From the magazine that has brought you quality reading material such as “Can you Vajazzle and Still Be a Feminist?”, tips on how to tell your love interest that he/she is going to get “explosive” oral sex later (in emoji), new uses for that glazed doughnut you got from the Dunkin’, how not to emasculate a man by asking him out on a second date and how to deep freeze your undies for thrills comes the latest and greatest: an article entitled “This is what it’s like to fall in love with your brother.”

The article weaves the tale of two siblings, “Melissa” and “Brian”, who were separated as children reunited as adults after the death of their father. They met at a bar after chatting on Facebook and the phone and walked out of the bar hand-in-hand to the car where they proceeded to “tear the clothes off” of one another. Scientific contributors to Cosmo explain this phenomenon known as Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA):

“Social scientists and psychologists have long researched how societies’ prohibition against incest evolved: It’s essentially nature’s way of protecting humans from passing along the genetic mutations and disease risks that happen more commonly with close relatives, explains Dr. Debra Lieberman, a professor of Psychology at the University of Miami. The dominant theory, first proposed by Finnish social scientist Edward Westermark, is that people become desensitized to those they are raised alongside.

“Westermarck’s hypothesis and my research have shown that siblings use clues like living under the same roof and being cared for the same parents to develop a sexual aversion,” Lieberman says. “But if you don’t grow up together, no aversion naturally develops.”

Apparently, their marriages to other individuals in this equation were not part of the “natural aversion”, either. And Cosmo seems to sweep the fact that this was an extra-marital affair under the rug. Cosmo also states that “Melissa” and “Brian”‘s sexual abuse as youngsters further cemented their connection and relationship. Pile onto this, “Melissa” was 14 when her “older lover” was allowed to move into the home she shared with her mother. Melissa was given “no boundaries” and was “spoiled rotten and allowed to do pretty much anything.”

“The sexual force was like I was levitating off the earth. Your body instantly craves the other person.”-“Melissa”

Two weeks after the couple met, “Brian” left his wife, stating that “Melissa” was not the reason but a “catalyst” to ending a bad marriage (as most affairs are.) “Melissa” still lives with her teenage daughters and husband, who she describes as “very open minded“. She spends Saturday nights with “Brian” and when she returns, she says her girls become angry and upset:

“My daughters view him as an infiltrator, as some guy who fell from the sky, and made their mother go nuts and be gone all the time. There’s a lot of animosity in my house. I’m living a double life.”-“Melissa”

You think?

“We have an innate trust and no boundaries with each other because we’re family. When you get into a relationship with someone else, they’re a stranger to you. Trust takes a long time to build. But because this is my brother, he’s never going to do anything to hurt me.”-“Melissa”

There’s that word again. Boundaries. Boundaries-or lack thereof on the road to dysfunction junction. Boundaries do not matter because these two individuals are “in love”. (Ain’t it grand?) Boundaries, apparently, also do not matter in terms of infidelity and disrespecting marriage vows. (What’s the point?) Boundaries are not a factor when it comes to the impression “Melissa” is placing upon the young women in her life who will eventually go out into this crazy world and kiss their share of frogs before Prince Charming (who is impeccably dressed and awesome in bed, of course) rolls on up in his luxury sports car with a 5-carat diamond (and Cosmo will tell them not to expect any less event though they should be “empowered”). Then again, what do we expect from a magazine that puts Kim Kardashian on the cover and calls the Kardashian/Jenner family “America’s First Family” or celebrates a woman posting a Facebook video of herself having an abortion? We can expect nothing less than a collection of articles written by a bunch of individuals whose parents gave them no consequences for their poor behavior, no guidelines of what is and isn’t appropriate and instead rewarded them by sending them to “Self-Esteem” camp as teenagers where counselors fed them all vegan meals and told them repetitively that they were awesome, that their world was their oyster and there were no boundaries. Take what you want, when you want it despite consequences…yes, even your brother or sister-anything goes. If this story is defined as a weak-in-the-knees tale of romance in 2015, boy are we in trouble. Cosmopolitan should change their name to “Dueling Banjos”(no offense to my friends down south but you get the reference.)