Conclusion
It is extremely difficult to dredge up any positive feelings regarding the subject of incest. Most people concur with the thoughts of S. K. Weinberg in his Incest Behavior.
Incest, the universal crime, violates a taboo that is as forceful among primitives as among sophisticated moderns. It is behavior that disrupts or destroys the social intimacy and sexual distance upon which family unity depends. It is the recourse of very disturbed and very perverse persons.
However, there are modern-day psychologists who are questioning not that persons who engage in incest are "disturbed" or "very perverse" persons-that is a question which is still up for debate-instead, they are looking into the causes, the special influences which foster or provide the right environment for the budding of incest.
The responsibility of society in matters of incest is enormous. It comes into play before, possibly during, and most certainly after the act. Does it not seem reasonable to accept this responsibility, to temper the instinctual reaction of disgust and horror, at least long enough to determine why these unfortunate affairs occur in the first place, and how they might be prevented in the future? Today's generation believes so; they are possibly more concerned with motivations than have been other cultures in the past.
Many authorities believe that the best two ounces of prevention are adequate sex education and a healthy home atmosphere. But this is a theory not often realized by many fledgling families who still consider sex a hushed word. Unfortunately, the losers in these situations are the children, the potential victims or protagonists in an incestuous atmosphere. They suffer the long-range consequences-the loss of emotional equilibrium-the many maladies that arise over the years as they pay for their incestuous deeds.
For the offender, at least in prosecuted cases, the physical penalty comes swiftly and is enduring. The heaviest penalty for the crime of incest is a maximum of fifty years imprisonment.
The lowest penalty for incest is a maximum of one year in prison and a maximum fine of five hundred dollars. The next lowest provides a maximum term of three years in prison, or a maximum fine of one thousand dollars. But does any imprisonment or fine correct the problem? Are these offenders more likely to be rehabilitated citizens and return to the "outside world" able to "sin no more"?
As we enter the latter part of the 1970s, some troubled individuals still tend to overreact to any instance of incestuous thought; they may experience. This is both foolish and self-defeating-the molehill begetting the mountain. Most psychologists agree that the incestuous phase is a real and normal factor of the developmental process. Fortunately, this is slowly being accepted by society. In a period statement, Albert Ellis wrote in his Sex Without Guilt that incest in the 1950s has obviously become considerably less heinous than its depictions in the 1950s tended to make it out. This hardly means that every father's daughter had best now look with panic to saving her chastity, nor that every mother's son should expect seduction at home. But it does probably mean that the strongly incestuous urges that most normal human beings experience at some time during their lives may now be experienced with considerably less conscious or unconscious feelings of guilt.
Thus, we have painted a miniature picture of incest. Abstract or surrealistic, it is a far cry from the idyllic portrait one would prefer to view. We have settled sibling incest in the foreground and restrained other sexual relations between blood kin to the background. But all parts of the picture blend as one and reflect back on us, perhaps defiantly, perhaps pleadingly. The message it relates bends to interpretation within the mind of the beholder.