"A Summer Romance" by Jim Fix (jimfix@earthlink.net). This was actually posted as two separate stories: "A Summer Romance Part 1" and "Summer Romance Revisited." I shall review these as a single story, and I advise you to read both parts together.

Paul (a bright student going into his sophomore year in high school) and his Mom have been living together since her messy divorce from his Dad two years ago. Paul and his mother have always showed mutual affection, but during a stay at some relatives' mountain cabin they realize that their attraction has a physical and sexual component. With his mature consent, Mom decides to treat Paul as a lover, and their life together becomes happier. They each contribute to the other's intellectual and personal growth, as well as to each other's sexual happiness.

The second half of the story moves more rapidly than the first half. Life changes; Paul goes to college; Mom gets a new job; their love affair comes to an end; Mom remarries; and Paul falls in love. This is a very good story.

I think society's general taboo against incest is reasonable; that is, it makes sense to have an initial reaction that incestuous relations should be avoided. In general, incestuous relationships are likely to be coercive and exploitive, even though the participants may be unaware that something bad is happening. Nevertheless, it also makes sense to consider the possibility that such relationships could be productive and growth-producing. This author has gone to great lengths to build a good story around a set of circumstances in which a mother/son sexual relationship is not only harmless but also beautiful.

You can skip the rest of this review if moral reasoning doesn't interest you, but I am going to discuss morality for a few paragraphs. Religions generally condemn incest, and I (Celeste) am an active participant in the Catholic religion, whose leaders condemn incest. How do I reconcile these views? Why don't I either condemn incest or stop being a Catholic Christian?

The answer lies in proportionalist moral reasoning, which says that when there is a conflict between moral outcomes or goals, decisions must be based on proportionate consequences. An action that might objectively be undesirable (immoral) is permitted only if it leads to benefits (called values) that outweigh its ill effects (called disvalues). The Catholic Church and other religions have used this kind of reasoning for centuries (for example, with regard to the "just war theory") but the Church leaders are not exactly progressive with regard to sexual morality.

The main alternative to proportionalist reasoning in the Christian religions is natural law reasoning. Here's the difference. Assume that there is a soldier who has his army's secret plans in a pouch attached to his belt. When he is in danger of being caught, is it morally permissible for the soldier to ignite an explosive that will destroy the plans but also kill himself? Moral reasoning based on the natural law says yes - because the soldier would be destroying the plans directly and himself only indirectly. In other words, this is not really suicide. Proportionalist reasoning would also say yes - but because the value of saving the entire army outweighs the disvalue of the soldier killing himself. In other words, this is suicide, but it's justified.

Changing the situation slightly, what if the soldier had memorized the plans instead of having them in a pouch? Can the soldier kill himself if he suspects that his captors will get the secrets from him? Natural law reasoning would say no - because he would be killing himself directly and destroying the secrets only indirectly. This would be suicide, and nothing can justify suicide. Proportionalist reasoning would still say yes - again because the value of saving the entire army outweighs the disvalue of the soldier killing himself. Again, this is suicide, but it's justified. My opinion is that the natural law conclusion is just plain goofy.

This proportionalist reasoning is not all that complicated, and it makes perfect sense. Common sense tells me that it would be unfortunate for the soldier to be put in either situation, but I don't think he would be "sinning" in either case if he took his life to save his army. On the other hand, the soldier should consider other factors - such as how well he can withstand torture, the likelihood that the enemy will get the information from someone else, the actual value of the information, etc. All this information would enter into the soldier's moral reasoning to determine whether there is a proportional reason for taking his own life in either case.

Applied to an issue like incest, proportionalism means that we should weigh the possible values to be gained from incest (such as the possibility of a mutually fulfilling relationship that is a natural extension of an existing spontaneous relationship and which would release two people's tensions while getting them ready for other relationships) against the disvalues associated with that action (such as restricting the child from more age-appropriate relationships, giving birth to children that are likely to have genetic defects, and societal retribution). In most cases in real life, the disvalues would far outweigh the values; but in this story the values outweigh the losses. This reasoning is different from the traditional, more legalistic approaches, which focuses on whether the action is natural or unnatural - prohibited by a rule or not prohibited; but this type of reasoning is neither excessively complex nor illogical.

There is no reason to believe that Jesus would reject proportionalist reasoning. There IS reason to believe that in most cases in real life the disvalues will outweigh the values, and so society's general ban on incestuous activities makes sense - as long the taboo itself does not introduce more problems than it solves. In terms of moral reasoning, what this story has done has been to create a situation in which the values demonstrably outweigh the disvalues.

My personal reasoning is also different from that of hedonism, which essentially says if it feels good and hurts nobody, go ahead and do it. Both hedonism and traditional religions offer valid insights into incestuous behavior; proportionalism offers another angle.

So there! I hope this discussion makes as much sense to you as it does to me. I do NOT believe that it is necessary that every story describe purely moral behavior, but I do think it is good occasionally to discuss a story in its moral context.