Very interesting topic. I'll feel like contributing to the discussion.
I'm pretty much agree with the whole "If causes no harm, go ahead and do it" stance. I think sexual attraction between family members to be something normal, just as much as same sex attraction or one between a man and a woman who have never seen each other before. The very human mind, no matter how you feel about it, seems to work the subject on its own, for whatever reasons. I have no idea if I would get sexually involved with, say, my mother, had I the chance, but I do know I've dreamed about it several times out of the blue. I woke up feeling both guilty and aroused, although, given my own conviction of "live and let live" I shouldn't feel ashamed or guilty by it. To the point that I went searching the internet on the subject until I found out that dreaming about is normal for relatively large number of people. Most of them claim that don't feel said attraction to their relatives, but ocasionally dream about it nonetheless. Why some of us dreams about it, I guess its remains a mystery. I do believe, however, that said attraction is completely natural (to an lesser extent, even inevitable, as it claimed by specialists that we always search, in our mates, proeminent characteristics of our progenitors).
About it being "right" or "wrong" I think its very subjective, as said values vary from person to person. The main concern in the subject, for me, as pointed out by another member as well, would be the fact that in a lot of actual cases of incest, it happens between an older relative that takes advantage of a younger, inexperienced relative, often forcing, coercing or grooming the younger. THAT is seen by the majority as "yucky", for obvious reasons, regardless of their opinion about incest itself and anyone who studies psychology agrees that sexual development too early in life greatly affects someone for the rest of it, often in very bad ways. When thinking about the legal aspects, I do believe that the whole point of the law, to stop this kind of behaviour. That is not a rule however. I think incestual relationships can be just as healthy as any other, with the right degree of respect and love. The feelings of love should be there already, and sexual gratification would be just another way of showing said love. For each, their own, I'd say.
Now, from a law student's PoV (taken in consideration, also, WHERE I study it, since I'm not in the US), it is majorly accepted that the existence of a law does not prevent the prohibited act from happening. While its a generally accepted idea that prohibiting something by the force of law (and enforcing heavy sanctions for perpetrators) helps to prevent the unwanted act, it is in fact a completely misguided one. Very few people actually takes a prohibition into consideration when disobeying the law (hence the great number of people in jail) and because of tha, a Law acts more like a facilitator for punishing unwanted acts. It's about retribution, not prevention. What DO prevents said acts from happening are moral guides, values, principles and their own conception of right and wrong deeply rooted into their psyche not to mention people's own attatchment to those values (the relation about what they do and claim to believe, and how they act on it). That is why, the majority of people would still avoid incest, law against it or not. Quoting LadyYuna FFX2: "For me, I could never encourage my child to see anyone in the immediate family as more than merely that." That ilustrates my point. The law simply doesn't matter for her. She simply believe incest isn't the right thing for HER to do and hence, refrains from doing it. That's an idea that may pass on to her kids hence stopping them from doing it, and so on, so on. That makes the law pointless as a mean to prevent incest, but maybe an effective way to punish abusive family members, in which the statutory rape and other sexual predation legislation would, in my opinion, suffice.
I, for one, live in a country where incest is perfectly legal, the only restriction being that family members can't legally marry. Still, it is something very uncommon (at least as a public, "marital" relationship), and the vast majority seems to find it an unnaceptable behaviour that goes against the "good moral" (most of it based on religious concepts, I think). What we punish is the predatorial and abusive behavior towards anyone, no matter the nature of the relationship. The law tries to protect those who can't protect themselves or at the least, can't ensure their consent. And it works just as well as having a specific law, tailor made for incest abuse, since its the enforcement of said law (and not its existence) that actually makes the difference.
So, yes, I think a law preventing incest, is not only pointless, but also directly offends people's freedom.
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