Discussion Thoughts on incest of Long-lived fantasy races

I'd like to counter this point:

First, I'll take it as a given that the Westermark effect is indeed valid. But that doesn't mean one can generalize experiment results from one population to another unrelated population. Yes, the experiment showed that people who live in close domestic proximity during ages 1-6 of their lives become desensitized to sexual attraction. However, can one assume that this would apply to other species?

But for the sake of argument, let's just assume that it does apply to other species.

You say 200 years is a long time. That's true for a human, but is that true for an elf who lives 1000 years? I do not know if it is certain that the reverse sexual imprinting would disappear over 200 years, which is subjectively long to us humans but might not be subjectively long to elves. In fantasy, there's also that trope about creatures with long lives feeling live 100 years is nothing.

I imagine that preference would be heavily dictated by societal norms.

There is a fantasy trope that comes to mind, that might be relevant. In general, those that live longer lives are considered as "greater" or "better" or "holier" or what have you. And those that live shorter lives are looked down upon by those that live longer lives. A classic example might be the human and god/goddess dynamic. When a goddess goes down to earth to marry a mortal man, everyone in the celestial heavens is like, "She did what?!?"

So I imagine that in general, long-lived individuals would generally partner within their species and might disdain to partner with a short-lived species unless there was some melodramatic Forbidden Love going on.

 

Well if you look at what Tolkien based his story on which was heavily focused on germanic or perhaps rather viking mythology. An elf or rather alf (see what he did there?) as they were named mostly at the time were seen as almost godlike beings like odin/thor or at the least like spirits of nature.

I can’t really explain why they would base them like this but basically all elfs had really long lives they were never immortal from what I know but even the gods at the time were not immmortal, as they had to eat golden apples to prolong their lives.

Tolkiens type or elf, dwarf, orc etc did popularize fantasy and most stuff is in some way based on his interpretation.

 

You are making a pretty baseless assumption that the westermarck effect fades with age. What do you have to support that?

For all we know, the first 10 years or so together might be enough for it to never fade.

Not only that, incest, especially it there's a long line of it, has an increased rate of birth defects. For a race that lives that long, and has so few births, if anything incest should be more abhorred than for us.

 

No, its more terrifying if Long life span + Queen ant rate of laying an egg + have wing and special way to breathing in the void

 

Just to touch on the point about elves mating with other species,(humanoid) it would probably be like how humans mated with neanderthals. It would be possible because the genetic make up would be very close(except the magical lifespan/immortality.) But the offspring, half-elves? wont be stronger than both species instead wouldn't they would be weaker and more likely to have the negative traits of both species, if not amplified the ones they do?

EDIT: just realising this might be going too far away from the topic

 

(1) They tend to be more undemanding e.g.

• Elves (all stories except harpot)
• Lorph (in Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms)
• Mermaid (no meat and just sing a songs/poems)
• Fairy (in Reincarnator) her only interest has pranked the Human on life and death
• Lack entertainment, Vampire simply drinking blood wine occasionally if they're awake, else they just goofy lazily sleeping in their castle all days

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(2) One partner prefer, simply all races are Homo sapiens

• Vampire need soulmate (it's good if the partner smells good)
• Immortal no companion (reach the Dao, free from Mortal regrets and Samsara) they're basically out of the system
• Archangel and Angel (no sex)

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I'm not trying to promote religion but I want to use a few stories from the Bible as an example for this threads prose. (I won't link references, because people can google, and I don't want to make this a religious comment)

[Q1:Would incest be more common and more socially acceptable with longer lived species? ]

From the Era of Adam & Eve, humans had long lifespans, with Adam living to around 930 years old. And the sons of Adam lived tentatively to the 890-910 years. So one can infer that a certain deal of incest occurred, in order for 1 man and 1 female to propagate a worldly species. (But due to the foul nature of man, who waged war on each other and carried out heinous acts, they were wiped out by their creator)

Now in the Era of Noah his descendants lived roughly between 430-600 years. And again to propogate the world, to some extent there was a deal of incest.

Not to offend anyone, and for people of devout beliefs. I'm just using these as an example for a theory of mass propagation of a world.

[Q2: 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)]

Using the example from Q1, the type of incest I would theorize would mainly be brother & sister, as Adam and Eve would have hundreds of kids. So their Children would pair off and produce offspring of their own. And after let's say a couple hundred years, they could also probably engage in Father-daughter, Mother-son, Uncle-niece, Aunt-nephew. We can assume the culture at the time was just to propagate, expand across the land and tame it, so the more offspring the better.

-Now to segway into a different species. A long-lived race may have a culture which is fine with incest, then the likely scenario of them pairing with a short-lived race. Means that a Patriach (long-lived father) meets a wife, and continuously will have daughters with his wife's daughter(s). Or a Matriarch (long-lived mother) meets a husband, and will continually have son's with the husbands son(s).

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Now lets just get into the deal with Genetics. I will just use an abridged version our current science to make a theory. Every offspring is a mutation from its parents. Increasing the frequency of incestual propagation, can lead to a loss of certain physical and cognitive traits.

For the instance of the Patriach (Lives till 500). Where the man has one 1 Wife who lives 50 years and has 1 daughter.
1st Gen daughter (2nd Wife) lives 50 years and births a daughter. The traits of both parents are 1/2.
2nd Gen daughter (3rd Wife) lives 50 years and births a daughter. The trait of the father is 1/2, the mother is 1/4.
3rd Gen daughter (4th Wife) Lives 50 years and births a daughter. The trait of the father is 1/2, the mother is 1/8.
and so on and so forth

By the time of his last Wife (9th Gen daughter) the traits of the Patriarch would present itself far more than his first wife.
The 9th Gen daughter would only have 1 / 512th of the 1st Wife's traits.

I would assume by this logic, the mutation over time would make the 9th Gen daughter carry more masculine features of the father and the Great-(x7)- Grandmothers traits & features would be almost non-existent.

And that's why Female Elves have small chests.

 

Maybe there are some long-lived species who mature at the same age as humans, just that when they do, immortality or longevity descends. To say the truth, most writers don't really spend time to clarify races with longer life.
As for partnering with those from other races, it depends on the plot. Something like that might turn a character mad or very indifferent to the world. Think about falling in love and watching your spouse die every time...
Gut wrenching!

 

“Haha! The Elves have this sort of saying: a child before 1000 years, afterwards a friend. A neighbor from 2000 years on.”

Anyway, incest is more common than most people would think and admit. How many brothers and sisters are a little "too close" and experiment with each other and have a pleasurable relationship for many years to come? Who knows, most would probably never admit it and act shocked and disgusted by the very idea, simply because of the social consequences. At least I can't imagine many big/small brothers would have a fallout over the freshly blossoming curiosity of their precocious sister.

It would be weird if brothers/sisters are really as disgusted by each others bodies than many pretend to be... While being totally fine with cuddling infront of the TV while spooning.

Oh well, I'll never know, since I don't have sexy sisters.

 

its not like we need to actually keep having relationships that having babies or stuff is a must, just get in the wincest with all your heart just dont have a goddamn child, so many ways you can avoid one, if anything just make yourself incapable of haivng childs or something, science its here for a reason lol

Also for the topic i think for a long lived species the true factor would be more cultural than anything else, if its acceptable or not

 

I think its more likely for you to have both grand mother, mother and daughter as your wife if it's long lived race