Discussion Thoughts on incest of Long-lived fantasy races

These were just thoughts that entered my brain when I was reading some fantasy stories
To clarify what is a long lived species assume that 100 years is still young for them, these are species that have a natural lifespan of centuries and even millennia. With such life spans, there should be a proportionally where the females are capable of having children to give an example Humans can start having their periods as early as 9 but on average are usually between 12 - 14 , menopause on average happens at around 40s to 50s so around 2/3rds of their lives. A species who can live a 1000 years should still be capable having children between 200 years to 800 years. That is a very long time.
question 1: Would incest be more common and more socially acceptable with longer lived species?
Incest is naturally rejected because of familiarity, genetics, or social norms. The familiarity rejection so called reverse sexual imprinitng or the westermarck effect states that it is a hypothetical psychological effect through which people who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives become desensitized to sexual attraction. However with the lengths of time involved in their lives, this reverse sexual imprinting would slowly disappear especially if the partners ( could be mother-son, father-daughter , sister-brother ) were seperated for a long period of times say a 200 years or so, a long time but still enough for the female to be fertile. For the genetic argument. A common trope in fantasy is that the longer the lives of a species that lesser the amount of offspring, since there is a lesser amount of available partners, it would be possible for say a mother and son or father and daughter to have children especially if the original father or mother died, in order to propagate their line. This is just an assumption but would make sense as the fact that longer lived animals in the real world have less offspring to short-lived animals

question 2: Would a long-lived individual prefer the partnership of shorter lived species or their own long lived species? If the individual prefers members of a shorter lived species, would that person be a sexual partner to a single family or multigenerational line ex. She mates with the great-grandpa grandpa, then father, then son but only at their primes and not all at once ( or maybe she will)
I can see this as a matter of individual preference but the question looking for a more logical answer. There are benefits and drawbacks to both but would the social norms of species accept it? Would elves see mating with a human the same way we see if someone f-ed their dog or cat? But as both humans and elves are similar in physical anatomy but not in physical age or experience, would it be similar to an adult mating with a 2 month old clone with accelerated growth or like sex-bots?

What do you guys think? as well as other implications
TLDR: read the bold texts and assume long lived species have natural lifespans of centuries or millenia

 

The reason incest is frowned upon is genetic reasons. There's too little diversity on human genes hence incestuous children become retards. That doesn't mean the same for otherworldly races.

 

My biggest (and probably only concern as the other two could be worked around if you really desire it) concern with incest is the possible negative affects it can have on the offspring (the implication here being that if it wouldn’t affect the kids in a bad way or it is just sex without kids, go for it). I just don’t feel comfortable increasing the odds of a life that isn’t mine (as people only 100 percent have the right to control their own lives, barring mental handicaps and such which is another issue, and thus it isn’t a big deal to mess with your own life as it is yours, but it is a big deal to mess with others outside of the day to day competition of life) beginning life behind the starting line (of course kids can be deformed even with the best theoretical genetic pairings as the genetic lottery is a bitch, but you would like to lower the odds as much as possible). Of course rape is a no, but you get the idea. This is probably relevant: https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Harkness_Test

As for the second one, it would probably depend on the individual and/or the societal norms of their society (and also assuming there is a shorter lived species that they are genetically compatible enough with to have kids, which also leads to things like if the kid will be which parent’s race or a mix of both). But I wouldn’t be surprised if you wouldn’t hook up and have a family with a shorter species and then outlive your partner and kids leave the nest and then maybe settle down with another of your race long term.

 

Interesting. These would be completely different species though. They probably aren't anything like humans. We mate for life and we're permanently in heat which is honestly pretty strange for animals. Why would any of them be able to mate with species outside of their own?
Assuming they can mate with other species and in particular humans then they'll have to overcome the difficult of our short life spans and thus inevitable loss of life. Maybe they'll see humans as pets of some kind, guarding us through generations as we grow old and they don't seem to change at all.

 

Genetic Sexual Attraction would probably be more common, especially if related individuals went centuries without close contact and thus nullified the westermack effect.

 

I was going for something like elves and humans in fantasy stories and those half-elf things

 

Uh, no humans don't mate for life. We don't have the genetic imperative to do so. Lifelong mating for us is a social construct, not a biological imperative like it is for, say, turtle doves for example.

 

Long life spans + Mankinds rate of birth= Worlds end.

 

Responses:
Question 1:
I think that genetics would still apply. It would be possible that the species would have more free mating, but it's also possible that their system could end up in marriages - eternal partnerships. Polygamy may potentially be accepted in the species, but I think that they would lean more towards monogamy because there isn't such a necessity to breed as much due to their long lifespans.

I do not think that the Westermarck effect would cease simply because of the longer lifespan. I think that a member of the species will experience time in a different manner, but that they would still be affected by the Westermarck effect (assuming of course, that the Westermarck effect is indeed real). Essentially, they experience time more slowly. What we experience as 20 years is what they experience as 200 years.
Moreover, I do not think that the Westermarck effect would cease due to prolonged absence in life; rather, it's more like something that has been innately imprinted into a person after the period of being raised. I think the theory is that because we were raised in close proximity with our siblings, we do not feel romantic attraction to them, and I do not think that this changes due to non-interaction with them. We will still remember the feelings of being with them in the same household.

However, it is possible for there to be no Westermarck effect if two siblings were not raised together. This is also a possibility with humans as well.

Question 2:
I do not think that a long-lived individual would prefer a shorter-lived partner over one of their species. The shorter-lived partner will die much more quickly, and the long-lived individual will have to suffer through that pain. Moreover, if they had made a monogamous bond or promise, then the long-lived individual will be rather lonely after the death of the shorter-lived individual. If they have children, it's also possible for the long-lived individual to outlive their own children. It's much better to have a partner who will have a similar lifespan.

Cats and dogs are animals domesticated by humans. If elves were to domesticate humans, then yes, they would see mating with humans the same way we see someone mating with their dog. Otherwise, it would depend on how elves perceive humans. If humans are seen as lesser or dumber, then it's possible that elves would perceive mating with a human as mating with an animal. If elves perceive humans as having close intelligence to them, then it's likely that they would not see mating with humans as mating with an animal.

If they're similar in physical appearance, I do not think that the elves would view mating with a human as an adult mating with a child. If an 18-year-old looks 21 or older, (in the US) some stores won't check their ID before selling them liquor. I don't see why a similar concept wouldn't apply to mating.

 

Maybe not. Nature would probably course-correct and we would either have shitty reproductive rates or shitty survival rates for infants, like sea turtles.

 

I find it weird in fantasy stories how even though elves usually appear the same (slightly pointed ears, pale skin and a thin figure) some live for 200 years, some up to 1000 or even immortal. There are all kinds of elves and it puzzles me how they're so similar to humans in appearance they why can they live so long and humans can't. There must be some magic organ inside them which turns back time or their cells don't decay for some reason.

Ahh my bad. I was meant to say humans have sex all year round and all throughout their lives which is really rare and honestly pretty strange biologically. Most of the time it isn't even because we want children. It's fun though so I guess there's no reason to overcomplicate things.

 

I would say if you simply look back to our own history marrying cousins or well usually second cousins and so on was not that uncommon back in the days. I am pretty sure incest even between daughters - fathers or sons - mothers wasn't all that uncommon way back. People did though eventually discover that to close incest was bad and it was banned by law in a number of countries or through religion.

Still I do imagine that for a lot of villages especially the one's who were to a degree isolated would have almost everyone in it/them related to a certain degree.

But yeah for another species it is unknown how incest would really work since on a genetic level humans are to similar to each other which has negative impacts when incest is involved, it's the same way as if a super bug/virus appears most of humanity could be wiped out because of it.

I would say the incest part would matter a lot if it's a social stigma, how developed they are when it comes to genetics etc, and how badly affected they would be by it. It would also matter a lot on fertility and how many they were. For instance most long lived species are often portrayed as having difficulties getting pregnant or they simply don't have a lot of children, so fairly often there are only a small number of then. This would increase the odds of incest significantly since there wouldn't be much variety if they would only see their own race as potential love interest.

If for instance let's say the race can live for 10 000 years and are fertile until they die. Then for instance if a grandson has almost never met his grandmother or great grandmother then there is a high chance for them to fall in love, have children or just having a sexual encounter in due time. It would as you mentioned yourself be unusual for the closest family to be seen as love interest though it can happen at least based on human culture, history and psychology it is unusual.

Fun fact that might be true or not is that way back in the day nobles were often closely related and in some countries their own blood was seen as the "purest" kind which led to quite a lot of nobles having children between brothers - sisters, fathers - daughters and mothers - sons which has led to quite a bit of problems. A great example is Charles the II of Spain who's father married and had five children with his niece, there were of course some political reasons to the marriage.

 

True, humans are one of the few animals that have sex for pleasure, not simply for reproduction. In fact, you could say we mostly have sex for pleasure instead of reproduction since the majority of the sex we have is vastly unlikely to lead to offspring. There are several other species that have similar habits however, like the Bonobo chimps for example.

 

There is research on our biology that does show however that during the time of pregnancy and for a few years after the childbirth there is some biological reasons that makes us stick together, don't remember exactly what it was but the study showed that if a couple had a child every 2-3 years on a biological level they would stick together until no more children were born. There is of course other things to take into consideration.

 

That’s actually true. I remember watching YouTube videos of Kings doing that a lot. Even in the late 18s nobles still did that between cousins

 

I suppose it comes back to the Tolkien elves, who were created first as immortals. The humans in that case were actually created to be similar to the elves but with "the gift of man" which was a limited life span so their lives would have more meaning or whatever.

 

If there were a demon king upon them then they will mate with anyone so they can have powerful warriors and mages.
Well no bl or gl cause it's no progress.

 

close but not quite. Its true there's litter diversity but the main problem is that children born of incestuous relationships are more prone to having certain...hm, diseases?...pop up. There's higher risk of congenital disorders. But that doesnt meant it'll happen. Just the risk is much higher, thats all. I wonder how many children born of incest have such disorders? Like statistically speaking what percentage end up having any sort of deformity, physical or mental?

...Either way, wincest. Ya know me fam, always gotta go for the sister sandwiches. Incest in itself isnt the problem anyway. Just dont be making babies and its all good. If people can get over fucking their family members thats on them. Just because i dont wanna fuck my own siblings, dont mean i dont like seeing other people fuck theirs, eh?

 

you might actually say even 140year ago, incest was a common thing.. but since the governments pulled their iron grip over populace, so it have changed toward more of a "royalty kinda thing" for keeping pure blue blood royals .. so in a sense, long lived races will loose their ability to live long if they go around with other races, and dilutes their blood

 

Older generations would be fairly far removed from the generations far below them. So a grand grand grand grand child of a dragon or elf would be so far away genetically that the diversity is secured. But that doesn't mean they would do it anyway. The difference in life experience is significant. Its effectively a fully grown adult considering a toddler as partner.

Incest is usually justified by extremely powerful bloodlines which require a certain purity. See CoS with Richard and Alice.