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By *ickNamelessMan
over a year ago
Valencia, Spain, Dublin, Cork |
I have two teenage children, with whom I no longer live following divorce. As most parents, and as others have remarked here, I would not want to know details of my children’s sex lives. Being my children, and having been brought up in what I consider an enlightened atmosphere that encouraged critique and questioning of social norms, it would not surprise me if they sought out transgressive experiences. I would probably be morally neutral about it, or perhaps at some level pleased that they are following in my footsteps. But my fundamental ethical position is that a person’s sex life is a private matter between them, their partners, and whoever they voluntarily disclose information. I believe that parents shouldn’t - and shouldn’t want to - know details such as whether or not their adult children engage in consensual non-monogamy. If the children wish to disclose or discuss anything, they should be free to do so. The role of parent does involve some sexual and emotional guidance, but not detailed knowledge or breakdown of normal intergenerational boundaries.
It would be very disturbing to encounter any relatives in a swinging context, especially one’s children. They would be “matter out place”. Kinship is a system for regulating sexual relations and establishing categories of people, prescribing and proscribing sexual activity between the categories and, crucially, providing a structure for bringing up children and ensuring their and society’s survival and wellbeing. The family is the primary building block of society, and when the sexual and familial categories become confused, such as a parent meeting their child at a social or swinging event, social order breaks down at a very fundamental level, and this is obviously psychologically distressing for both parties. It is probably very rare, but I believe it happens. A friend from here met a younger relative at an event, was contacted by a blood relative of her own generation, and by a business associate of one of her parents. I have also heard second-hand from a person I met through here that somebody she had met ran into her own 25-year-old son. It is a nightmare scenario that I wouldn’t wish on any parent or child.
Related to the main question and to the friend who has come across relatives, there might be a higher probability that children of swingers – whether they know about their parents’ sex life or not – are more likely to follow in their footsteps. One can speculate about the reasons for this, but general attitudes to life are shaped in the family and transmitted unconsciously. Even if there is no intention to establish a family “tradition”, all the accumulated influences from parents who swing might result in the children arriving at a similar destination. Whether we like it or not, rebel against them or emulate them, our parents are a primary component in what makes us the persons we are, and this is often reflected in political values, careers, and possibly sexual tastes. And there may even be genetic bases for an individual’s sexual tastes. In my own case, I know nothing in detail (and this is how it should be), but one of my late, and at that time demented, parents hinted that they had had at least one threesome and that the other parent had had same-sex extramarital affairs. I was in my 30s when this was hinted at; I found it very unpleasant and ascribed it to dementia. It was a case of the social categories and roles described above breaking down. |
