Hindered by a Hang-Up

GeneticSexualAttraction.com is a site for people who may be experiencing GSA or others who have concerns because someone in their lives may be experiencing GSA. There are some very helpful people there, helping people through all sorts of agony. There are also varied opinions on GSA held by the participants there. Some people there discourage any romantic or sexual relationships between close relatives, others are supportive of such relationships. Some people there are involved in such relationships and are happy, but the nature and tone of the website more often draws people in which at least one person in the relationship is struggling under the weight of societal conditioning that has taught them that such relationships are wrong. An example of that is seen in the first posting in this thread by “lostdaughter”.

She is 29 years old, and explains that her mother’s actions separated her from her biological father when she was just six months old. This past Christmas she was reunited with her father, who is now 50 years of age, and after about three weeks things progressed.

Its been very exciting...very "normal" - until 2 days ago ...things changed...
we went out for drinks and we were dancing...and i got very close...and well...he got excited...but nothing happened. later at home we started kissing. He felt bad. He has four other children...other daughters...but had never done anything like this with them. But I never had a father...and didnt feel any boundary issues.

I consider myself to be a very open minded person. Including sexual behaviours...but I never thought i would be doing anything with a father (that i never had).

it felt so right...kissing and touching each other...eventually we went upstairs to a bedroom - and we had sexual intercourse including - both of us gave/received oral sex.

he felt very guilty in the morning. I talked with him. I told him, we were both consenting adults, I am not 3 yrs old, I am almost 30. and if we enjoyed it - then there is nothing wrong. He said it wasnt normal and he felt guilty. I asked him if he enjoyed it and got a bit worried...perplexed....why I wanted to know? I asked him again, and he said YES, but he felt guilty about liking it. I told him I didnt. I told him perhaps it just society who says those things - and we shouldnt listen to it. I told him he doesnt see me like his other daughters because he didnt raise me....etc. He felt a little less guilty. I honestly enjoyed it very much, and I wanted to happen again. He said no, the first should be the last time. but we talked about it whether thats what HE wanted for himself or because thats what society told him to want. He confessed it was because of the "society"...that he enjoyed it very much and he would make love to me again. So we did again last night. the first time we had drank some...but last night we were completely sober. and we both enjoyed it.

She describes a situation that involves consensual sex between adults; something enjoyable to both. Nobody should be feeling guilty. This is where the condemnation of the “sex police” impedes the happiness of others even without getting the real police involved.

i do not have any feelings of guilt but i know he has...he thinks he shouldnt want to have sex with me. I told him its normal he doesnt see me as a daughter and sees me as a 29 yr old woman. I find him so attractive (he is very fit and doesnt look his age). He does tell me he enjoys me very much - but just feels guilty and thinks about other people finding out.

Other people should not be giving people like this a hard time. The guilt-trips people try to give others starts with condemning appreciation for the human body and condemning masturbation and doesn’t stop, continuing on to condemning relationships between mature, idependendent, consenting adults. Love is love, and what consenting adults do in a bedroom is their own concern.

A Happy Triad That Deserves Equality

I'd added another page. The triad who inspired this blog let me interview them.

Father-Son GSA

Someone calling himself Saul wrote to Miriam Stoppard’s advice column…

When I was in my teens and still thought of myself as straight, I had a brief relationship with a girl. Now, 20 years on, I've been contacted by the son I never knew existed and he's gay like me.

I think it's great he's happy with his sexuality and I love having him in my life - it's like being with my younger self.

What really bothers me is I've started to become attracted to him. A 15-year relationship ended last year and I hate myself for thinking the things I've been thinking. What should I do?

Saul should be careful. As with attraction in another other case, the feelings might not be mutual or even if mutual, the other person may not want to act on them. Saul does not indicate that he thinks it is best for him not to act on his feelings, though he did write that the feelings bother him.

If he isn’t open to acting on his feelings, then he should not tell his son about them, and instead seek advice on how to cope from people who have been through the same thing at this website. Most people, at some point in their lives, have attractions that they do not express, at least not to the person to whom they are attracted.

Maybe there just needs to be more time, and the feelings will go away.

However, if they don't and if Saul is open to acting on that attraction, then he should be as cautious as he would be in any other delicate situation, such as with a friend or coworker, but keep in mind that there is much prejudice.

For example, the columnist writes…

You must resist the temptation to express your feelings for your son by touching him sexually.

Why? If they both want it, then they are consenting adults. They don’t currently rely on each other; one is not the boss, landlord, or legal guardian of the other.

This would be incest and you would create disastrous, complicated, serious problems for yourself and your son.

The only problems I can think of, besides the normal risks inherent in sexual relationships, is prejudice. Remove the prejudice, and suddenly there aren’t so many problems.

Fate has placed him in your path and you should fulfil your destiny and be his dad.

The young man is an adult. If he doesn’t have a “dad” already, then Saul can be both his father and lover. How about opening up that mind a little?

How Undue Shaming Hurts

Although Elena Kelly now identifies as a female, she was born in a male body. She writes over at Salon of a time in her past when she made a child with a half-sister she first met as an adult.

Even though I was growing to love them all, one half-sister and I hit it off especially well. She was an “out” lesbian, only a little younger than me, and our likes and dislikes, our level of education, and so many of our interests matched that we found it quite easy to talk on the phone for hours and never run out of things to talk about…I stayed at her lovely home near the ocean and we went out a lot, going to the beach, nice restaurants, and just hanging out and talking about how our lives had unfolded. We were completely unaware that we were falling in love…

That event started out as innocent play but it became quite serious and that night we crossed a line we never intended to cross. It was the beginning of so much shame and sadness, as well as untold pain for our families and those friends of ours who truly cared for us and loved us. It was stupid and selfish on our part, and we have both paid an enormous price for the foolish choice we made that night. We were adults (I was 34 and she 33) and that night we slept together and she became pregnant with our daughter.

It sounds like they were so right for each other. It is too bad that American society works to suppress this sort of thing, breaking up a family. There should have been no shame. Without the artificial and arbitrary restrictions of society intruding, they could have been happy together. Instead, they let the intruders break them apart. You can read of the tragic results yourself.