Introduction to the Unthinkable
Incest is defined as consensual or non-consensual sexual relations of any kind inflicted upon a dependent child by a relative or other family member of authority (father, mother, stepparent, grandparent, brother, sister, or someone else in the role of a guardian or protector, such as an uncle or aunt). Only about 18 percent of the perpetrators are reported to authorities and fewer than 6 percent of them will spend even one day in jail.
The term “incest” describes many physical, verbal, and emotional crimes against children, including:
To this specific list we also add the general observation that incest is any behavior by an adult in a family relationship with a child that shatters appropriate boundaries and betrays trust by placing the child in physical or emotional danger regarding his or her own sexuality and right to dignity, privacy, and safety.
Good statistics are difficult to find, because the crime is so hidden, but estimates suggest incest survivors represent about 1 of every 14 American girls or women you know and 1 of every 20 boys or men [The Child Advocacy Center]. We are all ages, from newborns to adults. We represent every race and socioeconomic status in this country – and live in all parts of this country. No race or class is exempt, regardless of attempts by the ignorant to classify the phenomenon as a rural, lower-class, or minority activity. Many of us are undiagnosed and untreated adults who were abused as children and now are struggling to find our way in the world while carrying a bewildering assortment of physical and emotional handicaps we often do not understand.
Statistically, we are:
3 times more likely to suffer depression.
4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.
6 times more likely to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.
26 times more likely to abuse drugs.
[Source: Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network]
In addition to this short list, scholarly journals note a smorgasbord of emotional and physical challenges that many child sexual abuse survivors carry into adult life, such as:
The list is by no means comprehensive, but the point of the list is only to inform you, not to scare you. We strongly believe that you are not condemned to order off of this macabre menu. However, the sad truth is that many recovering as well as non-recovering adult survivors carry around a list of emotional and physical ailments connected to the abuse, sometimes without having conscious knowledge that the abuse ever occurred. Some of us have no idea why we are sick, anxious, depressed, and generally not as well-equipped as others to function in the world as adults - and when the revelations come we wish we could go on wondering.
We add to the alarming array of chronic maladies suffered by incest survivors an additional menu of after-effects that also torture non-offending parents and other family members. This menu is an unofficial list, because we have not seen any medical research or statistics on the subject, but from personal experience alone we can report:
We choose to acknowledge everyone in the immediate family except the perpetrator as an incest survivor, because this is an event that shakes all members of a family to their foundations, whether or not they are able, or choose, to acknowledge their distress. Dr. Mary Pipher, who wrote Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (a book so important that it should be required reading for all parents of teenage girls), put it this way: “. . . Sexual assault by a family member is an injury to the soul of a family. Everyone is wounded.”
All people in a close relationship with an incest survivor are affected by the crime, and anyone who would be a friend and supporter of an incest survivor should learn as much as he or she can about what constitutes constructive and loving support, as well as what is not helpful. Friends, relatives, and supporters of incest victims also have their own healing to do and need help from their own support systems, which often are absent, ineffectual or, worst of all, harmful even though well-meaning.
Each incestuous family has a unique story. Most of these stories never get told, which is why we believe that incest is such a teeming, underground epidemic – and why the suffering of survivors often is life-long. If it were common knowledge that 1 of out every 14 girls among us under the age of 18 is used for the sexual gratification of someone in authority over her, we certainly would hear a huge outcry.
Only 1 or 2 people in 100 live with the HIV infection, and the public outcry and dedication of public resources to its eradication has been almost unprecedented. Why, then, do we not see Real Housewives and other celebrities throwing $500-per-plate benefits for programs to assist incest survivors and to fund programs to increase awareness of incest? The crime itself is horrifying enough to warrant wide attention, but is regarded as an “invisible” crime.
Our culture instinctively discourages children, and the adults they later become, from disclosing incest because the subject is so uncomfortable for everyone involved. Most people haven’t the slightest idea what to say to a person who is carrying such a wound, and many families will break apart rather than crack the façade and display the horrible truth.
We think incest maintains its stealthy reign of terror precisely because its victims live in shameful or fearful silence. Children are trained from a very young age not to disclose the abuse. Their trainers use threats, blackmail, physical violence, shame and, worst of all, the child’s own need for love and protection, as potent methods to keep a young victim silent and invisible to those who might help. Victims are trapped in silence also by the overwhelming confusion, guilt, and shame they carry as a result of the abuse. This silence often is reinforced by family members who cannot or will not see what is happening to the children around them, and by a society at large that is reluctant to intervene because these wolves wear sheep’s clothing so well, and society is squeamish about interfering in the parent/child relationship.
Breaking the silence will require nothing less than a radical paradigm shift. Incest is perhaps the only crime where politeness interferes with its detection and prosecution. A secondary crime is perpetrated on the victim when the person who gathers enough courage to tell her or his secret is vilified. Many women who disclose past incest are treated by the psychiatric community as hysterical daddy-haters who create stories to get attention. The criminal justice system delivers a further insult by adopting the same attitude. Others who come forward with their stories find the details used for lurid sensationalism in the media, their school or work, or around the neighborhood, thus exploiting their humanity and dignity once again by making them objects of prurient curiosity and gossip.
Women who demand their rights also have elicited violence from a segment of the male population (probably the same demographic that threatens people with alternate sexual orientations). We have a very good friend who blogs about social justice issues – and receives, on average, one rape threat and one death threat per week. We love that our friend continues to blog despite these attempts at intimidation, because that sort of dogged determination is needed to change the culture. We need a Gandhi “salt march” on steroids.
Clearly, few rescuers are coming into Hell after us, so we choose to pull the fire alarm – not with quavering whispers to our friends and support groups, but in the public square with heads held high and voices strong with condemnation toward the perpetrators and the system that nurtures them. We must make the invisible crime visible. We must shout the unspeakable. And we must do it in the kinds of numbers that we see in “Slut Walks,” “Take Back the Night” marches, “Tea Party” rallies, and “Occupy Wall Street” combined. Even if only a small percentage of us raise our voices, we might make a huge difference in public awareness of this devastating crime.
A current and most welcome trend is the global effort to eradicate the human trafficking, mass rape-as-war strategy, and ritual genital mutilation that afflicts millions of women in many parts of the world, including the U.S. These movements, such as One Billion Rising, have drawn desperately-needed attention toward the species-old tradition of using women’s bodies to further the financial and political objectives of men and governments. Women have been bullied by men and treated as expendable property since the first time men discovered they were physically stronger and could force women to submit to their will. This bullying and abuse have become institutionalized, and the public has become inured to it to the point where many cultures have forgotten that women, and especially female children, are human beings. Women have been trained through millennia to assist in the abuse and suppression of their daughters through enculturation, religious teaching, and by being abused themselves. As a gender, we exhibit all the traits of “learned helplessness” in the face of the magnitude of abuse we have endured throughout history.
Drug lords, Sharia law, and even our U.S. Congress find it easy to teach women that their lives, bodies, and sacred spirits are worth less than nothing when so many women have grown up learning that lesson at home, first. Yet, we persist, we hope, and we speak. We begin by speaking to one another, and then push outside our comfort zones to address the wider human community. We strongly believe that a discussion about incest deserves to be part of the current movement to reclaim the human rights of women, and it needs to be one of the first parts of the conversation.
Please join us in that conversation.
Another Mother - copyright 2012
The term “incest” describes many physical, verbal, and emotional crimes against children, including:
- Inappropriate touching and fondling.
- Rape and attempted rape.
- Coercing children to touch the perpetrator inappropriately.
- Photographing and filming children in a sexual way.
- Spying on children who are undressing or bathing.
- Showing children pornographic photos and videos.
- Inappropriate conversations involving sexual topics.
To this specific list we also add the general observation that incest is any behavior by an adult in a family relationship with a child that shatters appropriate boundaries and betrays trust by placing the child in physical or emotional danger regarding his or her own sexuality and right to dignity, privacy, and safety.
Good statistics are difficult to find, because the crime is so hidden, but estimates suggest incest survivors represent about 1 of every 14 American girls or women you know and 1 of every 20 boys or men [The Child Advocacy Center]. We are all ages, from newborns to adults. We represent every race and socioeconomic status in this country – and live in all parts of this country. No race or class is exempt, regardless of attempts by the ignorant to classify the phenomenon as a rural, lower-class, or minority activity. Many of us are undiagnosed and untreated adults who were abused as children and now are struggling to find our way in the world while carrying a bewildering assortment of physical and emotional handicaps we often do not understand.
Statistically, we are:
3 times more likely to suffer depression.
4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.
6 times more likely to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.
26 times more likely to abuse drugs.
[Source: Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network]
In addition to this short list, scholarly journals note a smorgasbord of emotional and physical challenges that many child sexual abuse survivors carry into adult life, such as:
- inability to form and keep lasting relationships,
- sexual dysfunction,
- promiscuity and prostitution,
- lack of normal sexual desire,
- anorexia,
- overeating,
- codependence,
- a potential to marry an abuser or to become an abuser,
- deliberate poor hygiene OR excessive grooming,
- smoking,
- self-mutilation,
- dysmenorrhea,
- self-esteem and confidence issues,
- irritable bowel syndrome,
- kidney and urinary tract problems,
- damage to the spinal cord or pelvic cradle,
- eczema, and
- pelvic inflammatory disease.
The list is by no means comprehensive, but the point of the list is only to inform you, not to scare you. We strongly believe that you are not condemned to order off of this macabre menu. However, the sad truth is that many recovering as well as non-recovering adult survivors carry around a list of emotional and physical ailments connected to the abuse, sometimes without having conscious knowledge that the abuse ever occurred. Some of us have no idea why we are sick, anxious, depressed, and generally not as well-equipped as others to function in the world as adults - and when the revelations come we wish we could go on wondering.
We add to the alarming array of chronic maladies suffered by incest survivors an additional menu of after-effects that also torture non-offending parents and other family members. This menu is an unofficial list, because we have not seen any medical research or statistics on the subject, but from personal experience alone we can report:
- intense grief,
- ongoing problems with trust and intimacy in relationships,
- loss of sex drive,
- insomnia and other sleep disorders,
- post-traumatic stress disorder,
- heart, stomach, and bowel problems,
- loss of appetite,
- high blood pressure,
- overeating and weight problems,
- stress-induced cognitive dysfunction and trouble concentrating,
- depression,
- anxiety, and
- (a personal favorite) chronic homicidal rage.
We choose to acknowledge everyone in the immediate family except the perpetrator as an incest survivor, because this is an event that shakes all members of a family to their foundations, whether or not they are able, or choose, to acknowledge their distress. Dr. Mary Pipher, who wrote Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (a book so important that it should be required reading for all parents of teenage girls), put it this way: “. . . Sexual assault by a family member is an injury to the soul of a family. Everyone is wounded.”
All people in a close relationship with an incest survivor are affected by the crime, and anyone who would be a friend and supporter of an incest survivor should learn as much as he or she can about what constitutes constructive and loving support, as well as what is not helpful. Friends, relatives, and supporters of incest victims also have their own healing to do and need help from their own support systems, which often are absent, ineffectual or, worst of all, harmful even though well-meaning.
Each incestuous family has a unique story. Most of these stories never get told, which is why we believe that incest is such a teeming, underground epidemic – and why the suffering of survivors often is life-long. If it were common knowledge that 1 of out every 14 girls among us under the age of 18 is used for the sexual gratification of someone in authority over her, we certainly would hear a huge outcry.
Only 1 or 2 people in 100 live with the HIV infection, and the public outcry and dedication of public resources to its eradication has been almost unprecedented. Why, then, do we not see Real Housewives and other celebrities throwing $500-per-plate benefits for programs to assist incest survivors and to fund programs to increase awareness of incest? The crime itself is horrifying enough to warrant wide attention, but is regarded as an “invisible” crime.
Our culture instinctively discourages children, and the adults they later become, from disclosing incest because the subject is so uncomfortable for everyone involved. Most people haven’t the slightest idea what to say to a person who is carrying such a wound, and many families will break apart rather than crack the façade and display the horrible truth.
We think incest maintains its stealthy reign of terror precisely because its victims live in shameful or fearful silence. Children are trained from a very young age not to disclose the abuse. Their trainers use threats, blackmail, physical violence, shame and, worst of all, the child’s own need for love and protection, as potent methods to keep a young victim silent and invisible to those who might help. Victims are trapped in silence also by the overwhelming confusion, guilt, and shame they carry as a result of the abuse. This silence often is reinforced by family members who cannot or will not see what is happening to the children around them, and by a society at large that is reluctant to intervene because these wolves wear sheep’s clothing so well, and society is squeamish about interfering in the parent/child relationship.
Breaking the silence will require nothing less than a radical paradigm shift. Incest is perhaps the only crime where politeness interferes with its detection and prosecution. A secondary crime is perpetrated on the victim when the person who gathers enough courage to tell her or his secret is vilified. Many women who disclose past incest are treated by the psychiatric community as hysterical daddy-haters who create stories to get attention. The criminal justice system delivers a further insult by adopting the same attitude. Others who come forward with their stories find the details used for lurid sensationalism in the media, their school or work, or around the neighborhood, thus exploiting their humanity and dignity once again by making them objects of prurient curiosity and gossip.
Women who demand their rights also have elicited violence from a segment of the male population (probably the same demographic that threatens people with alternate sexual orientations). We have a very good friend who blogs about social justice issues – and receives, on average, one rape threat and one death threat per week. We love that our friend continues to blog despite these attempts at intimidation, because that sort of dogged determination is needed to change the culture. We need a Gandhi “salt march” on steroids.
Clearly, few rescuers are coming into Hell after us, so we choose to pull the fire alarm – not with quavering whispers to our friends and support groups, but in the public square with heads held high and voices strong with condemnation toward the perpetrators and the system that nurtures them. We must make the invisible crime visible. We must shout the unspeakable. And we must do it in the kinds of numbers that we see in “Slut Walks,” “Take Back the Night” marches, “Tea Party” rallies, and “Occupy Wall Street” combined. Even if only a small percentage of us raise our voices, we might make a huge difference in public awareness of this devastating crime.
A current and most welcome trend is the global effort to eradicate the human trafficking, mass rape-as-war strategy, and ritual genital mutilation that afflicts millions of women in many parts of the world, including the U.S. These movements, such as One Billion Rising, have drawn desperately-needed attention toward the species-old tradition of using women’s bodies to further the financial and political objectives of men and governments. Women have been bullied by men and treated as expendable property since the first time men discovered they were physically stronger and could force women to submit to their will. This bullying and abuse have become institutionalized, and the public has become inured to it to the point where many cultures have forgotten that women, and especially female children, are human beings. Women have been trained through millennia to assist in the abuse and suppression of their daughters through enculturation, religious teaching, and by being abused themselves. As a gender, we exhibit all the traits of “learned helplessness” in the face of the magnitude of abuse we have endured throughout history.
Drug lords, Sharia law, and even our U.S. Congress find it easy to teach women that their lives, bodies, and sacred spirits are worth less than nothing when so many women have grown up learning that lesson at home, first. Yet, we persist, we hope, and we speak. We begin by speaking to one another, and then push outside our comfort zones to address the wider human community. We strongly believe that a discussion about incest deserves to be part of the current movement to reclaim the human rights of women, and it needs to be one of the first parts of the conversation.
Please join us in that conversation.
Another Mother - copyright 2012
