I think it’s strange, but not as bad as some of the other couples they put together. I could actually wrap my mind around how Ivy and Thomas could be attracted to each other without guilt or disgust from either.
The reason family can not get together legally is because of the blood connection and the issues it creates with their offspring. Genetics. In some countries, historically it was accepted mostly with cousins, but that created some problems with the offspring mentally and physically.
I look at it biologically and psychologically. I have less of an issue with two people unrelated by blood who did not grow up together as family, and don’t see each other as family, forming an attraction than two people who once thought they were biologically related and later found out they were not, but grew up knowing each other as family getting together. Mentally, all their life that was their sister, cousin, daughter, aunt or whatever. It’s just strange. I can’t see how I could shut my brain off and suddenly see the cousin, sister, or daughter I’ve always known as family in a sexual way after thinking we shared blood, even if it turned out that we didn’t share blood, since it would have been mentally ingrained, but that’s just me. To each their own.
So, maybe this is a weird way to think, but if Ridge could fall for Bridget, and Rick could go for Phoebe and Steffy, then Ivy and Thomas don’t weird me out as much, because Thomas and Ivy likely never met each other until adulthood and didn’t grow up around each other to form an incestuous bond, and especially since they were fully aware that they don’t share blood, during the entire time they have known each other, they likely never felt cousinly about each other.
Regardless, if I am not mistaken and if things have not changed, in some states cousins can marry without any restrictions. Other states restrict it to different degrees of cousinhood. For example, some may allow all cousins to marry, some restrict first cousins but may allow 2nd or 3rd cousins, and some may not allow it at all.
Especially when there is no blood involved, which is the real issue, and the main reason for the restrictions in the first place, I go more by, did they grow up together and do they see each other as relatives than just the idea that they belong to the same family. I will admit that the Thomas/Hope thing is tricky, but they have known their whole lives that they don’t share blood and I choose to focus on the time they were not raised together, so that it doesn’t get weird in my head. I guess it helps that I never saw them as family as a viewer anyway. I never felt the familial connection.
Call me strange, but I thought Ridge/Bridget and Phoebe/Steffy/Rick was much more disturbing than Thomas and Ivy. I suspended my disbelief for Phoebe/Steffy/Rick because they were aware that they didn’t share blood from birth (I believe), so maybe they kept a mental distance and separation and because of the rivalry with their mothers, and they never saw each other as true relatives. Rather than stressing about something that is a non issue since they don’t share blood, I chose to think of it that way and get over it. The cast is limited so they don’t have many options. It’s fiction, so carry on… any babies born from the union will be just fine, it just may get confusing during holidays.
Unless the laws have changed recently, if some states (I believe Florida, NY, California, and there and many others I can’t recall off the top of my head) allow first cousins to marry, why am I going to get bent out of shape over a fictional show with non-blood related cousins who met each other in adulthood fully aware they share no blood, if they hook up?
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