http://www.cnn.com/exchange/blogs/in.the.field/
Go to the link and see them.
Patrick and Susan are a couple and have four children. They are also brother and sister and that makes their relationship illegal under German law. Patrick and Susan didn’t even know of each other’s existence until Patrick was over 20 years old and Susan was in her teens. After their mother died, they lived together and eventually fell in love.
“We just want to lead a normal life,” Patrick tells me, when he finally does manage to speak during the interview. He and Susan appear to be afraid of the camera. I can’t blame them. We’ve come into their home, are shining powerful lights in their faces and asking them to put their whole lives out in the open for us. Lives that have been as tough as anyone could imagine.
“People harass us all the time and call us the incest couple. They have no idea who we really are or how it all happened,” Patrick says, and then he goes on to speak about the legal ordeal he’s been put through. He’s been to jail because of the relationship with his sister; and three of their four children have been taken away from them by German Youth Welfare Services. Now Patrick wants to take the struggle to get the relationship legalized to the highest German court.
Many other European countries lifted bans on incestuous love long ago, and there are interesting arguments on both sides of the equation. Those who feel the ban should be kept in place say incestuous relationships are far more likely to bring forth children with birth defects than relationships between people that are not siblings. But opponents of the ban say it is a violation of couple’s rights to sexual freedom.
Patrick and Susan don’t care about all the politics, they say.
“We really love each other a lot, and we never want to be without each other again. We’re living like a small happy family,” Patrick says. To them, in the end, that’s what it comes down to: He needs her, and she needs him…nothing more.
If Germany’s highest court decides not to take the case, Patrick will go to jail again
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Ok. So they didn't know about each other till he was in his 20s and she in her teens. Which makes sense because it's growing up together in the same family which causes you not to have romantic feelings for a sibling. It's not the intellectual idea that this is my brother or sister that does it. That can help but won't always be enough when you develop feelings for someone you didn't grow up with. So if you take two people who are unrelated and they know it and then have them grow up in the same family, it would be very unlikely for them to have romantic feelings for each other as adults.
Now, of course, there are kids who have fooled around with a sibling, but that was more a curiosity about sex with the closest thing to the opposite sex they had, and not based on romantic feelings. And it never turned into that. But if you don't grow up with someone, feelings can develop.
As for this couple, I feel sorry for them. I'm sure they're otherwise good people who would make good parents. But it was selfish to have kids. Even if they turned out okay, there's still the stigma these kids will have to carry for the rest of their lives. I don't think the guy should have to go to jail. I don't know if the ban should be lifted. Probably should. What do you say?
Go to the link and see them.
Patrick and Susan are a couple and have four children. They are also brother and sister and that makes their relationship illegal under German law. Patrick and Susan didn’t even know of each other’s existence until Patrick was over 20 years old and Susan was in her teens. After their mother died, they lived together and eventually fell in love.
“We just want to lead a normal life,” Patrick tells me, when he finally does manage to speak during the interview. He and Susan appear to be afraid of the camera. I can’t blame them. We’ve come into their home, are shining powerful lights in their faces and asking them to put their whole lives out in the open for us. Lives that have been as tough as anyone could imagine.
“People harass us all the time and call us the incest couple. They have no idea who we really are or how it all happened,” Patrick says, and then he goes on to speak about the legal ordeal he’s been put through. He’s been to jail because of the relationship with his sister; and three of their four children have been taken away from them by German Youth Welfare Services. Now Patrick wants to take the struggle to get the relationship legalized to the highest German court.
Many other European countries lifted bans on incestuous love long ago, and there are interesting arguments on both sides of the equation. Those who feel the ban should be kept in place say incestuous relationships are far more likely to bring forth children with birth defects than relationships between people that are not siblings. But opponents of the ban say it is a violation of couple’s rights to sexual freedom.
Patrick and Susan don’t care about all the politics, they say.
“We really love each other a lot, and we never want to be without each other again. We’re living like a small happy family,” Patrick says. To them, in the end, that’s what it comes down to: He needs her, and she needs him…nothing more.
If Germany’s highest court decides not to take the case, Patrick will go to jail again
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok. So they didn't know about each other till he was in his 20s and she in her teens. Which makes sense because it's growing up together in the same family which causes you not to have romantic feelings for a sibling. It's not the intellectual idea that this is my brother or sister that does it. That can help but won't always be enough when you develop feelings for someone you didn't grow up with. So if you take two people who are unrelated and they know it and then have them grow up in the same family, it would be very unlikely for them to have romantic feelings for each other as adults.
Now, of course, there are kids who have fooled around with a sibling, but that was more a curiosity about sex with the closest thing to the opposite sex they had, and not based on romantic feelings. And it never turned into that. But if you don't grow up with someone, feelings can develop.
As for this couple, I feel sorry for them. I'm sure they're otherwise good people who would make good parents. But it was selfish to have kids. Even if they turned out okay, there's still the stigma these kids will have to carry for the rest of their lives. I don't think the guy should have to go to jail. I don't know if the ban should be lifted. Probably should. What do you say?
