Incest is a taboo in pretty much every culture around the world, but it wasn't always so. Nobles and royals used to try to keep royal blood pure by marrying people they were related to; Egyptians rulers, in particular, would often marry their siblings or even their own children. This gave us a glimpse of the serious genetic mutations that can arise from incest. But how exactly do you get genetic problems from incest?

Even if there's not always a mutation, inbreeding with someone you're related to brings up a lot of problems involving recessive traits. Because the two of you have similar genes, any recessive abnormalities you have can be passed on more easily and expressed more visibly in your offspring. This also means that, even if you don't show any signs of genetic disorders yourself, your child may show incest-related genetic mutations. It is important to note that these traits and mutations don't always arise from incest, but they can show up more frequently through incestuous breeding.

If you're still morbidly curious as to how incest affects your genes or what inbred people look like, look no further. Here are just a few of the genetic mutations that come from incest, as well as the expression of recessive genes you might never see otherwise.