"When my wife and I met in college, the attraction was immediate, and we quickly became inseparable."

"We had a number of things in common, we came from the same large metropolitan area, and we both wanted to return there after school, so everything was very natural between us. We married soon after graduation, moved back closer to our families, and had three children by the time we were 30. We were both born to lesbians, she to a couple, and me to a single woman."

You see where this is going? Blah blah blah... "I can't help but think 'This is my sister' every time I look at her now...."

"More NYU and Columbia female students or 'sugar babies' are seeking 'sugar daddies' to pay for rising school costs."

"SeekingArrangement.com says NYU was the top school for new sign ups — Columbia is the only Ivy league school to make site's Top 20."

If you'd like all the satisfaction of sending a daughter to college, without that pesky incest taboo, there is a solution for you.

"Happy father's day - or as they call it in my family, happy brother-in-law's day."

A tweet, from Woody Allen's son Ronan Farrow.

The message was then retweeted by Allen's ex-wife Mia Farrow, who added the word: 'Boom'

Fathers should not marry their daughters. That's clear. But should moms retweet?

With the arrest of Professor David Epstein for incest, let's revisit the praise for the 1997 father-daughter incest memoir "The Kiss."

I've already started the conversation here about David Epstein. (I show you that Justice Scalia has explained the law on the subject: A father has a constitutional right to have sexual intercourse with his adult, consenting daughter.) I know most of the commentary around the web amounts to little more than ugh. (Come on, people. Hasn't the Supreme Court taught you by now that your disgust is not a proper foundation for law?) Now, let's move this conversation forward. There was a time, it was during the Clinton administration, 1997, when a golden literary light shone on the subject of incest. There was a "beautifully written memoir" by Kathryn Harrison that everyone was talking about:

Her narrative is spare and stark, written in a present tense that perfectly conveys how her experience happened ''out of time as well as out of place.'' ''We meet at airports,'' she begins, plunging the reader straight into the hell of the incestuous affair. ''We meet in cities where we've never been before. We meet where no one will recognize us. . . . these nowheres and notimes are the only home we have.''

Then she goes back to the start of her experience, when she first meets her estranged father as an adult. ''My father looks at me, then, as no one has ever looked at me before.'' Having not seen her since 10 years earlier, when she was 10, he is enthralled by her resemblance to him. When she drives him to the airport, he kisses her goodbye and ''pushes his tongue deep into my mouth: wet, insistent, exploring, then withdrawn.''

She writes: ''In years to come, I'll think of the kiss as a kind of transforming sting, like that of a scorpion: a narcotic that spreads from my mouth to my brain. The kiss is the point at which I begin, slowly, inexorably, to fall asleep, to surrender volition, to become paralyzed. It's the drug my father administers in order that he might consume me. That I might desire to be consumed.''

"The Kiss" — makes a great Christmas gift for Dad.

A Columbia professor is arrested for incest — but isn't there a constitutional right to incest between consenting adults?

Here's the news about the professor, David Epstein, who is accused of having a sexual relationship with his 24-year-old daughter. Now, let's read Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. Texas (the case that found a substantive due process right to engage in sodomy). Justice Scalia quotes the majority opinion (and adds italics):

“[W]e think that our laws and traditions in the past half century are of most relevance here. These references show an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex.”

Scalia then writes (and I'm adding the boldface):

Apart from the fact that such an “emerging awareness” does not establish a “fundamental right,” the statement is factually false. States continue to prosecute all sorts of crimes by adults “in matters pertaining to sex”: prostitution, adult incest, adultery, obscenity, and child pornography. Sodomy laws, too, have been enforced “in the past half century,” in which there have been 134 reported cases involving prosecutions for consensual, adult, homosexual sodomy..... In relying, for evidence of an “emerging recognition,” upon the American Law Institute’s 1955 recommendation not to criminalize “‘consensual sexual relations conducted in private,’ ” the Court ignores the fact that this recommendation was “a point of resistance in most of the states that considered adopting the Model Penal Code.”....

The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are “immoral and unacceptable”... the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, “furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual” ... The Court embraces instead Justice Stevens’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.” This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.

Of course, the Court did assert that in Lawrence, so according to Justice Scalia, under the existing precedent, consensual adult incest cannot survive rational-basis review.

George Hamilton, on "The View," revealing that he had sexual relations with his step-mother when he was 12.

And it wasn't an evil stepmother, as far as he's concerned. He's still pleased with the relationship, and notes that the woman was beautiful and the couple reprised their affair when he was an adult.

Unless you're interested in "Dancing with the Stars" or his tan, scroll to 4:28:



The Viewsters don't get that outraged about it. Joy Behar informs him that it was molestation, like "the teacher thing" we hear about these days. And Whoopi Goldberg reminds us that those were different times, when fathers brought their pubescent sons to "an older woman to initiate them." Barbara is all "But his father didn't exactly suggest it."

"You don't know what's right and wrong. It's on-the-job training, excuse me. Could I vote present?" They called it "cuddling," Hamilton says. Joy Behar -- who's got her left hand rather lewdly buried in her crotch -- wants to get this straight: "You went there?" She waves her right hand, vaguely gesturing there. Oh, he assures us, yes, he's "virulent."

"We have gone public with our story in order to bring awareness within society of Genetic Sexual Attraction."

Do people think what you're doing is wrong? What you need is a foundation.

Half-siblings in love.

They met as adults:

"I know that loving my brother in this way is wrong morally and legally, but it just feels right," says 22-year-old Danielle [Heany].

"The only way to explain it is to say that the day I met Nick, I felt I had finally met my soulmate. Everything clicked. I would marry him if I could."

Nick [Cameron], 28, adds: "My feelings are very confused. We are very deeply in love with each other, but sometimes I think 'she's my little sister. I shouldn't be feeling this way.'

"All I know is that for the first time in my life I feel I belong. I should feel ashamed of it, but I don't."

But this is not a case of offspring of a popular sperm donor who learn the truth after they fall in love. These two have the same mother, and they knew they were half-siblings when they met. Their mother, Susan, meaning to make up for the lost family life, introduced them.

It was Susan who reported them to police after walking in on them making love in the autumn of 2006, and shouted in horror: "What you are doing is morally wrong."

Quite aside from the perplexities of the incest taboo, this case seems to involve some serious hostility between mother and children. Why were they having sex where their mother could walk in on them? Is she the audience for their love?

The two now face arrest if they have sex, and though they live together and act very demonstrative in public, they say they will follow the law:

"We have an unbreakable bond. Of course, it will be hard living together and there will always be temptation, but we have decided that we can still love each other without having sex.

"I love Danielle and because of that I don't want to do anything which might put her in prison, and she feels the same way about me. The sexual expression of our feelings is only one part of the relationship."

Danielle, a former hairdresser, adds: "What we can't live without is the closeness and intimacy. We can still talk, we can still go for walks, we can still love each other.

"Legally we can still kiss, still hold hands, still carry on together, we just can't have intercourse."

They may be lying, but unless they let mom walk in on them again, how can the state know?

Intermission.

Intermission at the Metropolitan Opera:



The ladies check their cell phones. From "Die Walküre" on Monday to "Jersey Boys" and "Wicked" on Friday and Saturday, I've spent the past week sitting in expensive chairs.

But Althouse, did you enjoy yourself? Review the shows!

Do I review shows? I think you'll find that I do not.

Not a shred of information? Of judgment?

I'm too afraid of being boring. I'm afraid to take those expensive seats because I'm afraid of being bored and I'm afraid to write about them because I don't want to be boring. I will say something about each show, but bear in mind that these are not reviews. These are just a few things I dare to say.

1. "Die Walküre." I never took Fricka seriously before. She seemed like the annoying wife who had to show up and sing once to make God do something he didn't want to do and set the tragedy in motion. But Stephanie Blythe made me really believe her point of view, a rock-solid ban on adultery. And isn't it fascinating to be so outraged by adultery, when there is also that brother-sister incest, which is what shocks the mortals in the audience? There are so many more adulterers in the audience than violators of the incest taboo.

2. "Jersey Boys." If you've been reading this blog from the beginning, maybe you know that back in 2004, I mourned that no one cared about The Four Seasons anymore. Less than 2 years later, a big Broadway show about them opened. But even though The Four Seasons were the first group I loved — and I loved them from the first few seconds of "Sherry" heard on the radio — I wasn't that eager to hear a singer impersonate Frankie Valli. I can't express how sublime that voice seemed to me when I was 11. Does Michael Longoria sound like him? Superficially, yes. But would I go to see a Four Seasons cover band? [ADDED: I mean tribute band.] Of course not. I love all the songs, but I'd rather play the originals. As for the story behind the songs, it's somewhat interesting and quickly told. But I'd rather play the originals and enter the deep emotional space of the past. Must I sit — contorting to see around the melon-headed man in front of me — to stare at the stage and and listen to a little man who is not Frankie Valli, who has a voice but no sex appeal?

3. "Wicked." Great set and costumes and neat, complicated story, but must every song in the show sound like those horrible, overblown pop songs they write for the finale of "American Idol"? Glinda and Elphaba got me thinking about Diana DeGarmo and Fantasia.

I'm through accepting limits
'Cuz someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But 'till I try, I'll never know

It's an "American Idol" song. And it goes on and on like that. Pursue your dreams! Be true to yourself! Don't let anyone stop you now! That's fine for you, but what about me?

"(The brother and sister) met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction..."

Twins separated at birth meet and marry. The marriage is annulled when the truth is discovered, but it's interesting to see this assertion that that the attraction was "inevitable." Is there something about the close blood relationship that causes attraction, that we only deny because we've learned the incest taboo?

David Alton, a member of the House of Lords, revealed their situation as a way of highlighting perceived shortcomings in the Human Embryology and Tissues Bill which is now going through Britain's Parliament....

"I suspect that it will be a matter of litigation in the future if we do not make information of this kind available to children who have been donor-conceived."

Yes, there are an awful lot of half-siblings out there — the fruit of popular sperm donors — who are going to meet and feel this "inevitable" attraction.

IN THE COMMENTS: Diane writes:

If I discovered my husband was my brother, I'd find a way to hide it. I love my husband, and frankly, I'd be unwilling to give him up. Now, I wouldn't have biological children with him--I'm not that twisted.

Am I alone?

This suggests a follow-up question. If you knew that a happily married couple were — without knowing it — brother and sister, would you hide it from them?

The mesmerizing Clintons and the mystifying Giuliani.

Yikes, look at the photograph of Bill and Hillary Clinton on this WaPo story about a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll. It looks like a photorealist painting. I'm picturing this the size of a gallery wall and oozing irony. Or as a 50-foot banner hanging along the wall of a large government building. Look at those visionary, upcast eyes.....

[ADDED: Picture photoshopped for your amusement.]

But that's not what I came here to talk about! Jeez, I nearly got sucked into a Clinton vortex....

What I want to talk about is those crazy Republicans. According to the WaPo:

[D]anger looms for Republicans should they nominate the politically moderate Giuliani: About one-third of GOP voters said they would consider supporting a third-party candidate in the general election if the party nominee supported abortion and gay rights.

Yes, yes, blah, blah, blah... We've all heard this sort of thing. But you have to click into the PDF of the poll for the interesting part:

[A]mong the 34% of Republican primary voters who would consider a third party candidate if the candidate chosen is not conservative enough, Giuliani received more support than the other candidates.

What?! The question was whether they agreed with the statement: "If the Republican Party nominates a candidate supporting abortion and gay rights, the social conservatives in the Party should run a third party candidate." Then they asked the 34% who agreed who should be that third party candidate. Response:

Giuliani 26%
Thompson 19
McCain 10
Huckabee 9
Romney 7

Another question asks "Could you vote for a candidate for president who supports abortion and gay rights if you agree with him on other issues, or could you only vote for a candidate for president who opposes these issues?" This gets 39%, which seems to mean that there are 5% more Republicans who want to abstain from voting and don't want to see a third party candidate. In this 39%, the support breaks down like this:

Thompson 22%
Giuliani 19
Huckabee 11
Romney 11
McCain 8

Still 19% for Giuliani.

Here's more on the mystifying support for Giuliani:

More than two-thirds of Republican voters said abortion should be illegal (which includes 51% who said illegal with exception – rape, incest and to save the mother’s life). Seventeen percent want abortion to be illegal without any exceptions. And nearly half of Republican voters are against same-sex couples marrying or forming civil unions, including huge majorities of those who consider themselves part of the religious right and Christian fundamentalists.

Although Giuliani is pro-choice and favors civil unions, among those who want abortion to be illegal 35% would still vote for the former mayor; among voters who want same-sex couples to neither marry nor join in civil unions, 24% are also supporting him. He gets the most votes in both of these groups.

Can anyone explain this? Could it be perhaps that people don't know his positions, but they recognize his name as Italian and assume Catholic along with all that supposedly entails? How long can this ignorance persist?

Republican haters can assemble over there and laugh and say mean things, but I think we should assume that a vast chunk of Americans have yet to start paying attention to the presidential race. This is chilling, because it looks like the the process — whatever this process is — has already selected the candidates.

But the voting hasn't begun. Maybe in a couple months — Christmas is 2 months away — ordinary people will start paying attention and everything will change. It did in '04.

Concentrating on “senseless social issues that distract and divide us."

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and his Republican challenger Mark Green both spoke at a Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce last night:

Doyle decried the use of “senseless social issues that distract and divide us,” and said the state needs to remain focused on the “growth agenda” he’s charted in his first four years as governor....

Doyle drew the only applause for either speaker when he said, unlike Green, he supports “a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices, even in cases of rape or incest,” He also said, “I do not agree with my opponent, I do not believe we should be carrying loaded guns in our pockets,” and decried efforts to “write discrimination into our constitution,” a reference to the ballot initiative to ban gay marriage and legal recognition of anything substantially similar to marriage for unmarried couples....

Doyle talked about stem cell research from a personal perspective, referencing his mother’s 30-year battle with Parkinson’s disease. Ruth Bachhuber Doyle died in May at the age of 89.

“To me it is unthinkable that we would stop the research that has the potential of having other people not have to suffer what my mother suffered,” he said.

So, yeah, damn these candidates with their manipulative social issues.

The nonpolitical abortion opponents.

The NYT writes:

"The media attention has all gone to the political wing," said James R. Kelly, a professor of sociology at Fordham University in New York who has written about the history of abortion in America. "But the first national organizations in the movement were not political; they were service groups that provided direct aid to women so they would not abort. These are low-key and hidden, but they were always there and had more volunteers than the political side."

The methods are rather deceptive:

... Woman's Choice is designed to look and feel like a medical center, not a religion-based organization with an agenda. Becky Edmondson, the executive director, said the center chose the look and name to reach women who were bombarded with pressures to abort and might think they had no other choice.

If callers ask how much the center charges to perform an abortion, Lisa Arnold, a counselor and leader of the postabortion group, said: "I say, 'It changes, but why don't you come in for an ultrasound and we'll talk about it.' You don't want to deceive them, but you want a chance to talk to them." Once women come to the center, staff members - who oppose abortion even in cases involving rape and incest - encourage them to make further appointments, and refer them to doctors who share the center's views on abortion.

Celebrity corsets.

Check out the celebrity-designed corsets. (It's an auction to benefit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.) Not that I'm bidding, but may I recommend the Julianne Moore? And note the Eve Ensler. It's really Eve Ensler-y.

UPDATE: Chris emailed me that link, by the way, which he found at The Dent, a Tori Amos news site. Tori has a corset in the show. It's bee-themed.

ADDED: Chris adds: "The corset benefit is for an organization that Tori Amos runs. Also,the bee theme is a double reference that her fans would get--one of her best B-sides is called Honey."