Counseling Group

CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE & INCEST

by Patricia J. Vazquez, M.A., M.F.T.

WARNING:  The legal language used to define these terms may offend some who are not clinicians or of an educated mind about this subject.  If you would be offended by sexual references, please click here to move on.

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Definitions

Sexual abuse refers to rape, incest, sodomy (e.g. anal sex), lewd or lascivious acts - under the age of 14 (for example, adult exposing himself/herself or masturbating in front of a child), oral copulation penetration of a genital or anal opening by a foreign object including digital penetration child molestation (for example, fondling). permitting or employing minors to engage in obscene acts for commercial purposes, including prostitution, modeling or acting in pornography.

Incest is legally defined as sexual contact with a child by a member of the family, where if adults, the law would forbid their marriage.

Psychologically, incest is defined as the use of a child by any person serving in a caretaking capacity or in a position of authority over the child to meet their own sexual needs. Position of authority would mean parents, stepparents, grandparents, this also includes older siblings and any person who perceives themselves to be closely related to the child. This further includes adopted parents as well as same sex parents or caretakers. The sexual contact may include fondling, oral-genital sex, mutual masturbation or actual intercourse.

Statistics

• One in four families is affected by incest.
• 1 out of 4 women will be sexually abused before the age of 18; 80% of those women will be by incestuous abuse
• 50% of incestuous parents were victims of incest as children;
• 1/3 of all sexual abuse victims are male;
• The most common reported form of incest is violation by father/stepfather;
• 80% of individuals struggling with addiction problems report having been abused as children.

References

Healing the Incest Wound, Cristine A. Courtois

Voices of Incest, Pamplet

Trauma & Recovery, Judith Herman MD

Secret Survivors, Susan Blume

Betrayal of Innocence, Incest and Its Devastation, Dr. Susan Forward & Craig Buck

"Every Smack is a Humiliation" -- A Manifesto, by Alice Miller, M.D.

The Wounded Healer Journal

More Links

Andrew Vachss, Author of Everybody Pays and Choice of Evil, discusses his latest book in the "Burke" series Dead and Gone. Vachss also reviews his long career writing about the dark underside of American culture, the hypocrisy of "family values," and the failure of the criminal justice system. He also maintains just about the only "links" site you'll ever need to get into the Net's resources on these topics for insight, help and recovery.