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Louis C. Hochman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com By Louis C. Hochman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
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on January 19, 2015 at 2:30 PM, updated January 19, 2015 at 3:07 PM
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Word that an 18-year-old woman from the Great Lakes region purportedly plans to move New Jersey to live as a married couple with her formerly estranged biological father has spread quickly on the Web over the last few days.
Posts on several news and commentary sites refer back to an interview in told New York magazine, in which the unnamed teen reportedly said she would move to New Jersey because adult incest isn't illegal here. The teen said the marriage wouldn't be registered - a father-daughter marriage would still be legally void in New Jersey.
Former Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi has told NJ Advance Media that so long as certain criteria are met, a sexual relationship between the two may be legal in New Jersey, so long as neither party is mentally incapacitated, and no force or coercion is used. New Jersey's sexual assault statues do not explicitly bar sexual relations among adults who are related. Most states bar some form of incest, but the degree of relation prohibited among sexual partners varies.
News of the couple's stated plans spread far - with posts on Brooklyn-based Inquisitr.com, a story on Fox News's site and another on the UK-based Daily Mail's.
Jezebel.com offered a comprehensive commentary based on the New York magazine piece, in which the 18-year-old discusses being conceived on her parents' prom night, and a difficult childhood in which her mother strictly prevented her from having access to her father. She discusses last seeming him when she was about 5 years old.
The Jezebel post describes the 18-year-old and her father had sex - she says she lost her virginity to him - as a "negotiation (that) is extremely difficult to read about."
"The woman, whose side is the only side we get, admits to having grown up with chronic depression, being bullied as a child, and of course, having a mom with a mental illness. But the majority of what we get in this story is part erotica, part na?ve young woman's excitement at a real relationship - she doesn't seem to have had one with any other man-and part disturbing tale of a grown man and father's clearly overstepped boundaries," Jezebel's Tracy Moore wrote. "Yes, at 18, the law declares her fit to consent, but (what) is this dude thinking?"
It continues: "Some of the saddest parts are her admitting that getting with her dad made her feel beautiful and confident - things that should absolutely come from positive healthy relationships with one's parents, only, you know, without the sex part."
Reactions on social media were, perhaps predictably, generally ones of revulsion