Why Moms Have Sex With Sons

It may seem strange that Aimee Sword would want to sleep with her biological son, but that kind of taboo attraction may not be as rare as we think, writes Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon. Close biological relatives who meet as adults have been known to experience such attraction—author Barbara Gonyo dubbed the phenomenon “Genetic Sexual Attraction” in her 1980 book on her own charged reunion with the son she gave up for adoption.

There’s not much research on the subject, but based on the feedback she’s received, Gonyo’s convinced GSA is fairly common. Many report feeling as though they met an opposite-sex version of themselves. “It is so strong and you can’t even stand to be away from each other,” says Gonyo. Nor is there a clear biological mechanism preventing such attraction; some anthropologists theorize that it's early cohabitation that typically squelches it. None of which absolves Sword from sleeping with a 14-year-old. That, Clark-Flory stresses, was child abuse. (More Aimee L. Sword stories.)