ily Affair"

the destructive feelings and behaviors she has been carrying.

Incest and the Culture

While the family is certainly of great importance in producing and maintaining incestuous behavior, one might ask why the vast majority of incest is committed by men. If it is just the dysfunctionality of an emotionally bankrupt system, why doesn't mother or aunt or grandmother act out her frustrations this way

I grew up in a strict Catholic home with seven brothers and sisters. My parents were blue collar workers who did their best to raise a large family. When I was about nine or ten years old my brothers began to molest me sexually. I lived in constant fear of them and tried desperately to avoid them. They called me a prostitute, so I didn't tell my parents out of fear they would blame me. Part of me felt very dirty, but another part believed that all brothers acted

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this way toward their sisters. I also believed that 1 was the only one in my family this was happening to. It was a completely helpless feeling.

I tried to get help from a priest at church because I was scared. He told me what I was doing was wrong and gave me penance for my sin. He left me feeling the whole thing was my fault and I felt worse than before.

Finally I stood up to my brothers, but they continued to taunt me sexually by grabbing me from behind and hiding in my bedroom to watch me change my clothes. Eventually the harassment stopped as I became a teenager.

Many things about my family embarrassed me. Our house was never clean because my mother had to work full-time. Our clothes were all hand-me-downs. I was always teased and ridiculed at school because of my family, especially my older brothers. I resented my parents because I had to assume many of the parenting roles while they worked. I had to do the cooking and cleaning, along with taking care of my younger brothers and sister.

My parents never listened to any of my feelings. My mother always accused me of being an hysteric, and my father felt God was punishing him because his children were not perfect Catholics. There was no encouragement to make anything of our lives. Education past high school was only for the wealthy, and if we were lucky we would find some nice Catholic boy or girl, settle down in some dead-end job, and have babies.

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At a very young age I questioned the rules and dogma of the Catholic Church. I knew my parents were miserable with each other but that they were trapped by the size of our family and their religious béliefs. Even though they fought and drank constantly, divorce was unthinkable.

I learned about feminism at an early age as well, although I didn't understand my feelings would be part of a movement. I never wanted to be in the same

· position as my mother and other women in the neighborhood. They were controlled by their husbands, society, and their religion. I knew I had to be different.

I left home when I was 18 to work as a live-in

too? (She does, of course, but so rarely it is obvious that there is a sexual difference here).

One therefore must look to the culture, which provides us with a number of answers. Consider the socialization of males and females with regard to affection and physical closeness-touching means sex to men, whereas women are taught to touch and hug and kiss without always carrying sexual implications. Consider too the rise of child pornography and the selling of the female child's body and innocence as the "ultimate sexuality". Finklehor labels this the "attraction gradient": one's sexual partner should be smaller and weaker, says male conditioning. What is smaller and weaker than a child? Finally, there is the traditional isolation of sexuality from the total rela-

housekeeper. I felt I had the world in my hands. I had a job, a new boyfriend, and freedom. I never thought about, the incest because I believed it was all in the past. I was pretty close to one of my older brothers. I could always depend on him in times of crisis.

When I was 21 I got married: The man was as immature as I was. The day of my wedding I knew my marriage wouldn't last, but he was all I had. Shortly after my first anniversary, my husband left me. I had 'never in my life felt so alone and betrayed. Within the next year I had affairs with men who drank and used drugs. I didn't think I deserved any better than that.

Eventually I met a man who was much older than I. He was also divorced and we became friends. I was not ready for any serious commitments.. We dated for two years; by then I loved him enough to try a live-in relationship. We soon ran into problems and 1 decided to see a psychologist at the Free Clinic. I needed to know why I could not make a relationship with a man last, and why it was so difficult for me to commit myself.

During my therapy I talked about my family and upbringing. I found myself getting very angry. 1 couldn't understand why until memories of the incest came back. I realized then that I had been carrying a lot of guilt around all my life. My counselor tried to make me realize that I was probably not the only victim in the family, but I was convinced I was bad and

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I was never a child, emotionally speaking. I was very reserved and introverted. People often commented that I acted and looked older than I was. My life seemed like a dream to me.

When I was five or six years old, my oldest brother decided to teach me a game-a game in which I would sexually satisfy him, although he did not use that term. When I finally understood what he was getting at, I got scared and started to cry. He took off his belt and beat me, so I complied. Afterwards he threatened to beat me and say it was my idea if I told my parents. After all, he was older and they would 1 believe him more readily.

A couple of days later my mother noticed the welts on my legs and asked me about them. I told her how they got there, but not why. She questioned my brother and he said he had beaten me for crossing the street (something I was forbidden to do). Not only did she believe him, but she reprimanded me. I remember being very upset and crying. I couldn't understand. Why did my older brother make me do those things to him? Why didn't my mother see how scared I was (mind you, in the eyes of a 6-year-old, the mother is supposed to "know all and see all"). The confusion of all these unanswered questions was too much for me to handle at the time.

I decided in order to survive I had to accept feeling helpless and repress it at the same time. I overachieved my goal to the extent that I repressed all my feelings on everything that happened to me and around me.

The beatings and abuse continued until I was ap-

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tionship which is much more common among men than among women. In order to view a child as a potential sexual partner, one must be able to isolate sex from other aspects of a relationship, for surely a child cannot relate as a peer or equal or provide in a relationship what another adult can.

As long as cultural mores such as this persist, it will be difficult to understand or to fight incest simply within the family.

Cynthia Griggins, a counselor at the Cleveland Free Clinic, runs a group for women who have been victims of incest. She also works with families of incest victims.

proximately ten, but stopped completely the day after my other brother caught us together. I felt a sense of relief. I figured he would see that I had no control over what was happening and he would protect me. He didn't say a word to me about it until a year later when he suggested I do what he wanted (sexually speaking) or he would tell on me. At that time I also learned how to repress the feelings of hate, anger and betrayal, and so what had become a family tradition was passed on.

I always felt dirty, ashamed and alone-very much alone. The things I knew about, other girls my age hadn't even heard of yet, so I stayed mostly to myself. The few friendships I did have were usually with girls older than 1.

At the age of sixteen I moved out of my parents' home. I hoped this would end the abuse. However, my brother was still able to guilt-trip me into letting him into my home, where he would then blackmail me into having sex. This activity continued on and off, until one day I decided I couldn't let it happen anymore. He literally chased me out of my own home. Standing barefoot in the driveway, snow up to my ankles, I felt like I was losing my mind. In the five or ten minutes I stood outside freezing, it seemed as if every feeling I had ever repressed or denied had passed through my mind. I was twenty years old when I finally snapped out of my "daze".

That day I went back inside and started to think back to the time just after my 20th birthday. My brother had just moved to California and I was feeling a sense of relief; I figured the abuse had finally ended. Until this time I had never dated any men seriously. However, approximately a month after he left, I started dating a man regularly and later became seriously involved.

At first, I was leery of trusting anyone. Sex with him was frightening. I told him I had been raped as a child, but by a stranger. His first reaction was confusion, but it seemed to draw us closer together. He became more understanding and gentler. Sex became much more enjoyable and less frightening. Nevertheless, I ended the relationship. I just felt it wasn't enough.

In looking at that and other relationships I had had with men, I realized that while I was able to relate to men and enjoy their company, I preferred being around women. The thought that I might be gay made me panic. Had my brothers' 15 years of abuse caused me to be more comfortable around women than men? If so, what I felt was learned and I could unlearn it and be "normal".

I knew I couldn't resolve this conflict until I had dealt with all the other feelings and emotions I had repressed over the years, and I knew I couldn't do this alone. So I called a crisis hot-line and began to see a counselor on a regular basis. Her caring and concern kept me from killing myself. She helped me to work through a lot of my guilt and to direct my anger where it belonged-on my brothers, not on me. Unfortunately, my therapy with her ended in nine months when my counselor retired. I thought I had no more problems. I had resolved the conflict of my (continued on page 11)

“April, 1982/What She Wants/Page.