On genetic sexual attraction

Only 24 days to go!

Leading up to Open Records Day in Ontario, the CBC radio program The Current featured a segment on Genetic Sexual Attraction including interviews between CBC producer Aziza Sindhu and several reunitees who'd experienced GSA, some of whom acted on it and began sexual relationships with relatives.  For those of who reading this later who can't get the podcast, there's a synopsis on the CBC website.

I first heard about Genetic Sexual Attraction in a pamphlet I got sent by the government when signing up for the Ontario Adoption Disclosure Register.  My first reaction, probably a typical one, was shock. After thinking a bit, I didn't have any difficulty in believing in it.

Though I've not been reunited, the focus I've developed in my own private searching is unchecked in its intensity and a more than a bit off-putting.  It's not in the same ball park as GSA, but maybe in the same league.

Obviously it's way too speculative at this point to consider how I'd react to a reunion with a female relative.  I'll admit that I don't single out young women who look like the young version of my adoptive mother as being particularly noteworthy or attractive, so if there's an Oedipus complex lurking within me it's operating against my birth mother and not my adoptive mom.

The idea of GSA relationships still repulses me and I'm pretty sure I'd never act on such an impulse (aside from the fact that I'm taken) but who's to say I wouldn't feel it?  The thing about adoption reunions is that they are emotional events by design.  You're supposed to feel it, to connect, to let  feeling wash over you, and one can't entirely control where those emotions will go.   If this is a Pandora's box I want to open it: otherwise, what's the point?

Adoption story from the Globe and Mail

We're into May now: 27 days to go until Disclosure Day.

(The original D-Day is around the same time, June 6; too bad the Allies didn't head out five days earlier or I could re-use the name!  I will admit that as excited as I am, this incursion into the closed-adoption system is nothing compared to the storming of the Norman beaches.)

The Globe and Mail published a personal account yesterday by one Michael Geisterfer called "My Teenage Daughter's Pregnancy", and there was quite a spirited discussion in the comments.

While it's an interesting read, I think Mr. Geisterfer is quite wrong in comparing his situation at age 19 to his daughter's today.  If my readings and conversations have convinced me of one thing, it's that the birth mother's experience of giving up the child is entirely different from the birth father's.

I'm not arguing men all disappear the moment they're told and are never affected by relinquishment; this is obviously false.  But this article passes far too easily over the issue of what feelings the daughter might have faced after the birth, and there is probably a reason for that.