LogFAQs > #914729280

SunWuKung420 posted...

Impavid54 posted...

I meant in your *immediate* family. brothers and sisters are EW. Aunts and cousins are free game.

Cousins fucking cousins produce even dumber cousins.

First cousins are distant enough (~12.5% genetic similarity) to be reasonably safe, provided it's just one generation and not a continuous thing (see: countless examples of "pure" royal families that all suffer from what should be rare diseases but aren't due to the lack of diversity). As such, there are many places where marrying and/or boning first cousins are not considered incest and are legally permitted. It wasn't that long ago that marrying cousins was legal in more states than gay marriage was, and the only reason that's changed is because gay marriage is legal on a federal level now. Second cousins are fair game pretty much everywhere because they're no more genetically similar than a stranger could be expected to be (3.125% for second cousins, strangers tend to be around 5%).

Now, aunts/uncles? They're the same degree of relatedness as grandparents (25%), and twice as similar as first cousins. They're not fair game anywhere that incest is frowned upon, nor should they really be because that's quite a bit of consanguinity.