Nmom doesn’t understand how incest works.

Honestly I think the biggest issue with incest is the presence of power dynamics. We’re raised to love and trust our family members so when they groom us to then fill an inappropriate role it is totally taking advantage of/betraying that trust to benefit narcissistic needs. Like when parents treat their children as their spouse/therapist/best friend or use them for sexual pleasure. It’s super fucked up and extremely harmful to the victim. The same with siblings because there is usually a power dynamic between them too (younger/older, gc/sc, etc). On top of all that there’s inbreeding... so terrible all around.

However it has been long debated whether reunited adult siblings is a different playing field. Especially if they cannot have children together. I have a half brother. I have never met him, spoken to him or even seen a picture of him. He doesn’t even know I exist. I’m in my 20s so I’m pretty much grown up and he’s older than me. Now what if the situation was a little different and he was my step brother instead? Say he was my best friend and I looked up to my older brother as an idol. Say we had lived together as siblings for as long as I could remember. Then when I started to get older he began to make sexual passes and expect more intimacy from me. I believe despite my step brother not being my blood relative a sexual relationship between us in that context would be far more gut wrenching and problematic than our real (blood related) relationship. All because of the abuse of power/exploitation of implicit love and trust.

/r/raisedbynarcissists Thread