Claire Adrian - Incest, A Way Of Life

As was indicated by the Illinois State Study, the father initiated the incest at a period of life when his usefulness to industry had declined, when his wife's attraction had declined, when extrafamilial women were less accessible, and when his daughters had become biologically mature.

The daughters averaged 15.3 years of age. Carney Landis (in "Psychosexual Immaturity," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 35, pp. 449-52) has characterized the girl, 15 to 17 years of age in our culture, as one who has gone out with boys fairly frequently, but has not had complete sex experience. She is till tied to her family emotionally; her sex information is adequate, but she still feels constrained in discussing such matters with her family, is definitely interested in boys and in sex.

Very obviously it is not a normal person who commits incest, or even entertains thoughts of such a perverted nature. In most people the bond between parent and child is usually strong enough to prevent the idea from even occurring to the adult; yet it is not uncommon for the desire to exist. Which leaves the big question of-why?

Sigmund Freud's theory was that incest is a regression to childhood fantasies, to a childhood level of sexuality. Freud contended that it is possible that all of us were destined to direct our first sexual impulses toward our mothers and our first impulses of hatred and violence toward our fathers. Our dreams prove it, according to Freud. However, he continues, we usually withdraw our sexual impulses from our mothers and forget all about our jealousies of our fathers. In short, we develop-a moral set of values and learn the difference between right and wrong. But sometimes these values become short-circuited, and that's when a grown man regresses to an infantile level. Then, perhaps, other things being equal, we have incest.

Walter Bromberg writes (Crime and the Mind) that the influences regarding incest "are chiefly cultural and sociological, identified with primitive family organization; the father occupying the position of patriarch. Incest offenders do not have the neurotic reflections of other sexual criminals; responses are less clouded by evasion and complete denial. They seem to consider incest as essentially normal, not so reprehensible as perverted sexuality but a mature form of heterosexuality."

Other psychiatrists have other opinions. Doctor J.L. McCarey (Human Sexuality) says that "many psychotherapists believe that the effects of actual incest involving a child are not so disastrous as are the effects of a parent's seductive behavior toward a child that never culminates in any manifest sexual activity. One theory is that the problem of unconscious incestuous desire may well underline all cases of neuroses and psychoses, and that actual incest will not have such a deleterious effect upon the child since parental approval of the behavior is implicit. There will therefore be little residual guilt on the part of the child, except later, perhaps, when he grows older and reads and listens to the opinions of others on the matter of incest."

Current theory has it that incest is the direct result of a long series of personal experiences and attitudes, both of which are affected by extreme endogamic orientation, indiscriminate promiscuity and, sometimes on the part of the male, an intense sexual craving for young children. Here again we see how pedophilia (or "statutory s rape") is intricately related to and interwoven with incest. Psychiatrists utilize these various attitudes for classifying male incest participants into different personality types, which is a useful guide in the study of incest.

1. The endogamic orientation, i.e., marriage within a specific social group, composed of those who tend to have an ingrown, self-turned type of personality.

2. The pedophile orientation characterizes those who are socially immature and retarded psychosexually.

3. Those men, and women, too-in this category- who are promiscuous and have a tendency to be psychopathic.

Condensed, this means that the parent who seduces a child is a parent who has two unique problems; he or she desires sexual activity-a change of partners-outside of marriage but not outside the home, and he or she is afraid to make these demands outside the home, or lacks either the technique or the opportunity, or both.

The male with the "ingrown" type of personality who uses a daughter or a sister for the incest object does so because he does not crave nor cultivate social contacts with women outside the family.

Ernest Jones (Hamlet and Oedipus) uses the Oedipus complex to explain the father's sexual advances to the daughter, an explanation that is complex, to say the least. According to Dr. Jones, the father, who as a child could not have sexual relations with his mother, has intercourse with his daughter because she symbolically represents a mother substitute. Also, according to Jones, the man who displays an abnormally strong affection for his daughter (even though incest may not be involved) has a strong infantile fixation (on the unconscious level) for his mother. (Note: This does not mean that every father who is overly fond of his daughter wants to commit incest with her, even on an unconscious level.)

Jung, the world famous psychiatrist, maintained years ago that when a husband lacks a basic working relationship with his wife, he unconsciously seeks another love object Furthermore, if the man is unaware of his search and/or represses his fantasies, then his libido more or less splits, regressing to the memory image of his mother and at the same time seeking the image of his daughter. Jung called this "unconscious incest."

But more is required to produce the "teenage incestuous syndrome," by which we mean a teenage boy or girl who deliberately seduces a parent or other relative.

Why would a teenage girl want to have sexual intercourse with her own father? Why would a teenage boy desire sexual intercourse with his very own mother, or his sister? Or, perhaps a nephew with his aunt?

There are numerous reasons. For the time being, let us clear the air of the fog of confusion that surrounds adolescent sex desire and about which a lot of nonsense has been written-the majority of which insists that children are supposed to work off their sexual curiositites by studying, sports activities, and various hobbies. Intelligent people realize this is sheer nonsense. And, naturally, children are to be protected against the "sins" of petting and premarital intercourse. This unrealistic attitude does nothing but cause guilt and utter confusion, contributing to frigidity in women, as well as to divorce, alcoholism, and a whole host of other social ills, including pedophilia and/or incest. The fact is that no amount of work and play is going to remove sexual curiosity in children, not without causing some psychic scarring. Nor can we ignore the fact that boys reach their sexual peak just after adolescence. As for girls?

In any case involving sex between a teenage girl and an adult male, it is usually the man who must take the blame. This is the image held by the public. The child (?) is always "innocent" and the male considered the "dirty old man." But the professionals, the sexologists and the psychiatrists, often see quite a different kind of picture. They know it is usually the girl who provokes her own seduction.

In the words of one of the early developers of the psychodrama concept of therapy: "A girl can be very aggressive when she is bent upon sex. Teenage girls- and even younger girls-know that they are the subject of desire of most men, sometimes the particular subject of a particular man with a particular desire: and it's not unusual for a girl to be charmed with this "power* that is hers by the mere fact of her womanhood. All too often, she is tempted to test this power she has, this 'greater power' of young womanhood. Being naturally curious about sex-even anxious for an experience with it-an early teenaged girl is not beyond provoking and teasing a man till he takes her. She can be a very efficient seductress… "