Jack Benjamin - The Paths Of Incest

Her mother made good tips and wages, while her father was a jack-of-all-trades who worked on a hit-and-miss basis and who spent his off hours in boozing. All the sex education Edith ever got was in the form of threats from both parents.

"You get yourself pregnant, you don't come running home to us," her mother liked to repeat. "Save it for the guy you hook," was a favorite saying of her father's.

When she was thirteen, Edith allowed a boy to have sexual intercourse. Green as they both were, it was a frightening experience for both, and an unsatisfactory one for Edith, as far as any pleasure or climax went. She spent weeks worrying whether or not she would become pregnant, envisioning herself as a suicide if she should rather than face the wrath of her parents.

On five occasions, Edith saw her mother in a parked car, almost in front of their shabby home, having intercourse with another man. She came to hate her mother with a venom. She viewed her mother as sanctimonious-warning her about "giving it away" while she was committing adultery almost under her father's nose. Not that she thought too highly of her drunken father; but, at least, to Edith's knowledge, he wasn't a sexual cheat.

She came to a hypno-therapist at age 18, after serving six months in a detention home for juveniles. She was sincere and seemingly wanted to be helped out of the sexual rut into which she had fallen. Her crime had been prostitution. A kindly judge had, upon her second arrest for prostitution, agreed to grant her probation on condition that she seek medical and psychiatric help, after he had heard part of her sordid story.

In her own words, transcribed from taped hypnotherapy sessions, is Edith's story.

I hated my mother. I guess I always hated her. I'd go to the homes of other girls and see how kind and sweet and understanding their mothers were, and I grew to hate my mother. Almost as if she weren't even my mother. I even asked my father one time, if I was adopted-I just couldn't see how I could have come from that person.

I thought I might as well play the same game. I started dating when I was fifteen. I don't know if I was what you'd call sexy, but I didn't try to stop any boy who tried to go all the way. It didn't do much for me, either way. I don't think I ever had an orgasm. I always made the guy use a rubber, so I didn't have that to worry about. I'm not a beauty, but I've got a nice body and I dance good.

I started drinking when I was 17. I liked it. All at once, I discovered what booze did for my father-it made the world fade into the background, or look halfway livable. I started going with older fellows-25 or so, and they always wanted to make out.

I got high this one night, and when the guy I was with tried to do it in the car, I got mad. I wanted to, all right, but I was sick and tired of running and hiding about it. My father was out and my mother was still working, so I took the guy inside. We got right down to cases on the front room couch.

We didn't hear anything, I guess, because the first thing we knew, the light snapped on and there was my mother, looking like she was going to have a heart attack. The guy jumped off me and ran-didn't even bother to put his pants back on.

It would have been funny, except for my mother. She grabbed the first thing that was handy-the belt of the guy who had just ran out-and began to beat the living hell out of me. I tried to cover up, but she cut my breasts and stomach; then when I rolled over and balled up, she laid my back and butt wide open. She was out of her mind-I think because she saw for the first time, what she was encouraging by her own slutty actions. Next thing I knew, my father came in. He stood there, looking at me, stark naked, welts and blood all over me-crying my heart out. It wasn't shame-it was plain, hellish pain.

He stepped up and snatched the belt from my mother. Then he hit her across the mouth and knocked her down. He kept on hitting her until she crawled out of the house. Then he did a funny thing. He was crying, and he came over to where I was lying on the couch, watching the battle-or beating, I guess you'd call it-and he began kissing the welts on my breasts, then on my stomach. Finally, he rolled me over and gently kissed every spot on my back and my butt, where my mother had hit me.

He picked me up and carried me into the bedroom. He began to apologize-not for her-but for himself. He kept calling me "my baby," and kissing my breasts and gradually working down over my stomach until he was kissing me between the legs, his tongue in my cunt.

Believe it or not, it was the first time a man had been gentle with me. I could feel myself getting hot. I wanted him to keep on kissing me, and I let him know it. I grabbed his head and held his mouth to my cunt, and I think that when I came that time, it was the first real orgasm I had ever had. By then, he wouldn't stop. He kept on, and meantime, he was kneading and clawing my breasts and my buttocks, driving me right back into that insane desire for an orgasm.

That night, I slept in his bed and we had sex all the way. It was the same with him-gentle but good. He was like a young man with a bride. He used his dick like an instrument of pleasure. . My mother came back only to pack her few clothes. She moved in with some dishwasher she'd been passing it out to, I guess. We never saw her again-ever.

For two months, I couldn't get enough sex with my pop, and he was the same. He taught me how to perform fellatio, and when he put his tongue in my cunt and inside my ass-hole, it only made me want more of him inside me. He missed a lot of work and I quit school. I never did good nor did I like school. Then, he had a heart attack.

I had to get help and then go to work. He was told to take it completely easy for six months. I went to work as a waitress. I didn't know anything else, since I'd been a flop in school. I didn't mind, on good days. But when I wouldn't make much, he seemed so forlorn-so sorry that he was a burden. I'd try to soothe him with sex-but he was more apologetic than ever, because he couldn't give me the wild finishes that he'd used to be able to.

He had a second attack and had to go to the hospital. He didn't have any medical insurance. All he had was what I made. When they gave me the bill after the first week, and called me into the office to ask about payment, I got desperate.

I worked for an old guy-not as old as my father, but not much younger. He'd played grabass and "feel day" with me at work, and I knew he was hot for me. I just came right out and told him-fifty bucks and he has me all night. He went for it. Then he propositions me about taking on a couple of his buddies. I did. That's when the cops got into the act. The one guy stays all night, then gives me ten and says he owes me the other forty. I raised hell. I guess I was pretty drunk, too. I chased him out into the street and somebody called the cops. When they got there, he claimed I had picked him up on the street and propositioned him. While I was serving six months, my old man died.

When I came out, I was stupid enough to go right back and ask my old boss for a job. He gave it to me-on condition that he slept with me at least twice a week-for free. I thought "to hell with that noise, Jack," and just went out on the street. That's when the judge sent me here.

The hatred she had formed for her mother also tended to throw Edith farther to the side of male attention and tenderness. In later hypnotic sessions, Edith grudgingly faced the fact that when she committed incest with her father, she was "getting even" and punishing her mother, for her own lack of affection toward her daughter.

Girls-and often, boys, who are deprived of real love and understanding in their formative years, seeing their parents come together for only one purpose-sexual gratification-almost automatically equate love with the sex act. This is what happened to Edith, for the greater part. As she matured, she realized that sex cannot be love, although it can be an important part of the fulfillment of love.