Australians have rejected a call by Jennifer Deaves to stop demonising sexual relationships between family members and instead embrace the condition Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA).
Deaves, who revealed last year on 60 Minutes that she shared two children with her father John, said earlier today that incest and GSA were entirely different.
Ninemsn received hundreds of responses after asking readers if they believed there was a difference.
"Incest and GSA are exactly the same thing ... sex with a blood related family member ... that's it, period," one reader said.
"To say otherwise is trying to justify a terrible wrong."
Another said: "This 'affliction' has been coined by perpetrators to try to remove their own guilt for acting in this manner."
"This is the sort of thing that happens when proper relationships between parents and children become twisted and confused."
But others showed a more compassionate side, saying they understood Deaves's plight.
"Rather than demonise these types of relationships why don't we open them up to further exploration and more understanding?," one user wrote.
"It doesn't mean endorsing the relationship but simply finding out more about them and working with couples to make sure all parties involved are healthy."
One person said they agreed GSA and incest were two completely different things.
"She isn't saying that incest is okay but rather GSA and incest are two completely different things ... with GSA being a mental illness and incest being where one family member molests another family member," the user said.
"There needs to be some research conducted into GSA and hopefully a cure and some support will happen for these GSA 'victims'."
Deaves said today that incest was a "dirty" word and most of those cases "involved grooming, a victim, a predator and there's almost always someone who has been taken advantage of."
"With GSA the parent and child are separated, they find each other later as adults and then the intense, overwhelming feelings come in ... it rips you off your feet."
Do you believe incest is different from GSA? See what ninemsn readers had to say.
Yesterday, a Melbourne doctor told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal he felt shame and remorse after having a child with his daughter during a four year sexual relationship.
The pair had been separated for over 20 years and, after reuniting, the doctor said he felt "intimacy and closeness", The Age newspaper reported.
Deaves attacked the media for reporting the doctor's case as incest because it was "quite clearly a GSA case".
"I know words sell and as soon as you put 'incest' up people will click and ask what's this?," she said.
"But the doctor never knew his child until she was an adult, they met as adults, they had no recollection of each other — they were complete strangers."
Parents and children who suffered from GSA and who had sex were almost always too scared to ask for help because they feared being dobbed into authorities and charged with incest, she said.
Deaves said her former sexual relationship with her father John was not incest, despite them having two children, because they were separated when she was young and reunited as adults.
She said she was back living with John in South Australia with their daughter Celeste and her two children from a previous marriage.
"John said to tell you that the only quote he will give is: 'his life is complete'," she said.
A Bing search of "genetic sexual attraction" returns 544,000 results, including several links to a website run by Barbara Gonyo, an American woman Deaves said coined the term "GSA".
Ms Gonyo gave her son up for adoption when she was just 16 years old but found him 26 years later when she was 42. It was then that she was struck with GSA, she said.
Ms Gonyo's story — published on her website with the title "I Fancied My Own Son" — details several times she tried seducing her son by "flirtatiously throwing her legs over him" and "carefully positioning herself on the sofa".
The son did not return the feelings and asked his mother, now a 71-year-old grandmother, never to speak of GSA.
Deaves said it was common for one half of the couple not to return the sexual feelings, as was it normal for heterosexual fathers and their sons to fall victim to GSA.
"There are also mums and daughters who would never think about having a lesbian relationship who suddenly think they've found their soul mate," she said.
Deaves called for Australians to open their hearts to GSA and help create a solution, rather adding "to the heartache".
"[I don't want] people to say GSA is wonderful but [I want] people to accept that we need to stop families falling apart and to get more research done on GSA ... it's time to give it some recognition," she said.
"All these people are doing is loving, loving another human being they have a right to love."
