Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo

There are peo­ple who be­lieve that in­cest isn't all that bad, es­pe­cial­ly when it's be­tween two con­sent­ing adults who aren't hav­ing chil­dren. Some peo­ple are able to jus­ti­fy their ac­tions with the think­ing that no one is hurt by in­cest if we con­trol pro­cre­ation.

"The law has some­thing to say about that," says list­verse.com, which cit­ed the 2010 case of Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor David Ep­stein and his 24-year-old daugh­ter.

In 2010, 46-year-old Prof Es­ptein "was charged with one count of third-de­gree in­cest af­ter be­ing ac­cused of hav­ing con­sen­su­al sex with his daugh­ter. The daugh­ter faced no charges be­cause, in the eyes of the law, chil­dren are con­sid­ered a 'pro­tect­ed class,' even when they're above the age of con­sent.

"The the­o­ry is that the pow­er dy­nam­ic be­tween a par­ent and a child makes con­sent im­pos­si­ble to ne­go­ti­ate. Even when in­cest oc­curs be­tween sib­lings, the el­der of the two is usu­al­ly held to a high­er de­gree of ac­count­abil­i­ty (list­verse.com /2014/05/22/10-in­cen­di­ary-facts-about-in­cest).

I have not as yet en­coun­tered any­one who thinks in­cest is a good thing or, at least, that it's not a bad thing. Or, if I have met one of them (and I may have un­know­ing­ly–that's the in­sid­i­ous­ness of the crime) they have not as yet con­front­ed me with that idea. I am in­stead, en­cour­aged by those who took time out to write me on the sub­ject. The num­ber of re­spon­ders are low­er, not sur­pris­ing­ly, be­cause I as­sume most peo­ple wish we could get over this sub­ject area quick­ly. But when the cler­gy/pas­tors con­tribute, I'm heart­ened.

The truth is there is no "get­ting over" in­cest or get­ting past talk­ing about it. Not when every day adults vi­o­late the trust of their charges, while oth­er adults and sib­lings stand by with com­plic­i­ty. Not when our so­cial struc­ture is falling apart and our most vis­i­ble in­ter­ven­tion would be he­li­copters hov­er­ing as a "mea­sure" to bring calm to of­fend­ing East sec­ondary stu­dents, while the ed­u­ca­tion min­istry floun­ders on suit­able me­di­a­tion.

If we were to get the in­for­ma­tion, we may well find amid the rea­sons that our chil­dren are act­ing out is in­ces­tu­ous trau­ma and ear­ly life and/or con­tin­u­ing mo­lesta­tion, among our boys and girls. But I get a feel­ing we're afraid to find the caus­es and meet our charges with cru­cial in­ter­ven­tions be­fore rel­e­gat­ing them and their stum­bling par­ents, who them­selves have nev­er had an in­ter­ven­tion, to Mon­sters Inc.

"Sex­u­al abuse, es­pe­cial­ly in­cest, is a cringe-wor­thy sub­ject in T&T... and is a vi­o­la­tion of which lit­tle is said even though we know and sus­pect that peo­ple with­in a child's home/fam­i­ly ac­count for more cas­es of child­hood sex­u­al trau­ma."

When I wrote that sen­tence re­cent­ly, com­ment­ing on young women who bore their fa­ther's child, I was think­ing of sit­u­a­tions where the of­fend­ing par­ent, (step­par­ent, un­cle, grand­fa­ther, sib­ling) de­nies the crime and a child is borne.

What hap­pens to the ba­by's iden­ti­ty? How does such a child func­tion if the ev­i­dence of their be­gin­nings is placed be­fore them? What does a child do when his/her fa­ther is al­so his/her grand­fa­ther?

Some fam­i­lies are known to have used abor­tion as a mech­a­nism to treat with the vis­i­bil­i­ty of the dirty lit­tle se­cret in their homes that a preg­nan­cy brings. But what about the ad­di­tion­al psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma your daugh­ter or son is made to bear mum­my? Dad­dy?

Yet, these sce­nar­ios deal on­ly with the com­pound­ed is­sue of bear­ing a child from an in­ces­tu­ous re­la­tion­ship. For the most part, psy­chi­a­trist treat those who suf­fered the vi­o­la­tion with­out the "vis­i­ble" ev­i­dence.

The brute-beast ug­li­ness of these sce­nar­ios may ac­count for why in­cest is still low­ered to the "hushed, shad­owy out­skirts of pub­lic and per­son­al dis­cus­sion" in a world that is able to be ac­cept­ing and open­ly ad­vo­cate for les­bian, gay, bi­sex­u­al, trans and queer among us; a world where very few is­sues re­main "too con­tro­ver­sial or taboo to dis­cuss."

It must be the cur­dling that comes with the idea that a child is be­ing raped by his/her own par­ent/rel­a­tive, that his/her own flesh and blood is de­stroy­ing their psy­che, blunt­ly pierc­ing their in­no­cence with ir­repara­ble cru­el­ty, that shames us in­to si­lence, a si­lence which con­tin­ues to con­demn us and dis­rupt the "hap­py" lie with var­ied ex­hi­bi­tions of vi­o­lence and crime that we can­not ex­plain or con­tain.

Ken Eisold, PhD, in his ar­ti­cle, What's wrong with in­cest, says, "Chil­dren need to be pro­tect­ed from sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion by par­ents (adults, sib­lings), be­cause it is all too easy for them to be abused. And we know all too well the life-long dam­ag­ing ef­fects on chil­dren who are ex­ploit­ed by those on whom they are de­pen­dent. Their ca­pac­i­ty to trust oth­ers is im­paired if not de­stroyed," (www.keneisold.com/2010/12/is-in­cest-wrong/).

"So we need laws and cus­toms and taboos, what­ev­er it takes, to pre­serve the trust that chil­dren need to have in their care­givers. That trust is not on­ly the ba­sis for their fu­ture re­la­tion­ships with oth­ers. It's the ba­sis for the con­fi­dence they need to be re­spon­si­ble adults and cit­i­zens," says Eisold.