In a post that went viral this week, a 21-year-old woman named Nikky from New York shared a very disturbing post online wherein she described having sex with her own father and her desire to do it again. While the post is shocking, it raises the issue of Genetic Sexual Attraction, or GSA. While incest is a taboo in virtually all cultures, some people still struggle with an unhealthy, unnatural sexual attraction to their blood relatives, not unlike Nikky and her dad. It is an extremely confusing, shameful and embarrassing topic for people to share, and that makes it all the more difficult for them to seek psychological counseling.
Nikki's post. "My name is Nikky from New York, United States of America. I have a really big problem am addicted to $*x with my biological dad. I have tried having $*x with other men but it is just impossible dad is the best. It all started when I was 17 years old and my mother had left me under the care of my father for a whole weekend. I used to hear my mother scream in bed while my father had $*x with her and I was always curious what really happened. On that night my father claimed he was lonely and requested me to sleep with him. He was so loving and did not have $*x with me on that night instead he cuddled me and touched my cllitorris and licked it really good. The following day I slept with him again and this time he penetrated into me though painful he did it with care and slowly until I could handle it, it all was so sweet that we ended up coming together. That was the best experience I have ever had in my life. Now am jealous of my MUM. I need help because I am just 21 now and need to move on but do not know how to. Kindly help."
GSA - Genetic Sexual Attraction. How is GSA defined? "The term GSA was first coined in the US in the late 1980s by Barbara Gonyo, the founder of Truth Seekers In Adoption, a Chicago-based support group for adoptees and their new-found relatives. The emergence of GSA both in the US and the UK coincided with the relaxation of adoption laws in the mid-1970s, which gave adopted children easier access to their records and led to an increase in the number of reunions between adoptees and their blood relatives," published The Guardian in an article dated May 16, 2003.

What is it like living with GSA? Lynn Beisner, who has a sexual relationship with her father, wrote "Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA). There wasn’t a word for it back when I first met my father, Jackson.Until very recently, memories of our first in-person meeting have always filled me with shame. It doesn’t matter that we had zero inappropriate physical contact or that I was only 21 years old.Finding my father was my big dream, my favorite fantasy, and my life-goal since I found out in early grade-school that I had a missing parent."

An instant, strong connection. "I have never found the words to describe the beauty and brightness of the night that rose around us. The stars felt so close and bright that I felt I could plunge my hand into the Milky Way and trail my fingers through the stars like a stream. The way that the dunes and mountain tops reflected the starlight gave me the feeling that there was no real boundary between earth and sky.The boundary between us and the firmament vanished, as did all boundaries that separated me from everyone and everything else. Jackson whispered softly, 'It is easy to believe in moments like this, that we are made of stardust. And that is not such a bad thing,'" Lynn continued.
There is a small group of people who believe that GSA and incest are acceptable. According to Joseph Huff-Hannon in The Daily Beast, "there is a small and vocal community, mostly found in online chatrooms and forums, that says incest is far too broad a term to describe a wide variety of relationships that involve consenting adults from the same family." Some prefer the term "genetic sexual attraction," which Huff-Hannon defines as "an intense emotional and physical attraction between two family members who've been separated for many years, often from a young age, and upon reunion, all of the emotion of loss and separation is sometimes channeled into a sexual or romantic relationship."

Natasha Rose Chenier. Natasha Rose Chenier wrote an explicit article called "On Falling in and out of Love With my Father." "My biological father wanted to have sex with me from the first moment he laid eyes on me. This I learned two years after meeting him, as I dry heaved over his toilet in a moment of all-consuming anxiety and self-loathing. This was just after the second time we had oral sex.'How long have you wanted this to happen?' I asked. I didn’t really want to know the answer."

Fighting criminal prosecution. There is a mother and son couple from New Mexico who is fighting criminal prosecution and a court order keeping them apart since sex between a parent and child is illegal. Monica Mares gave up her son, Caleb Peterson, when she was 16 years old, and they reunited after he became a legal adult. The relationship swiftly became romantic, and the government intervened, forcing them to separate and charging them both with a crime.
Is there a difference between GSA and incest? Their story fits the standard definition of GSA, which is when the child grows up separated from the parent, and then sexual attraction consumes both of them when they're finally reunited as adults. There is not a ton of research on the topic, but a generous estimate reported by one GSA forum said it occurs in as many as half of all post-adoption reunions.

Pseudoscience. A "standard definition"? Offering statistics, even as an "estimate"? Other media coverage used words like "phenomenon" or "raising awareness" — language that implies that genetic sexual attraction is a measurable, demonstrable reality, as opposed to some half-baked pseudoscientific nonsense that people dreamed up to justify continuing unhealthy, abusive relationships. Source: salon.com.

Barbara Gonyo, the woman who coined the term GSA. Some searching around revealed that the term "genetic sexual attraction" can be traced not to a biologist or a psychologist but a woman named Barbara Gonyo, who coined the term in the 1980s. She is not a scientist or a doctor but simply a woman who met her son whom she had given up for adoption when he was in his 20s and she in her 40s.
The taboo that is normally in place. Psychologists say that taboo is normally in place when family members grow up in close proximity by virtue of reverse sexual imprinting, or the Westermarck effect, which desensitizes them to later sexual attraction. Researchers hypothesize it evolved so biological relatives would not inbreed.The phenomenon was first identified by Barbara Gonyo in the 1980s. She wrote a book, “I’m His Mother, But He’s Not My Son,” that recounted her personal story of reuniting and having sexual feelings for a son whom she had placed for adoption when she was 16. Gonyo fell in love — a byproduct of delayed bonding that would normally have taken place in infancy, had they not been separated by adoption.
On seeing her dad for the first time. "It was so weird and confusing. I was seeing my dad for the first time in forever but it was also like, He’s so good-looking! And then I was like, What the hell are you thinking? What is wrong with you? I saw him as my dad but then also part of me was like, I’m meeting this guy who I have been talking to over the internet and really connecting with and I find him attractive."

Consensual? Some adults engaged in incestuous relationships refer to them as consensual. From a legal standpoint, incest is, in and of itself, a crime.
No real research. There is no real research that supports the claim that genetic relatives are at a higher risk of being attracted to each other. That is the excuse used to justify GSA by some people engaged in relationships with their relatives.
Counseling. We hope people like Nikky get the help that they need. A lot of people who have been sexually abused benefit from therapy, especially those who go through GSA.
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