Most of those already involved in the Incest Awareness Movement (IAM) know about the embodied nature of incest or intrafamilial sexual abuse (ICSA) due to our own lived experiences. All of us have been touched by the pains of incest abuse, either as survivors, as loved ones of survivors, as professionals passionate about child protection, as well as people who have victimized others and have chosen the path to transformation.
This topic can feel uncomfortable, unmanageable, disgusting, revolting, insulting, and whatever other words express the feelings that might be already arising in your bodies as you read these words. As Feather Berkower, MSW, the founder of Parenting Safe Children, boldly says:
“Let’s bear the burden of discomfort of the issue of child sexual abuse, so that children don’t have to.”
However, know that you are not experiencing these feelings alone and there are tools that can be engaged in individual and collective spaces to help settle and soothe the rhythms of grief and rage, confusion and despair that may be flowing through you. From deep breathing exercises to fidget devices, taking long breaks from the material to discussing it in community with friends, or listening to it while moving in whatever way you are able, these ideas and more can support your expansion as you learn and/or become an Anti-Incest Liberation Agent (AILA).
Learn more about the Incest Awareness Movement by becoming a free or paid subscriber on my Substack.
What is Incest or Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse (ICSA)?
Incest, also known as Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse (ICSA), is a form of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). It is the sexual abuse of a person by a family member: a primary caregiver including a stepparent or foster parent, in-laws, or a step/sibling or cousin. In addition, according to Heidi Vanderbilt,
“Incest offenders can be persons without a direct blood or legal relationship to the victim such as a parent's lover or live in nanny, housekeeper, etc. — as this abuse takes place within the confines of the family and the home environment."
Incest or Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse can be perpetrated by all genders of various ages. The types of incest are:
Elder Abuse
Adult-on-Adult Abuse
Adult-on-Child Abuse
Intrafamilial Sex Trafficking
Incest can include:
Exposure of privates
Invading body privacy
Sexually explicit photos
Groping, penetration, and sodomy
Pornography or Child Sexual Assault Material (CSAM)
Forcing children into sexual activity with other adults or children
How Common Is Incest or Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse?
Incest happens in families of all class, racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds.
1 in 10 children will experience child sexual abuse before 18.
Of reported cases of child sexual abuse, 34% were perpetrated by family members.
The younger the victim, the more likely it is that the abuser is a family member.
Sibling sexual abuse may be five times more common as parent-child abuse.
Nearly 50% of adult women with disabilities share that they were sexually abused as children, as opposed to 34% of non-disabled women. While 90% of whom had been abused by relatives or individuals they knew.
What Has Caused Incest or Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse?
From the beginning of human history across cultures, communities, countries, and continents, an imagination and infiltration of incest abuse have stained our stories within both myths and memories. The earliest instances of incest appeared within creation narratives, or the tales told to children to teach them about how the world came to be. Far too often rape occurred within divine families causing the first human child to be born. As these stories passed from generation to generation, so did the glorification of incest abuse as a generative act necessary for procreation.
In many societies, pure blood beliefs, social rituals, and political titles required family members to marry and procreate to keep the purity and power passed down within the family system. This normalized sexual relations and marriage between family members throughout history. Many anthropologists have completed in-depth studies of “The Incest Taboo,” which often asks the question why is consensual sex between family members so stigmatized? We are not here to ask nor answer that question.
It’s time that we draw a bolded line down the middle of consensual sex between family members in communities where this has been practiced regularly due to tradition or lack of other options, and incest or intrafamilial child sexual abuse (ICSA).
The lack of this boundary has caused and continues to cause confusion in language and practice that stalls the efficacy of the Incest Awareness Movement, while simultaneously strengthens pro-incest efforts. Like all other social movements of historically marginalized populations, we must begin by reclaiming our own history. This has been difficult as so many children who have disclosed are yet to be believed, survivors have been silenced, and time and time again social backlashes have caused any eruption of an Incest Awareness Movement to be pushed back underground. So, we will share what we have learned so far, as we continue our own process of uncovering the stories and resilience of our ancestors.
The history of the Incest Awareness Movement connects with other social and liberation movements like the American Indian Movement, slavery and prison abolition, civil rights, disability activism, intersectional feminism, and anti-sexual violence. It most directly relates to the Children's Rights and Responsibilities movement. The last wave of the anti-incest movement rose with the second wave of Feminism during the 1970s until the 1990s. During this time, authors like Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Dorothy Allison all disclosed their own stories of incest or intrafamilial child sexual abuse through literature and memoir. Then accounts of more survivors came to be represented in the works of Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. Finally, researchers like Dr. Judith Herman devoted a number of studies to the causes and consequences of ICSA, especially between fathers and daughters.
Today we need a new wave of anti-incest research to fill in the gap between the rush of work in the ‘70s-’90s to now. In the past fifty years, very little has been researched about ICSA, while survivors continue to flood self and traditional publication platforms with their stories. We invite the academic, medical, business, government, and non-profit sectors to partner with us so that together we can fill The Incest Gap.
What is the Incest or Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse Gap?
The Incest Gap is the lack of prevention, intervention, recovery, and justice methods to protect children from incest, support survivors in recovery, help families to heal, and end recidivism by people who harm.
Due to The Incest Gap, children are vulnerable to sexual violence in their home environments or family systems, the intervention process can be retraumatizing instead of healing, survivors and families are left isolated in their recovery, and people who harm remain free to reoffend.
Here are a number of reasons for The Incest Gap.
Prevention
Past and current prevention education models have placed the burden of disclosure on children, instead of the opportunity of protection on adults.
Prevention education has focused on parents as the primary audience and facilitators for prevention dissemination to children, neglecting families where incest is occurring.
Social assumptions and legal protections of the family system assume that parents are the safest people to be raising their children in a nuclear home environment, which can isolate children in harmful environments throughout their upbringing.
Sexual and social stigma, denial of the issue, and refusal to educate children on boundaries, bodies, and sexuality all restrict adequate language and open conversations about the topic.
Intervention
Most often, victims do not disclose due to grooming, shame, or lack of support.
If victims do disclose, more often than not, they are not believed, or they do so in their 50s.
Families often do not report abuse to authorities to protect each other.
When someone does report, the family is broken apart and/or the child removed.
The foster care system leaves children four times more likely to be sexually abused.
Historically, non-offending parents, especially mothers, have been held legally accountable for the abuse due to Fail to Protect Laws.
Recovery
Developmental trauma is an ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) that can lead to significant health challenges. However, there is no outpatient communication between physicians in a specialized medical system.
Medical treatment is unaffordable or inaccessible.
Medical treatment often isn’t trauma-informed or culturally affirming.
Rape crisis centers provide legal and short-term counseling, and rape test kits, when long-term care is needed.
Unlike in the human trafficking and intimate partner violence movements, no basic needs or transitional housing is provided to rape and incest survivors.
The specialization of US medicine doesn’t suit the numerous psychosomatic symptoms of CSA survivors.
Rape recovery models lack a focus on integration and chronic symptoms management.
The experience of incest forever shapes one’s worldview and life experience.
Justice
In 1000 reported rapes of all kinds, only 5 people are incarcerated.
Those who are incarcerated receive short-term sentences without transformational care.
Few community-based justice processes exist or are effective.
There is no justice process that ends recividism.
Many survivors pay out of pocket for civil lawsuits. Those without a guilty verdict in criminal or civil court receive no victim compensation.
Statute of limitations restrict reporting after memory retrieval.
An Invitation to Bridge The Incest Gap
Where there is a gap, there is also an opportunity. Together, Anti-Incest Liberation Agents (AILAs) who gather in the Incest AWARE Alliance are working tirelessly to fulfill our dreams of a society where our children are safe in all systems, but specifically within the family. Together, we can improve methods of incest prevention, intervention, recovery, and justice to keep kids safe in the first place, ensure survivors and families are supported through healing, as well as end recidivism by people who harm. Watch the video above for some ideas and connect with Jo. if you want to get involved in the work.
Review my services and reach out to learn more about how you or your organization can become Anti-Incest Liberation Agents (AILA).
Comments