Issue of the Week: Human Rights

Incest: The Sound of Silence, Part One.

This year is the tenth anniversary of an article in The Atlantic Monthly that was as earthshaking, or more so, than anything you could ever read.

Before proceeding, there is a relationship to the day this is in the US–Memorial Day. Or rather, the historical day for Memorial Day. It’s now on the last Monday of May to create a three-day weekend, so sometimes it falls on May 30 and sometimes not.

The day is in the main a remembrance and honoring of all those who have served, been harmed and died in the armed forces and related service. It is also, as we’ve pointed out before, a day when individuals, family, friends and so on are also sometimes remembered in rituals such as visiting where people are buried or memorialized.

There is a commonality in concept here, and many ironies. Those who served deserve our thanks. Others too often do not. They can, dead or alive, be like haunting darkness, even when the culture pulls and pulls, especially to the importance of blood ties, feeding on every insecurity and promoted by every ennobled concept that in fact is the opposite of love. Real love, which is always based on universal values, has no relationship to blood. The irony that the worst war in human history which we are fighting another vestige of today, was against an ideology that worshiped blood above all else, is its own instructive fact.

The war zone, for too many of us, for half of all children as the World Health Organization and others have told us, is childhood itself.

Every act of violence against a child is horrific, but not understanding the unique violation of child sexual abuse, especially in the family, is like not having basic instincts. It’s as intrinsic as understanding you have to breathe to live.

And so, in 1999, the year World Campaign was launched, the British actor and director, Tim Roth, created the film, The War Zone, about father-daughter incest. It’s as grueling as it gets.

In the post before last, we pointed out, as we have again and again for years, that the worst blight on humanity, child sexual abuse, is getting worse exponentially because of the internet. Abuse incidents doubling every year, now doubtless in the hundreds of millions of digital crime scenes of actual abuse, starting more and more with babies, because the tech world puts profit over even a modicum of conscience, except as pushed to some extent by activists in the usual branding needs for public appearance, because governments have not done their job in policy, and because all of us, with rare exception, are enmeshed in enabling and avoidance to various degrees, even those who have convinced themselves otherwise.

But before the internet ever existed, child sexual abuse was rampant, with the single largest part of it perpetrated by parents against their children.

It goes on.

The human race might as well be called the species of incestuous child sexual abusers and their enablers.

Here’s the landmark article we posted ten years ago:

America Has An Incest Problem, By Mia Fontaine, January 24, 2013

People are rightly horrified by abuse scandals at Penn State and in the Catholic church. But what about children who are molested by their own family members?

Last year offered plenty of moments to have a sustained national conversation about child sexual abuse: the Jerry Sandusky verdict, the BBC’s Jimmy Savile, Horace Mann’s faculty members, and a slew of slightly less-publicized incidents. President Barack Obama missed the opportunity to put this issue on his second-term agenda in his inaugural speech.

Child sexual abuse impacts more Americans annually than cancer, AIDS, gun violence, LGBTQ inequality, and the mortgage crisis combined—subjects that Obama did cover.

Had he mentioned this issue, he would have been the first president to acknowledge the abuse that occurs in the institution that predates all others: the family. Incest was the first form of institutional abuse, and it remains by far the most widespread.

Here are some statistics that should be familiar to us all, but aren’t, either because they’re too mind-boggling to be absorbed easily, or because they’re not publicized enough. One in three-to-four girls, and one in five-to-seven boys, are sexually abused before they turn 18, an overwhelming incidence of which happens within the family. These statistics are well known among industry professionals, who are often quick to add, “and this is a notoriously underreported crime.”

Incest is a subject that makes people recoil. The word alone causes many to squirm, and it’s telling that of all of the individual and groups of perpetrators who’ve made national headlines to date, virtually none have been related to their victims. They’ve been trusted or fatherly figures (some in a more literal sense than others) from institutions close to home, but not actual fathers, step-fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers, or cousins (or mothers and female relatives, for that matter). While all abuse is traumatizing, people outside of a child’s home and family—the Sanduskys, the teachers and the priests—account for far fewer cases of child sexual abuse.

To answer the questions always following such scandals—why did the victims remain silent for so long, how and why were the offending adults protected, why weren’t the police involved, how could a whole community be in such denial?—one need only realize that these institutions are mirroring the long-established patterns and responses to sexual abuse within the family. Which are: Deal with it internally instead of seeking legal justice and protection; keep kids quiet while adults remain protected and free to abuse again.

Intentionally or not, children are protecting adults, many for their entire lives. Millions of Americans, of both sexes, choke down food at family dinners, year after year, while seated at the same table as the people who violated them. Mothers and other family members are often complicit, grown-ups playing pretend because they’re more invested in the preservation of the family (and, often, the family’s finances) than the psychological, emotional, and physical well-being of the abused.

So why is incest still relegated to the hushed, shadowy outskirts of public and personal discussion, particularly given how few subjects today remain too controversial or taboo to discuss? Perhaps it’s because however devastating sexual molestation by a trusted figure is, it’s still more palatable than the thought of being raped by one’s own flesh and blood. Or is it?

Consider how the clergy abuse shook Catholics to their core, causing internal division and international disenchantment with a religion that was once the bedrock of entire nations. Consider the fallout from Sandusky’s actions and Penn State’s cover-up, both for students and football. Consider how distressing it is for Brits to now come to terms with the fact that the man they watched every night on TV in their living rooms was routinely raping kids just before going on air.

Given the prevalence of incest, and that the family is the basic unit upon which society rests, imagine what would happen if every kid currently being abused—and every adult who was abused but stayed silent—came out of the woodwork, insisted on justice, and saw that justice meted out. The very fabric of society would be torn. Everyone would be affected, personally and professionally, as family members, friends, colleagues, and public officials suddenly found themselves on trial, removed from their homes, in jail, on probation, or unable to live and work in proximity to children; society would be fundamentally changed, certainly halted for a time, on federal, state, local, and family levels. Consciously and unconsciously, collectively and individually, accepting and dealing with the full depth and scope of incest is not something society is prepared to do.

In fact society has already unraveled; the general public just hasn’t realized it yet. Ninety-five percent of teen prostitutes and at least one-third of female prisoners were abused as kids. Sexually abused youth are twice as likely to be arrested for a violent offense as adults, are at twice the risk for lifelong mental-health issues, and are twice as likely to attempt or die from teen suicide. The list goes on. Incest is the single biggest commonality between drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, teenage and adult prostitution, criminal activity, and eating disorders. Abused youths don’t go quietly into the night. They grow up—and 18 isn’t a restart button.

How can the United States possibly realize its full potential when close to a third of the population has experienced psychic and/or physical trauma during the years they’re developing neurologically and emotionally—forming their very identity, beliefs, and social patterns? Incest is a national nightmare, yet it doesn’t have people outraged, horrified, and mobilized as they were following Katrina, Columbine, or 9/11.

A combination of willed ignorance, unconscious fears, and naïveté have resulted in our failure to acknowledge this situation’s full scope, but we can only claim ignorance for so long. Please reread the statistics in this post, share them with people you know, and realize that each and every one of us needs to pressure the government, schools, and other systems to prioritize this issue. Let’s make this the last inaugural address in which incest and child sexual abuse are omitted, because the way things are now, adults are living in a fantasy land while children are forced to slay the real-life demons.

Mia Fontaine is the author of Come Back and Have Mother, Will Travel. She has written for The New York Times and Ms. magazine.

. . .

We begin in-following up on this historic piece by putting some stereotypes and facts into perspective for further focus and analysis to come.

First, far more than twice as many mothers abuse their children as fathers. This is an aggregate of all abuse, physical, sexual, emotional, neglect and failure to protect.

This is based on State submissions to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) of alleged child abuse and neglect. NCANDS collects case level data on children who received child protective services response in the form of an investigative or alternative response. Each state has its own definition of child abuse and neglect based on standards set by federal law. Child abuse is defined as any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk or serious harm.

There are countless other credible sources on this. And it’s always the same outcome.

The why of this is another chapter. Gender is an issue in many ways, but not the issue. Not to the abused child. And the child is the center of everything or we are worse than nothing. People who say that animals are far better than we humans have a point.

Further, emotional stereotypes about gender are in and of themselves insidiously sexist, among other things. As we have said often, men characterizing women as the weaker sex is at the rotten core of the lie of sexism. This patriarichal mythology has been proven untrue countless times–more and more all the time.

When it comes to sexual abuse alone, It appears more fathers sexually abuse than mothers based on some historical studies, However, many are victimized by mothers as well, and too often by both parents. A 2021 study reported in ScienceDirect found that within the group of female perpetrators, biological mothers accounted for a larger share than biological fathers in the group of male perpetrators. 

The stereotype of adult men being more violent with adult women than the other way around may seem true to a point–although the studies keep being updated. The larger, stronger person (often male, but also female), may inflict more injury, but the potential equalizers are obvious. The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge, a research database covering 1700 peer-reviewed studies, the largest of its kind, found a decade ago that Rates of female-perpetrated violence are higher than male-perpetrated (28.3% vs. 21.6%). Violence by men against men, women against women, and other gender identities interacting add another dimension. Men also appear to be less likely to report, just as when they are sexually abused (which almost doubtless brings the number of boys sexually abused considerably closer to the number of girls), because of the toxic roles the culture teaches them they are supposed to embody. And of course women and girls are very hesitant to report as well, for all the reasons outlined so well in the Atlantic article

One of the most critical aspects of the one-dimensional stereotypes about this kind of interpersonal violence itself is that the one-dimensional aspect of viewing it guarantees perpetuating it.

How many adults related to the above of all genders and identities were sexually abused as children for instance? An outsized cohort. And how many of these suffer not only from PTSD almost by definition, but often more serious issues such as dissociative disorders, borderline personality and other disorders associated with many ways of acting out, including rage, projection, manic intellectual and emotional epiphanies, depression, anxiety and various destructive actions removed from reality while seen and experienced as profound insights into reality? Again, an outsized cohort. So while some behaviors are wrong and always need to be acknowledged as such, how much of this should realistically and compassionately be understood as acting out from the abuse perpetrated on those abused as children? And responded to with treatment and as part of a process of recovery?

. . .

We follow-up for now with excerpts from a post soon after the above Atlantic article ran ten years ago:

3.17.14:

When it comes to the sexual abuse and exploitation of children–murder of the soul as so many victims and advocates have described it–as noted before, there is no issue that impacts so many children (and adults), qualitatively and quantitatively. Hundreds of millions of children. Probably two billion adult survivors or more.

And what is the primary institution in which this occurs? The family.

The construct of this abuse runs from the family through all institutions–churches, schools, athletics, doctors, police, prosecutors, judges, every kind of institution–which are often filled with perpetrators, but like the family, are mostly filled with deniers, colluders and enablers. Too often, victims also become victimizers, sometimes even after years of being saved from child rape and successfully moving in a positive direction, which greatly improves the odds, but greatly increases the danger if there’s a turnabout. Perpetration is enabled by denial or conscious colluders, who, just as the perpetrators, often also act as conning functional sociopaths with tools ranging from the most charming to the most vicious as perceived self-interest instructs in varying circumstances.

The cross-generational nature of child sex abuse is well-known. Some get out and change–others don’t.

A few weeks ago, a major study reported in The New York Times demonstrated the toxicity of any contact by the abused child all the way through adulthood with parents who abused them. Even short-term contact to care for a dying parent who had abused them as a child (abusive biological mothers emerged from the study as the more likely contact) dramatically increased the incidence and severity of depression. Worse, contact increased the risk that the abused child, now adult, would abuse children. The article reported that those who refused contact and were relieved at the passing of the parent who had abused them as a child were at reduced risk for depression and offending themselves.

This is in no way contradictory to the concept of spiritual forgiveness–to the contrary. Whereas, as Mia Fontaine alludes to in The Atlantic, forgiveness as an emotional construct, represented as a one-dimensional religious or cultural ethos in conformity with trained behavior imprinted on the victim from the outset, is a primary manipulative tool used by perpetrators and incestuous systems to keep victims (consciously or unconsciously) in or bring them back to the system, and to perpetuate it. Sexual abuse of a child is more enslaving than anything when it is perpetrated by parents or other family members, with maximum damage done as with all developmental issues in the first most critical years between birth through five–which unfathomably is often when it begins.

. . .

We conclude for now with one quote:

As one expert told us for a confidential report the same year The Atlantic article came out: “In incestuous families and systems, you’re either in or you’re out. There’s no in between.”

Much more to come.