Kanisa George

Kings did it; lords did it; even the Targaryens and the Lannisters did it. That's the story of, that's the glory of incestuous love.

Two in the throes of immoral love makes for a controversial yet perfect on-screen plot. Mothers bedding their sons and uncles de-flowering their nieces for political leverage, some would argue, only make sense in the world of make-believe. Or does it?

While, as a society, we might be divided on views of lifestyle choices, it is safe to say that, for the most part, the jury has settled unanimously on their opinions of incestuous relationships.

By and large, incest is a taboo topic, and even when discussed in public forums it's always of the non-consenting kind. It's common for the dialogue to focus on sexual assault that features incest as a pervading theme; a grandfather molesting his grandchildren or a father found guilty of raping his daughter. But for reasons that might be more obvious than not, rarely do we consider incest from the perspective of two consenting adults. In most societies, incest is viewed as morally repugnant and condemned by laws which strive to maintain a code of ethics.

One view highlights potential health concerns. Naturally, inbreeding appears to carry several potentially harmful consequences. Scientists have explained that reproducing with a blood relative increases the chances that two harmful, but otherwise rare, recessive alleles will match up. This can result in numerous genetic and development problems that could be carried from one generation to the next.

Besides the obvious moral and scientific arguments against incest, psychologists believe that subconsciously we have cognitive mechanisms that account for incest aversion. Essentially, it appears we are designed to avoid breeding with close relatives. For most of us, incest is morally distasteful and flies in the face of the family structure.

"Aunt sleeping with she nephew, something wrong with that."

But as we all know, with every rule, there are possible exceptions, and in recent times a number of challengers have questioned the validity of invading one's personal choices even when those choices seek to challenge ingrained social, moral and legal principles.

There have been growing arguments around the legality of laws on consensual incestuous relationships that have forced jurisprudential thinkers to consider whether it should be illegal in the first place. Should consenting adults be able to do as they wish? Or should laws continue to restrict interactions that are by their very nature immoral?

In TT, incest is a criminal offence governed by Section 9 of the Sexual Offences Act Chapter 11:28. Like many jurisdictions, Section 9 criminalises both consensual and non-consensual incest. Section 9 (1) states that a person commits the offence of incest who knowing that another person is by blood relationship, his or her parent, child, brother, sister, grandparent, grandchild, uncle, niece, aunt or nephew, as the case may be, has sexual intercourse with t