INCESTUOUS SEXUAL ABUSE

What Is Incestuous Sexual Abuse (ISA)?
~ © Grace Poore, 2002 ~


Incestuous sexual abuse is not "sexual indiscretion" or "affection that went too far." It is often "planned, calculated and systematic" and aimed at manipulating and taking advantage of a victim's trust. This kind of abuse is facilitated by and couched within a trusted relationship between victim and perpetrator -- a relationship, not limited to immediate or biological family members but extending to anyone who is known to the victim, and has contact with the child in a familial and/or household setting. Consequently, perpetrators use and abuse their position to gain access to those they target for violation.

Incestuous sexual abuse, like domestic violence, is what Judith Lewis Herman calls, a "tyranny of private life." Both involve abuse of power. Both are directed against the people we say we care about. In the same way, incestuous sexual abuse overlaps with acquaintance or date rape. Again, both involve violation of a relationship based on affection and friendship. Both involve dominance. And, as with acquaintance rape, if the perpetrators and victims of incestuous sexual abuse happen to be close in age (for instance, cousins or siblings), the age similarity does not automatically ascribe equal power or safety. A look at the high incidence of domestic violence and marital rape will confirm this.

Who Commits This Abuse?

Perpetrators of incestuous sexual abuse are not limited to immediate family members but include all adults who have contact with a child in a familial and/or household setting. This means extended family members, regular visitors to the home, family friends, private tutors, priests, family physicians, and household workers. Those who commit this abuse will frequently say that they did not intend to hurt the child. Whether or not, this kind of abuse involves pain or injury, and whether or not the abuser intended to hurt the victim, it is a sexual violation. It often traumatizes the child, leaving long-lasting effects. Disbelieving the victim, minimizing the abuse and victim-blaming compound the sexual abuse. Silencing the victim isolates her. Isolation and silence prolong the effects of the abuse.

Victims of incestuous sexual abuse range from 10-month old babies to 16-year olds. The abuse involves sexual violation that takes place frequently within but not limited to the home.

Abuse Experienced By Victims

Incestuous sexual abuse is not limited to touch. In fact, sometimes, it may not involve touch at all (see list below). If the abuse involves touch, it is not limited to "bad touch" as a child might understand "bad touch," meaning it may begin with touching non-genital areas. The "touch" may also not involve injury or pain. Kinds of abuse include but are not limited to:

Even if perpetrators of child sexual abuse produce physical stimulation and pleasure in victims, their actions constitute assault because they use the victims for their own ends. As narrated by one survivor in The Children We Sacrifice video:

"My abuse began when I was eight or nine years old...  The abuser was my uncle, my father's younger brother, who I always loved. I don't know what caused it but, overnight, the affection and love he showed to me as a child, changed into the love he would have shown a partner of his age... He never really had intercourse with me. He never raped me... What he did was give me pleasure in such a secret and dirty way that forever, affection and pleasure became associated with shame and disgust and guilt."

Perpetrators often falsely lead their victims to believe that they (the victims) consented to being touched. This helps perpetrators justify their actions, continue the abuse, and deny personal responsibility for what they have done.

Some Reasons For Silence

Talking about sexual abuse within families is threatening because there could be reprisals by the person committing the abuse or by other family members. The abuser may deny the abuse and the victim could be punished for making up stories. The victim's family may blame the victim for the abuse instead of the perpetrator. The abuse may be downplayed and minimized. The victim may be told to "get over it" and not dig up the past. The victim may be afraid that family members might react violently and do something that could result in more violence or break up of the family. The victim may wish to protect the family from shame and dishonor that speaking out could bring to the family. Or family members may guilt-trip or threaten the victim and warn her against speaking out. The victim may wish to protect non-abusing family members from the pain of knowing that someone in the family is committing sexual abuse, especially if the abuser is a "good provider," "upstanding citizen," or "community leader" with power to retaliate.

In The Children We Sacrifice video, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, says:

"People don't want to accept the family as a center of power. They want to see the family as equal and natural and caring and loving. And when you posit an opposite image of family as power oriented, hierarchical [and] abusive, people resist. They don't want to see any family like that. They prefer to see incest as an aberration."

This is one reason that most victims of incest are isolated and believe they are the only ones to whom this has happened. Even when several sisters or cousins in the same family are abused, they are often unaware of the other as victim because each victim is shrouded in the same silence, unable to reveal what's going on or get assistance.

While some survivors have managed to stop the abuse from happening to a younger sister or brother, others find it unbelievable that another child in the family could have gone through the same thing. They have grown up believing that incest is an aberration that could only happen to them. As one survivor in The Children  We Sacrifice video says:

"I thought I was dirty. Why else would I be picked up for something like this?"

Female Perpetrators

The Children We Sacrifice video does not focus on women who sexually abuse children because statistics show that this kind of abuse is perpetrated predominantly by men. However, those who work with survivors of incestuous sexual abuse must also focus on female perpetration for the following reasons:

  1. By not acknowledging that women can be survivors of female sexual abuse, we invalidate the experience of those who have been sexually violated by women. Consequently, we render them invisible.
  2. By rendering survivors of female sexual abuse invisible, we discourage disclosure, which means we collude in their silencing.
  3. By colluding in the silencing of survivors of female sexual abuse, we add to their shame and contribute to their stigmatization.
  4. By not creating a supportive atmosphere for women who are victims of child sexual abuse by women, we may not know which of the women who seek our services are survivors of female perpetration.
  5. By not recognizing the presence of survivors of female sexual abuse, we will not recognize how we are or are not meeting their needs as advocates, counselors or organizations working to end sexual assault.
  6. Just as denial and silencing around battering in lesbian relationships re-victimizes women who are being violated by their women partners, the same happens if we minimize or deny the effects of child sexual abuse by women on children.

For more information about incestuous sexual abuse, please refer to Resources (Publications and Agencies) or contact us.

 

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Modified on Oct 19, 2003