"Variety is the soul of pleasure." ~ Aphra Behn
Incest is naturally repulsive because humans have MHC genes. MHC "controls how the immune system recognizes and fights off microscopic foreign invaders such as viruses, fungi and bacteria." [source] It is also responsible for mate selection. When you perspire, your MHCs mix up with the bacteria and fungi, creating your individual bodily odor.
Similar MHCs create similar bodily odors, and vice a versa. Now here’s the golden nugget: Studies suggest that people are more attracted to people who smell more different than themselves. This explains why siblings or parents and their children, sharing plenty of similar MHCs, do not get sexually attracted to each other, and why interracial couplings can be so sexy.
Now, in the case of the xenophobic picky endogamous Saudis that SaudiJeans and Precognitive were referring to here and here, we’re looking at examples of people who LOOK LIKE they’re pulling the plug on themselves in the genetic survival pool. Discovery Channel calls it a genetic time bomb for good reasons: when people of the same genetic pool mate and reproduce, they “are 13 times more likely than the general population to produce children with genetic disorders” [source].
Not to mention a marriage with plenty of sexual disinterest towards his odorly-similar wife (unless, of course, the wife is not his main source of sexual satisfaction -- and that’s beside the point).
Here’s where I’ve been holding myself to say and delightedly failed to do so. If endogamous folks are more comfortable fishing in their own genetic pools, does it also mean that out there they would not make it far? Does it also mean that the rest of us are safer from being genetically crossed with their stupid elitist ideas of survival?
If so, I think we still got the better end of the deal, so far.
Thought it’s been a while since the last time I flexed THAT muscle.
