If you have sex with a clone of yourself, is it incest?

Cryophilia@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 41 points –
42

Well, Incest is primarily not about some moral, but about keeping a diversity in the DNA, so two identical DNAs would be hard no.

But sex with your clone will probably not lead to a baby, so who cares...

For that reason, it wouldn't surprise me if there was some biological reason why two identical DNAs could not succesfully combine.

What if they gender swapped their clone?

I have no idea how big scifi that is, I'll leave that question to some real biologist.

Also realized that one edge case might be cloned hermaphrodite, not sure how common is functional hermaphroditism amongst humans.

There was a episode of Sliders that dealt with that. Quinn almost hooked up with his female self in other world. So it is possible also there was a movie that dealt with it as well called Predestination with Ethan Hawke that dealt with having sex and making a child with oneself. So sci fi has done it.

My point is - we know that cloning is real and possible today.

Is changing gender also (soon to be) possible, or is that something that will remain exclusive to scifi for forseeable future? I have not a slightest idea.

No one doubts that anything is possible in scifi movies, that is why there is that word fiction.

In current mainstream thought gender =/= sex.

So your second point should be phrased "Is changing sex also (soon to be) possible", as sex is genetic and gender is a concept.

Maybe with some radical gene therapy sex could be changed, but I imagine that to be a rather long and unpleasant process if physical changes happened. It would probably be more feasible to make a clone with the different sex and then transplant consciousness. That just raises further questions like if you died and is that still you. Probably before that is viable we will be uploaded to computer systems to escape the environmental effects of our actions and your avatar will be up to your whims.

All it would take is supplementing hormones at several points in development so that it develops its gonads and mind the other way.

Heinlein's "all you zombies" is an early version of this.

In terms of biology, it's extremely rare for humans to have fully functioning sets of both reproductive systems. The reproductive physiology develops from the same parts so it either develops "male", "female", or (more common than people think) somewhere in between but not "both". A clone may or may not even develop in the same way.

One other possibility, though also very rare. is near-identical twins. If twins have the same genetics (in other words, they're identical twins) but have intersex conditions that result in different reproductive development it's conceivable that they could reproduce with each other. It's uncommon to be fertile incongruous with your genetics, though, so again: this would be extremely unlikely.

That said, in a sci-fi context there are some options. Biological hermaphroditism is possible in animals, though there aren't any vertebrates on Earth, so conceivably an alien species could encounter this problem.

Advanced medicine could also build people a new reproductive system and implant it, giving them the counterpart they lacked.

Of course, in that case, advanced medicine may also be able to give you someone else's reproductive genetics (ex, implanted sperm or eggs) and thus effectively sidestep the genetic problems. I'm imagining a particularly narcissistic person getting a gender-flipped clone of themself and using someone else's genetic material to have a kid with themself but also avoid the shallow gene pool problem.

Of course, you don't need to go that far. If you're female (or have those parts anyway) you can just do IVF. Don't even need to clone yourself, then.

Anyway, this is getting a little silly.

Ethan Hawke’s Predestination deals with this, but with time travel instead of cloning. That being said, the incest issue is less about the genetics of it, since its generations over time that becomes the problem (see any royal inbreeding family across time and fiction) vs a one-off situation (for genetics). The bigger issue is the psychological trauma of the abuse of siblings or parents/older relatives.

If we go back to ‘is it or is it not incest’ instead of ‘is incest bad, genetically or psychologically’… I’d say no. Its masturbation. You’re having sex with yourself, and (hopefully) willingly.

It is mainly about morals in the age of contraception. Of course the definition of what incest is is not, which is what you probably meant... Ignore me

By your standards sisters would be okay or an uncle with his nephew. Its totally up to you, if you want to fuck your mother as long as she is postmenopausal?

Idk dude. I'm kinda not with you on this.

Edit: oh wait! If you get a vasectomy/tubes tied, you can fuck the whole family...

Your head is full of interesting stuff you are definitely not into...

Kinda takes "Go fuck yourself!" out of the insult cannon.

"Oh yeah, already did man! And not to toot my own horn (again) but I gotta say...."

"designed to be sung to the tune of 'Home on the Range.'"
(1) Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y chromosome changed to X
And after it’s grown
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.
(Chorus) Clone, clone of my own
With its Y chromosome changed to X
And when I’m alone
With my own little clone
We will both think of nothing but sex.
(2) Oh, give me a clone
Is my sorrowful moan,
A clone that is wholly my own.
And if she’s X-X
And the feminine sex
Oh, what fun we will have when we’re prone.
(3) My heart’s not of stone,
As I’ve frequently shown
When alone with my own little X
And after we’ve dined,
I am sure we will find
Better incest than Oedipus Rex.
(4) Why should such sex vex
Or disturb or perplex
Or induce a disparaging tone?
After all, don’t you see
Since we’re both of us me
When we’re having sex, I’m alone.
(5) And after I’m done
She will still have her fun
For I’ll clone myself twice ere I die.
And this time without fail
They’ll be both of them male
And they’ll each ravage her by and by.

Source: autobiography of Isaac Asimov

A twin is a genetic clone and that would be considered incest.

Wait hold on, now I have a question. If I wouldn't want to fuck me, does that mean no one would?

Jesus my self-confidence just took a massive hit

I guess that just means you're not autosexual! Um, would that make you allosexual? The aces already nabbed that term

Wait, allosexual means not asexual right?

And yes I'm not autosexual, definitely heterosexual. But I think the question here isn't autosexual as autosexual is with themselves but another person as themselves?

Technically this is an impossible scenario we are trying to figure out but damn yo we straight up philosophizing

I mean I don't want to fuck Rhea Perlman but evidentially Danny DeVito did, so y'know lotsa fish out there to fuck or whatever the saying is.

If you had sex with your identical twin, is it incest?

What's the difference with a clone? Is it because they are grown in a vat? Is it because they're a different age? Do they have no rights and soul like a replicant?

there are some ahem "works of fiction" that not only explore that, but also refer to it as "selfcest"

so... yes and no? yesn't?

Without some kind of rapid aging, a clone of yourself would have to be grown from infancy. I suppose if you were cloned at an early age, and then waited until your clone was of age for consensual sex, it would be incest.

I don't think so because every so often in my life people have told me to .... go fuck myself

It's an act that many of us would condone for others .... especially Larry, he's a real jerk, he can go fuck himself

Yes, a clone is not yourself (masturbation) and is not a doppelganger but a entity similar to but not itself yourself. So 1 doesn't equal 1.5

Did you grow up and have deep familial bonds with your clone? Accidental reproduction isn't a consideration because your clone will match your sex.