Harvard's 'IncestFest' called offensive

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 12 (UPI) -- An undergraduate residence hall at Massachusetts' Harvard University is drawing criticism for an in-house social event dubbed "IncestFest."

Organizers said the idea behind "IncestFest" is to encourage students in the Kirkland House residence hall to hook up with other residents in the same building, the New York Daily News reported Friday.

"House life is incredibly close-knit, bordering on downright incestuous," the event's description in Harvard's student newspaper, The Crimson, reads.

However, critics said they object to the word "incest" in the party's title.

"I am not only objecting to the name 'IncestFest' because it is offensive and insensitive -- although, indeed, it is, and it saddens me that this is not immediately obvious. I am writing this because incest is notoriously invisible and leaves its victims burdened with shame and humiliation for the rest of their lives," student Samantha Berstler wrote in an opinion piece published in The Crimson.