Father and daughter expect child together

Thu 24 Mar, 2011 08:00 am GMT

© Kim Ruoff - Fotolia.com

A woman who tracked down her long-lost father in the US is now pregnant with his child.
Garry Ryan, 46, was discoverd by his long lost daughter Penny Lawrence, 28, last year. He had left Ms Lawrence's mother when she was pregnant, and the two had never met.
Following the death of her mother and the grandparents who raised her, Ms Lawrence became obsessed with finding her father, and did so last year.
Upon meeting, they felt an instant physical attraction, which resulted in a sexual relationship. Ms Lawrence is now pregnant with her father's child.
The couple claim that their attraction is the result of something called Genetic Sexual Attraction, a term coined in the 1980s to describe overwhelming feelings between blood relatives who first meet as adults.
Speaking with The Sun newspaper, Ms Lancaster said: "We are not committing incest, but are victims of GSA. We’ve never experienced a father-daughter relationship, so we’re just like any other strangers who meet in adulthood."
The couple said that if the three month scan of their baby shows it does not have birth defects, they plan to keep the child and raise it together.
The couple are aware that their relationship is illegal, and are afraid the law will be used to separate them.
Several theories surround the phenomenon of GSA, including the notion that humans are frequently attracted to faces similar to their own.
It also embraces the theory that if two people who are genetically related do not meet until adulthood, the normal sexual aversion that develops between siblings during childhood is somehow switched off.
Indeed, GSA can affect parents separated from their own children at birth, as well as siblings. It does not refer to a genetic sexual attraction, but to the fact that people are genetically connected.
The emotions that the GSA engenders are reportedly intense and all consuming, leading those affected by it to act against their interest to pursue a relationship with their relative.
There have been cases of mothers and sons, and long lost brothers becoming intimate under the compulsion of GSA.
The situation is reported to be quite common in reunions between adoptees.
The term GSA was coined in the 1980s by Barbara Gonyo after reuniting with the son she had given up for adoption.
Upon reuniting with him 26 years later, she was horrified to discover that she had feelings for him akin to those of a lover, rather than a mother. She investigated her own feelings about her son and wrote a book in which she coined the phrase Genetic Sexual Attraction.