Here is the heartwarming story of 72-year-old Pearl Carter, her lover and grandson Phil Bailey, and the $54,000 surrogate mother they have impregnated. Sorry, did I say heartwarming? I meant, oh my god get it out of my head.
What could be more beautiful than two people in madly in love? If those people are a grandmother and her grandson, almost anything! For example, take the story of Pearl Carter and Phil Bailey, the delightful couple who also happen to be genetically related.
According to Australia's New Idea magazine, Pearl had a daughter, Lynette, who she gave up for adoption at age 18. In 1983, that daughter had a son, named Phil. After Lynette died of brain cancer, Phil decided to track down his grandmother:
'We both cried but kept talking for three hours,' she says. 'When he emailed me a photo, I thought what a handsome and sexy man he was before pinching myself he was my grandson!'
The attraction intensified when the two met:
The pair spent the first week shopping, bowling and eating out. During the second week, giggly on wine after a night out, Pearl decided she wasn't going to deny her feelings anymore.
'I called Phil into my bedroom, sat him on the bed, and then I leant over and kissed him,' Pearl says.
'I expected rejection but instead he kissed me back.'...
That night, grandmother and grandson became lovers.
Yes, that's right, the grossest sentence you've ever read: "That night, grandmother and grandson became lovers."
But it gets better, if by better, you mean, even weirder! The unlikely pair moved in together... and decided to have a baby!
The determined pair then decided to use Pearl's retirement money to find a surrogate mother and buy a donor egg to inseminate with Phil's sperm. They placed an ad asking for an open-minded surrogate, and Roxanne Campbell applied. The three met up a few times and hit it off.
'Initially I was shocked,' says Roxanne on learning the couple were related. 'But they're a brilliant pair and I saw how much they loved each other. I know the baby will be loved too.'
Well.
The truth is, it's hard to think that two consenting adults shouldn't be allowed to do it with each other, even if it is among the grossest of all possible incest permutations. And why shouldn't they be allowed to raise a kid, assuming that the whole "incest" thing stays between, you know, the parents? (This is leaving aside the question of why on earth they agreed to be profiled by an antipodean lifestyle magazine when they are apparently from the U.S.one of many things that makes the story smell a little fishy. OK, very fishy.)
But being open-minded about it doesn't mean that I ever want to read something like this again, ever, in my life:
'Living with Phil as my life partner has been amazing. He cooks and cleans and we make love three times a week. We can't keep our hands off each other.'
Update: As a lot of you have pointed out, the dearth of detail and lack of wide pickup should engender a significant amount of skepticism about the story. But why let skepticism get in the way of wide-eyed revulsion?