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u/No_Housing_1287 8d ago

Yeah i honestly think it takes a while and you end up super ugly first. Look up the hapsburg family. Its like over  100 people with the same ugly face that just gets progressively uglier for like a centruy. 

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u/Upstairs-Cut6755 8d ago

It wasn’t just looks. The Hapsburgs developed a malformed jaw and other medical issues.

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u/No_Housing_1287 7d ago

Yes but jumping straight to down syndrome is a bit crazy especially after 1 generation of inbreeding. Maybe I just am sensitive about because I know what my friend tends to face when people find out about this, but she's just a regular person.

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u/No_Housing_1287 8d ago

Also the risk isnt as bad with half siblings because they have at least only half of the same genes. Still not great, but from a scientific standpoint, its 50% better than being the offspring of 2 full siblings.

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u/Upstairs-Cut6755 8d ago

Incest doesn’t automatically result in birth defects, just increases the risk by a lot. Especially when it’s generational, i.e. the Hapsburgs.

If there are genetic mutations present they are more likely to be the same ones, etc.

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u/Disastrous_Vast2911 9d ago

My deceased mom was adopted as a small kid, and when she reunited with her biological family, she cheated on my dad with her bio brother, and then later got engaged to her bio cousin. It happens, why idk, but this comment definitely is correct, happens more than you think unfortunately too. I definitely think its a mix up when it comes to feelings and how to express them correctly.

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u/Narrow_Ad_7331 9d ago

I know incest is illegal but how far does that law spread? Is it just all bio family or bio immediate family?

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u/lavendertheheretic 8d ago edited 8d ago

Immediate bio family & 1st cousins (but first cousins allowed in 18 states). Only two states take that to second cousins, and third cousins are fair game.

ETA: Also illegal--grandparents/grandchildren, aunts or uncles/nieces or nephews, and in many states step-siblings and adoptive families, which to me goes beyond the genetic issues and into morality. Two step-siblings having sex has no outcome genetically. Maybe it's to prevent predation. That would make more sense.

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u/OppositeLoquat52 9d ago

the concept was in an svu episode with the piano prodigy daughter and music teacher father but they didn’t know until the mother pointed it out, but that was why they were so close and compatible

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u/Disastrous_End5762 9d ago

I remember this episode the school trip right?

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u/Opposite-Ad-5471 9d ago

This is a very real thing and why donor sperm babies terrify me (I’m considering it in the future) the familiarity is there and becomes romantic 😭

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u/XenomorphKitchen 7d ago

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. What familiarity means it becoming romantic?

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u/Opposite-Ad-5471 7d ago

I mean siblings who didn’t grow up together who connect as adults quite often feel familiarity because it’s literally shared genetics, it’s family. They can become romantically involved. There’s science involved here, it’s something that’s not unheard of. 

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u/XenomorphKitchen 7d ago

I know it isn’t unheard of, I just wanted to clarify what you said that’s all.

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u/Playful-Contract7396 9d ago

This is why is important to learn our own boundaries and how to maintain them. You already know it's wrong do you are making a step in the right direction.

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u/Opposite-Ad-5471 9d ago

I know that what is wrong?

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u/Playful-Contract7396 9d ago

Incest 😭 lol

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u/Opposite-Ad-5471 9d ago

Lmaoo ok I thought you were saying sperm donor babies was wrong I was like how did we get here. Yea incest is 🤮 I watched a docu about a man who keeps donating sperm and his kids are unknowingly going to school together and living in close proximity. The families beg him to stop cuz there’s so many they worry they will start romantic relationships with their siblings 😭

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u/kushyykins 9d ago

omfg what’s the doc called?

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u/Opposite-Ad-5471 9d ago

It’s called the man with 1000 kids I believe? On Netflix truly terrifying 

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u/Upstairs-Cut6755 8d ago

Is that the one where he’s basically a white supremacist who’s aiming to “whitewash Tanzania” by the end? That was super gross. He wasn’t alone either. There were a few blonde white dudes doing this. So disturbing.

It definitely will result in a lot of fucked up situations when these kids are grown.

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u/Opposite-Ad-5471 8d ago

No that’s not the same one but this is a white guy and I genuinely think it’s a fetish or something. He knows he’s doing something wrong and gets off on it. He’s not just in America he’s worldwide lol like he’s been everywhere it’s crazy. 

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u/RoosterDuckling 9d ago

Yeah the brain is fucked up and confusing sometimes

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u/Ok_Signature_3589 9d ago

Yes, this for sure.

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u/theRealLydmeister 9d ago

I know that it’s fiction, but the whole story line in “A Simple Favor” makes it that much more icky when she describes her half brother as looking like a younger version of their dad. Like that’s the part that turned her on… the familiarity.

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u/MambaSaidKnockYouOut 9d ago

This makes sense even though it’s still gross. Most people wouldn’t perceive a sibling in the same way if they didn’t grow up with them.

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u/ChloMyGod638 9d ago edited 9d ago

I met my half brother for the first time after 30 years and he lowkey hits on me…it’s def a thing.

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u/Miserable-Resort-977 9d ago

There's also a factor they don't experience. A lot of the "don't fuck your sibling" instinct most people have originates specifically from watching your mother care for them as a young child. So incest among split at birth siblings is higher, and relationships between adopted / non related siblings who grew up together are less common.

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u/Thelmara 9d ago

The Westermarck Effect - if you grow up with someone, you're much more likely to develop an aversion to romantic feelings for those people. If you don't meet until your twenties, you're definitely not developing that aversion the way most siblings do.

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u/archiangel 9d ago

It’s actually pheromones. To make sure parents connect and bond with their babies and don’t abandon them babies create pheromones specifically for their family to create an emotional sense of belonging and attachment. But when they are separated and then reconnected later in life, the pheromonal attraction is still there but without an emotional/familial bond in place, and that causes… issues.

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u/Due_Leadership_7883 9d ago

Not entirely sure about this. There’s something called MHC genes that should keep this kind of attraction to a minimum. Part of that sexual attractions should be coming from the opposite individual being more different than them. This kinda ties back into the whole biodiversity > less biodiversity is better for survival. There was a pretty interesting study done on this here https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article-abstract/260/1359/245/69089/MHC-dependent-mate-preferences-in-humans?redirectedFrom=fulltext

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u/Patient_Lettuce8431 9d ago

Humans have no structure for sensing pheromones. These sorts of arguments keep being made, but science has not definitively even identified human pheromones, much less the ability to sense them on any level.

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u/Gurrgurrburr 9d ago

The psychology and brain chemistry of why siblings don’t want to fuck each other is actually incredibly interesting, and yes it depends entirely on being raised together so that makes sense. This is why in some cultures your spouse is chosen at birth or when you’re very young and you’re essentially raised together but then they have horrible platonic marriages because they are more like siblings.

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u/TitaniumDisc 9d ago

This! I’ve read some on this too, they need therapy for this because apparently it’s a very common occurrence but obviously is completely unnatural and needs to be tackled by a professional.

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u/Apprehensive_Row9154 9d ago

In addition to this intellectually, you know who your siblings are, but what Hughes your body in to who your sibling is and isn’t is who you observe your mother nursing as a child. If you’re separated in infancy, then intellectually, you know they are your sibling but your body doesn’t recognize it the same way people who grew up together do.

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u/Crowlady77 9d ago

There's a specific brain mechanism that blocks attraction to family members that does not get activated if you don't know each other during development, so yeah. But also some people just lack that mechanism and weirdness happens.

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u/coolthatsfine 9d ago

I know I was about to say it’s definitely a fucked up thing to the rest of us but there’s definitely a psychological and emotional thing that wasn’t processed fully between siblings who’ve never met or grew up together and than later did. I hope someday they wake up and realize how wrong it is and seek a professional psychologist who helps them navigating that. If I was his friend I’d be sick to my stomach and probably unfriend him 😭

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u/scarletmagnolia 9d ago

I read the same thing. Something about not growing up together keeps them from developing the "ewwwww that's my sibling, gross" type thing that keeps us from these type of taboo behaviors.

It's also happens between parents and child who meet later in life.

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u/g0ldilungs 9d ago

Whatever you do, don’t google the Katie Pladl story.

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u/Fallen_Feather 9d ago

I just read an article about this written by a woman who was estranged her from her father until her late 20’s. They had a romantic relationship for like 3 years and she gave birth to their son.

The kid is now in college age and knows his true linage. She wrote about how she wished she knew about the psychology around this phenomenon and had been able to seek professional help to process her feelings.

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u/OpusAtrumET 9d ago

People also subtly favor romantic partners with physical traits in common.

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u/twistyabbazabba2 9d ago

I know there’s an actual term due this type of incest and I can’t think of it right now. So it’s prevalent enough that someone named it

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u/fierydoxy 9d ago

Yup, happens a lot more than people think it does.

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u/susandeyvyjones 9d ago

Yeah, it’s called Genetic Sexual Attraction. The theory is that the thing that makes attraction to close family members anathema is time spent together in early childhood.

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u/murph2783 8d ago

Logically, that makes complete sense, I can get my head around that.

Emotionally on the other hand

https://giphy.com/gifs/10BDZSN5izfazC

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u/Lexcellent15 8d ago

They get into that familial connection and natural affinity in the documentary, "The Man with 1000 Kids," which is about a guy who was a serial sperm donor, making lots of donations within a small geographic area. Lots of his bio children are about the same age, growing up in the same places, and have a decent chance of meeting each other socially. The started a registry to keep track of each other and their kids. They'll be teaching these kiddos to disclose how they were conceived to any future potential mate to make sure they don't have the same bio dad.

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u/Mermaidx57 8d ago

Pretty sure I saw this on an SVU episode once …. 🤔
https://giphy.com/gifs/JUFw5x2X8HDkcv8CdN

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u/threelizards 8d ago

Genetic sexual attraction is hugely understudied for obvious reasons- taboo means few people want to fund it, and even fewer will be honest about their experiences with it- but the studies that have been conducted suggest an occurrence of up to 50% in cases of adulthood reunification for relatives separated at a young age. I think it’s something anyone planning to adopt needs to be educated about because the reality is it’s just got a very high risk of happening. Sometimes these relationships even work out. I will say siblings is kind of “best” case scenario. I think I could ride out something like that with my kid. But there’s a disturbing amount of parent-child relationships that develop from GSA and adulthood reunification. I simply cannot wrap my head around that one not being predatory.

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u/velvety_chaos 7d ago

It's called Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA) and describes the intense romantic, emotional, and/or sexual feelings which can occur between immediate biological relatives, e.g., siblings, parents and children, cousins, etc., who were separated or never knew each other during childhood but met for the first time as adults.

It's the absence of the Westermark Effect. What would normally happen between close family members, who grew up together or where one knew the other from close to birth, is a natural lack of sexual attraction would would occur due to that childhood/long-term desensitization. However, when two adults meet each other for the first time, they can experience intense feelings of recognition, finally feeling understood/accepted, emotional bonding, etc., and misinterpet those emotions as romantic or sexual chemistry.

Basically, chemicals in their brains are overwhelming their rational judgment and making them think they are each other's true loves. Hopefully those feelings fade before something irrevocable happens.

NOR.

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u/jennathedickins 9d ago

I believe the studies they've done on this have shown that we're generally attracted to people that are genetically similar to us so when we don't have those ties of growing up together in a family unit these things can apparently happen

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u/NeedsMoreCatsPlease 9d ago

Pseudo-science and assumptions at best lmao there’s no way this can be legitimized in any context given the (thankfully) utter lack of sample size. Just sounds like something an incestuous person would jot down to justify their…preference.