satire
10 Apr 2008
When Your Heart Belongs to Daddy
We all have sexual needs. We all have parents. Isn't it natural to combine the two, asks Ben Pobjie
We live in an all-too-gloomy world, blighted by war and hatred and pollution and prejudice. And it's because of this that we all feel a sense of refreshment and uplift when we come across a story about the nobler emotions in humankind, a story about pure and simple love.I am speaking, of course, of John and Jenny Deaves, the couple who warmed the nation's hearts this week with a demonstration of the power of love to overcome all obstacles. John and Jenny Deaves are living proof that age differences, social disapproval and an overwhelming sense of nausea are no barrier to true love.
The Deaveses are what is called an "unconventional couple", in that John is, strictly speaking, Jenny's father. As is so often the case, they were brought together by common interests, or to speak more scientifically, "genes". Having not lived with her father since she was a toddler, at 31 Jenny was reunited with him in a sort of Affair to Remember type scenario. Soon after the reunion, she "began to see him as a man first and her father second", which means that after an energetic session of lovemaking, he would take her to the zoo. Ms Deaves says, "I was looking at him, sort of going, oh, he's not too bad ... like you look at a man across the bar at a nightclub", and dammit if that isn't just the most romantic thing I've ever heard.
Succumbing to passion just two weeks after meeting, the then 31-year-old Jenny and 61-year-old John began living out their fairytale, and were soon blessed with a child, who, in what must have been real turn-up for the books, quickly died from a congenital heart defect. Undeterred, the Deaveses have now produced another little bundle of joy, Celeste, and I think we can all agree that the sense of admiration engendered by their pluck and tenacity is matched only by the delighted anticipation of the blissful and psychologically untroubled life little Celeste has ahead of her. It's even more lovely that "Celeste" rhymes with "incest", so she can carry a reminder of her origins with her for the rest of her life. I'll bet that in a few years time her school chums might even be able to think of a jolly little song making use of the fact.
Of course, the usual naysayers and do-gooders have come out of the woodwork, spouting all those tired, predictable cliches: "community standards", "think of the children", "reckless irresponsibility", "ewww", and so on. These are simply people who have lost the romance from their souls. Have they never seen Romeo and Juliet? Those two star-crossed lovers didn't care that they were from feuding families, because they knew the way they felt. And the Deaveses don't care that they are from the same family, because their bond is strong. Really, have we become so cynical? Have we so lost sight of the beautiful things in life that we can't celebrate when two hearts beat as one, when two people find in each other that missing part of themselves, when DNA looks in the mirror and says, "that's for me"? Are we so bereft of feeling?
Now a South Australian judge has put them on a good behaviour bond and banned them from sexual contact. Well, thank you, justice system, for hurling romance down the latrine. Thank you for murdering our dreams.
Let me stress that I am by no means saying that incest is right for everyone. I'm not saying you shouldn't be ashamed of those Veronicas fantasies. I'm just saying before we rush to judgment, we should take a moment to look at it from the Deaveses' point of view.
Take John Deaves. Is he really such a misfit? How many fathers can honestly say they haven't cradled their beautiful baby girl in their arms and thought to themselves, "wow, if you were 30 years older..."? What man, reunited with his child after having missed all those precious childhood years, wouldn't find his thoughts immediately turning to satin sheets and sweaty fumblings?
And what of Jenny? Are her feelings really so strange? Be honest ladies, how many of you, when speculating upon your ideal partner have, deep down, thought that what you really wanted was an elderly, male, bald version of yourself? How many of you have thought to yourselves, "Sure, Dad does a great barbecue, but how is he in the sack?" I thought so. As Marilyn Monroe sang, "my heart belongs to Daddy", and why shouldn't various other organs go along with it? I think Marilyn would have approved of John and Jenny's romance. In fact, it's the sort of relationship any chronic abuser of prescription drugs might really get behind.
In short, I want us all to stop being so uptight and consider the human aspect of the story. We all have sexual needs. We all have parents. Isn't it natural to combine the two? John Deaves says sex with his daughter is "absolutely fantastic", and who are we to deny an old, flabby man such simple pleasures? Jenny asks for "a little bit of respect and understanding" - is that too much to ask? Can't we all look inside our hearts, open up our minds, suppress our gag reflexes and rejoice in the magic of love? Sure it's unconventional, but in the words of that kindly, twinkle-eyed philosopher-king Mr Deaves himself, "you know, so what?"
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I fail already. All I can say to that is: oh god. Oh god.
Oy… just oy.
Oh, and ewwwww.
Knowing how impressionable todays youth are…I hope this sort of thing doesn’t become trendy.
I’m in two minds about this (well, three really):
* As a member of the Left (albeit with fees outstanding), I laugh at the sensibilities of so many shocked readers, and applaud the courageous and progressive actions of this wonderful couple who have flouted middle-class convention and dared to express themselves in this way. Prim and proper Liberal voters will be scandalised, which means of course that any genuine progressive people should unreservedly applaud their poking a stick in the eye of bourgeois ‘morality’;
* On the other hand, as a forty-year supporter of Indigenous cultural rights, I am appalled at this example of whitefella corruption and disgusted that they have been allowed to stay alive: in proper traditional society, they would both be speared to death quick-smart. They are typical examples of how degraded Western society and ‘so-called ‘morality’ has become since it abandoned the purity of its former superior Stone Age tribal culture and became so-called ‘civilized’.
I suppose that, either way, I can slag modern social mores, so it’s a great moral position for a progressive person to be in. Thank you, Mr and Ms Deaves.
Joe
This seems like an appropriate place to mention that looking at the beautiful Audrey Tautou makes me feel a little strange, because she looks exactly like my brother.
Ah incest, the gift that just keeps on giving
Channel Nine - Cleaning up White Trash since 1996
http://www.newmatilda.com/polliegraph/?p=279
Ben Pobjie you should win a Pulitzer Prize for this one… Best article of 2008!!!
I really doubt I could stomach an article about incest if it were written by anybody else.
This story has been informally followed by my Sex, Gender and Family class. Due to my understandings of how various forms of sexuality have been regulated in history and today, I thought, when I saw this story ‘right it’s a bit yuck… but so are those ‘what’s in your kebab’ current affair type stories. However, bottom line, if we’re gonna regulate against any form of sexuality then that form against which we regulate deserves thorough thought.
Upon giving such thought, and considering the dynamics of power in a father/daughter relationship, I very much agreed with one of the previous commentators on the use of the term ‘whitefella corruption’… I can’t- off the top of my head- think of a single culture which advocates such a practice.
It is difficult for me to say that people should be regulated against, and I’m sure there are a lot of married cousins who are very happy. But the father/daughter aspect disturbed me. Deeply (no pun intended).
Well, you can’t blame her. That dude is a looker! I’d totally turn gay for him if I was his son.
Repulsion at the thought of sexual encounters with family members stems not from your knowledge of being genetically related to them, but rather from simply spending your childhood in their presence. Biological siblings who don’t grow up together are likely to develop an attraction to one another if they meet at a later point in life, even if they become aware of their biological connection, while non-biologically related siblings or even friends who grow up around each other from an early age will experience that distinct sense of repulsion. So I’m not surprised that the former scenario can occur between parents and adult offspring who were separated early on.
Now, your knowledge of being genetically related to someone *should* in itself make you wary of bearing children with him or her, considering the well-known risks. The overall ill-results of such unions are, of course, exactly what caused our species to evolve the above-mentioned sense of ickiness regarding sexual relations with early childhood companions in the first place.
Great article. Thanks!
"…elderly, male, bald version of yourself" Oh hell yeah, so true!
Tonia,
There are so many other issues involved in marriage or intercourse between close relations besides being happy: genetic defects, for one. The identity of the offspring throughout their lives, for another: for example, the fate of Antigone, daughter of Oedipus and his mother Jocasta, who was eventually murdered by her husband (quite apocryphal in patriarchal Athens: end of the ‘line’). The stigma, and basically the anti-social nature of such an act, probably also play a role in our disapproval of it. And as some contributors have noted already, it’s so icky.
Joe
Ever heard of "relative humidity"?
Dad, this one gesture almost makes up for years of shaky fathering!
Yuck. I’m sorry for the li’l one.
But I’m not sure that I agree with the judge.
Good article, Ben.
M
Surely something about this couple has happened in the past week?
Was there an incest stream at 2020? Have other ‘close’ couples come out? You know, felt like it’s OK to go public like the Deaves!
But this is, after all, their preference, and since all preferences are equal, none of us should express any disapproval at what is an equally human preferred way of life. All cultures and all preferences are equally valid in their own context. It is only our value-laden and bourgeois prejudices which get in the way of recognising this facet of all forms of human activity, and in a postmodern world, we should all applaud yet one more form, one more trope, of self-expression which is no more or less worthy than any other ‘normal’ behaviour, like hetero- or homosexual lifestyles. Yeah, right.
Joe
Geez Joe, it’s a joke. This article is a joke. Their relationship is a joke. Human activity is a joke. Move on.
Yes, life is all play, there are no ‘real’ problems in the world, only in our minds. We have to throw off all our pre-formed assumptions and open ourselves to every behaviour. Everything is equivalent. Nothing is absolute or fixed. Everything is permitted.