Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo

In a Fam­i­ly Feud episode, Steve Har­vey posed the ques­tion, "We asked 100 peo­ple, 'When you were grow­ing up, tell me, where did you prac­tise to kiss'?" The ea­ger con­tes­tant slapped the buzzer and shout­ed "My sis­ter", then im­me­di­ate­ly cov­ered his mouth. Host Har­vey looked dis­mayed, but to his cred­it he can use hu­mour to dif­fuse any sit­u­a­tion, and he did.

Among the an­swers was "Sib­ling" giv­en by 15 peo­ple.

I'm cer­tain that some can at­test to a sit­u­a­tion from their child­hood that may con­sti­tute a sex­u­al ex­change with a sib­ling or rel­a­tive. Such in­ci­dents may not even raise an eye­brow be­cause of the in­no­cence in which they were com­mit­ted. Or maybe they would, as ma­ture peo­ple be­gin to mea­sure them as awk­ward, il­le­gal and in­ap­pro­pri­ate.

I re­mem­ber, from ear­ly child­hood, my moth­er drag­ging me out a crude­ly built "tent" and giv­ing me a sound cut tail for play­ing house. It took a while be­fore I re­alised why she re­act­ed so strong­ly to my cousins–boys and girls my age, who had in­vit­ed me to play.

It was con­fus­ing be­cause I'd nev­er played house be­fore and didn't think any­thing of play­ing house in hid­ing. I laugh every time I re­call my in­no­cence at the time of this in­ci­dent in Tantie Mable's yard. This "kiss­ing prac­tice" among chil­dren/sib­lings was/is re­al though, I came to un­der­stand lat­er.

I re­call one ac­count be­tween sib­lings that was deemed guilt­less un­til much lat­er in life. Then one sib­ling be­gan to view the child­hood "in­no­cent" kiss­ing and touch­ing as a vi­o­la­tion and went on to pub­licly ac­cuse the oth­er of mo­lesta­tion.

That's how alarm­ing­ly thin the line is be­tween child­hood ex­per­i­ment­ing and crim­i­nal­i­ty. Since it's as adults we be­gin to make sense of our emo­tions and of what may have con­sti­tut­ed a child­hood in­frac­tion, most of the guilt is ret­ro­spec­tive. It comes when we're all grown up with ca­reers, fam­i­lies, and re­spectabil­i­ty.

And, can you imag­ine the new wave of trau­ma caused with­in a fam­i­ly faced with such ac­cu­sa­tions? The em­bar­rass­ment to all?

Fam­i­ly mem­bers be­gin to take sides and lines of al­le­giances are drawn, as each sib­ling presents their po­si­tion–one hold­ing to the in­no­cence of the mo­ment, the oth­er scream­ing "in­frac­tion." And the in­jury is sure to be in­deli­bly set with­in the cir­cles of fam­i­ly, rel­a­tives, friends, and com­mu­ni­ty in­to which both lives are now in­ter­twined.

Then think how of­ten those is­sues of shame and em­bar­rass­ment be­come so large we for­get that the per­son com­plain­ing is him­self/her­self bear­ing great suf­fer­ing, al­so. That per­son is at times os­tracised de­pend­ing on what peo­ple per­ceive as mo­tive and al­so de­pend­ing on the re­la­tion­al sta­tus, re­spect, and stature that the ac­cuser or the ac­cused holds with­in the fam­i­ly.

"Few sub­jects in psy­chi­a­try elic­it more pro­found, vis­cer­al, and po­larised re­ac­tions than in­cest–the oc­cur­rence of sex­u­al be­hav­iours be­tween close­ly re­lat­ed in­di­vid­u­als–be­hav­iours that vi­o­late so­ci­ety's most sa­cred and guard­ed taboos," says Richard P Kluft, MD, PhD, in the Psy­chi­atric Times.

"Fur­ther­more," Kluft says, "few cir­cum­stances con­front the psy­chi­a­trist with more com­plex, painful, and po­ten­tial­ly prob­lem­at­ic clin­i­cal dilem­mas and chal­lenges than the treat­ment of the in­cest vic­tim and/or the man­age­ment of sit­u­a­tions in which in­cest has been sus­pect­ed or al­leged by one mem­ber of a fam­i­ly, and de­nied, of­ten with both pain and out­rage, by the ac­cused and/or oth­er mem­bers of that fam­i­ly."

The close re­la­tion­ship be­tween per­pe­tra­tor and vic­tim com­pli­cates the trau­ma of the in­ces­tu­ous act or acts with both re­la­tion­al trau­ma and be­tray­al trau­ma.

Re­la­tion­al trau­ma leads to "sig­nif­i­cant loss of trust in oth­ers and in­creased anger, hurt, and con­fu­sion about their fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships, changes in be­liefs about the safe­ty of close re­la­tion­ships in gen­er­al, and neg­a­tive views of the self in re­la­tion to oth­ers."

While be­tray­al trau­ma "en­com­pass­es the unique hurt as­so­ci­at­ed with vi­o­la­tion by those who have a ba­sic oblig­a­tion and du­ty to pro­tect and nur­ture and ex­tends to those who refuse to be­lieve or help the vic­tim, adding to the vic­tim's trau­ma­ti­sa­tion. The threat to at­tach­ment needs is so pro­found that the vic­tim may be im­pelled to dis­avow the be­tray­al that he or she has ex­pe­ri­enced (www.psy­chi­atric­times.com/sex­u­al-of­fens­es/ram­i­fi­ca­tions-in­cest).

If T&T were to open up about in­cest or even be­gin a heal­ing pro­gramme, many peo­ple we hold in high re­gard may be ex­posed. Many would be guilty of out­right sex­u­al crim­i­nal­i­ty. Many who may have ac­qui­esced to "child­hood cu­rios­i­ty" would find their be­hav­iour count­ed by their "coun­ter­parts" as rep­re­hen­si­ble sex­u­al acts es­pe­cial­ly where the lat­ter car­ries suf­fi­cient guilt, shame, hurt, and con­fu­sion from the act.

Mia Fontaine, in her ar­ti­cle, "Amer­i­ca has an in­cest prob­lem" (2013), posts, "Every­one would be af­fect­ed, per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly, as fam­i­ly mem­bers, friends, col­leagues, and pub­lic of­fi­cials sud­den­ly found them­selves on tri­al, re­moved from their homes, in jail, on pro­ba­tion, or un­able to live and work in prox­im­i­ty to chil­dren; so­ci­ety would be fun­da­men­tal­ly changed, ...

"Con­scious­ly and un­con­scious­ly, col­lec­tive­ly and in­di­vid­u­al­ly, ac­cept­ing and deal­ing with the full depth and scope of in­cest is not some­thing so­ci­ety is pre­pared to do."