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This paper originated in my response to a request that I participate in an intertheoretical panel discussion on whether the incest taboo is still a relevant concept in discussing adolescent development. Pehaps it is because I have worked so much and so long with adolescents and lived with two in my own home that it has never crossed my mind that the incest taboo is not a relevant concept in adolescence. It is hard to imagine a better way to describe the force that works against the expression in families of the very strong sexual and aggressive impulses that adolescents experience. Let me state this explicitly and directly: there is no question in my mind that there is an incest taboo; it is a crucial factor in the organization of our moral-ethical systems; and it is of critical importance during the sexual development of adolescents.
The fact that the existence of the incest taboo is currently in question seems to me to be a subject worth some consideration in and of itself. This questioning seems to be part of a general questioning about the building blocks of classical psychoanalytic theory (e.g., drive theory, the Oedipus complex, infantile sexuality), especially those elements of the theory that underscore the importance of sexuality in development (see Dimen 1999, Green 1995). I worry, in the midst of all this questioning, that we might dispose of important conceptual frameworks. It is my hope that we will not do this with the concept of the incest taboo; that we will, instead, describe how it works and its usefulness with greater specificity. This paper is an effort in that direction.