Every few days I check out the search topics on the Home page of my website, www.thelamplighters.org, as well as my Google Analytics Summary to find out what most of them are in reference to. The biggest percentage of the time it is “incest sex”. That saddens me, not just because that was my issue but because it indicates how prevalent it is. So for those of you who have that as a subject matter you most want to find out about, I’m going to make a few comments.
First is the definition of incest. I may have written this before in one of my blogs but it bears repeating. As per my book REPAIR Your Life: Webster defines incest as “sexual intercourse between persons too closely related to marry legally.” It is a simple, almost clinical description that does not in any way imply trauma or abuse. The all-encompassing and often unspoken reality is much broader. Anyone in a position of power, who coerces a person of lesser power into any sort of boundary violation dealing with their sexuality, either emotionally, mentally, or physically, is a sexual abuse perpetrator. This includes a grandfather who pins his granddaughter down while he fondles her breasts; a father who insists on watching his daughter, against her wishes, while she bathes; an older brother who forces his sister to do oral sex; and any other such boundary violation from the most minor to actual forcible entry and rape. It does not have to be a family member to have the same resultant despair. That despair, whether by a family member or an outsider, can be a life sentence of pain.”
People think if we tell our children not to talk to strangers that will take care of the problem. Not so. And as to the suggestion that what we need to do is have our parents talk to us when we are small children about sexual abuse I vehemently shake my head. Ninety percent of child sexual abuse victims know the perpetrator in some way; 68% are abused by family members. These same parents may be the perpetrator. The public needs to be made aware of these statistics.
While all child sexual abuse is “cruel and unusual punishment”, incest has a sometimes forgotten additional affliction. At birth we have an automatic trust in those who care for us. We don’t know any better. We love our parents, grandparents, siblings, uncles and aunts until they do something cruel to us and sometimes even after that. Sexual abuse by a stranger, while painful in the extreme, does not carry the same heavy load as incest does with its insidious mind games, its treachery. The unspoken question, who can we trust if we can’t trust our own family, buries itself in our soul. As an additional eye opener, we know we have to obey family members who are in charge of us. If that very family member coerces us into doing something both shameful and painful the confusion, especially in the mind of someone very young, is relentless, often lasting the remainder of our lives.
An incest victim needs to heal not only from sexual abuse; but from betrayal. This betrayal colors all of our choices in life, impoverishes us from that which is essential to our existence, leaving footprints that last a lifetime. There is no place to hide from the pain. As we make our way through life we find our ability to trust is almost non- existent. Most of this is subliminal. If only it came out into the open we could fight it better. But like the lions and tigers and bears who hide under our bed we have no idea of the reality of what has happened and even less in how to repair the damage. Reporting abuse from a stranger, while difficult, sometimes impossible, is much easier than reporting abuse that a family member has done. This may not happen until we are far into our adulthood. During the ensuing years the shame of the incest incident multiplies, making it that much more difficult to heal from.
We MUST find a way to educate our children as early as possible in a public forum such as pre-school or kindergarten the rights that they have regarding their own body. A Child’s Bill of Rights is on the Home page of our website. All children must be made aware of them. He told me not to tell, a parents’ guide to talking to children about sexual assault is a booklet put out by King County Sexual Assault Resource Center in Renton, WA. If you call them at 425.226.5062 and request a copy they will mail you one free of charge. Take care of our children!!
