In addition, if you are just beginning to remember or deal with traumatic sexual experiences, you may have flashbacks to the assault. During sex or in sexual situations, thoughts, feelings, and even visual images of the traumatic incident may appear in your mind, sometimes so forcefully that you actually confuse what is happening now with what happened then, or you look at your partner and see your abuser instead. This is a truly terrifying experience.Indeed, Rebecca, a twenty-three-year-old sales clerk who could “go only so far” with her fiance before feeling her sexual urges turn into panic and disgust, was disturbed by that type of flashback. She called our office one morning and insisted on seeing us as soon as possible. “It was awful,” she declared. Her skin was pale, her eyes red-rimmed with dark circles around them. She did not have to tell us she had not slept since watching her fiance turn into her stepbrother right before her eyes. “We were doing what we usually do,” she continued, “making it as romantic as we could. We’d lit some candles and Joey turned around to switch off the lamp, only when he turned back he wasn’t Joey anymore. He was Ronnie, my stepbrother. He looked like Ronnie, looked like he was wearing Ronnie’s striped pajamas. When he took my hand I was sure he was going to put it on his penis and say, ‘Make it feel good, Becky. Rub it like I taught you to. If you do it good, maybe I’ll teach you something new.’ That’s what Ronnie used to say. I think I even heard Joey say it. I don’t know. I’m so scared. Am I losing my mind?”If you have a flashback, you too may think you are losing your mind. You are not. Many sexual assault victims have them and learn to overcome them by using specific techniques like those we have included in Chapter Six, or others you can find out about by reading any of the excellent resources listed in the Bibliography.Of course, incest and child molestation are not the only types of traumatic sexual experiences linked to ISD. Rape or any other form of sexual assault—no matter how old you are when you experience it—leaves you terrified, emotionally devastated, sometimes physically injured, and almost always plagued by a pervasive sense of powerlessness and by fears about losing control. For months, years, or decades, you may find that you cannot become sexually aroused without feeling afraid and experiencing many of the same reactions to sex that incest victims do. A 1983 study of female survivors of sexual assault showed that more than half of them had long-standing sexual desire difficulties, including ISD.*107\261\8*
Incest is a sexual intercourse between people .who are closely related. It has a taboo from older times but societies have differed in defining the precise closeness of the family relationship.
How common is incest?
It is very difficult to have data on the incest incidence because the matter is not being reported for the sake of family-unity and due to considerations of reputation parents don’t tell others.
Why incest is taboo?
It is taboo not to prevent inbreeding but to preserve family structure and stabilize relationship within it. There is a necessity to protect the unity of family and prevent internal rivalry, if incest is permitted family unity will Ipse its structure and will collapse.
What generally breaks the taboo?
Incest is mainly a male problem. It is the male who breaks the taboo and doesn’t permit victim to have any choice.
What are common types of incest?
Father-daughter and brother-sister are the commonest forms.
What is brother-sister incest?
Children are very curious about sex at puberty. They want to explore their sexuality in the company of others. This is a natural part of life. If they have no friends to discuss sex with, brother and sister may turn to each other.
How parents should react to incest of brother and sister?
Parents who discover such a relationship should not over react. Over reaction will harm more. Psychologists have concluded that sex play between brother and sister is lesser evil than the same kind of behaviour with children outside the family. At least there is absence of the element of exploitation. Although neither is advisable.
In which families brother-sister incest is more common?
Possessive parents prevent their children to make friends. Under such conditions brother and sister can find sexual attraction for each other and an emotional bond develops. Innocent sexual exploration between brother and sister usually ends when the children find friends out side the family or one of them is married. It is more common in poor homes where brother and sister share beds or bed rooms and where bath rooms are open.
It is also prevalent in high society where brother and sister are reading sexy magazines and witnessing exciting films.
What kind of father engages in sexual relations with his daughter?
If a person is widower or unhappily married the daughter may seem to be the ideal substitute for her mother. Sometimes man finds adult women frightening and feels he can only enjoy with young girls. If he does not get the object outside he may turn to his own daughter. Incest may first happen when the father is drunk. Unless the girl has the courage to resist the first time, act may be repeated again.
Does mother-son incest exist?
It certainly occurs but complaints are rare. It generally happens where mother is a young step mother, or father is very crude, or always remains on tour etc. Unless the son rebels against his mother’s smothering love she may find herself responding to his virility.
Does incest produce defective child?
Incest taboo is very ancient because such children may inherit genetic defects, diabetes idiocy and stillbirth. But if parents are healthy there are no chances of inheriting diseases.
*92\301\2*
The fears that inhibit sexual desire need not have anything to do with sex itself. For instance, a general fear of failure often leads to emotional depletion or gets channeled into performance anxiety. And anxieties about success—particularly when you are not able to appreciate the success you have attained or refuse to believe you were really responsible for it—can cause sexual dissatisfaction and tension. All the fears that you may experience in life can resurface in your sexual relationships and influence your behavior in a detrimental way.
What’s more, because the part of your brain that controls sexual desire is connected to the brain centers that analyze complex experiences and are responsible for memory storage and retrieval, anything that even remotely reminds you of painful past experiences can set off the red alert signal and shut down your sexual desire circuits.
*94\261\8*
Nearly one quarter of our sample of homosexual offenders vs. adults had married, and the accumulative incidence indicates that ultimately about two fifths would marry. These are the smallest proportions of married individuals in any group. Moreover, the percentages build up slowly: by age twenty-six when all groups other than the homosexual offenders and peepers have over half of their members married, the homosexual offenders vs. adults had but 17 per cent of their constituents married. Of those who did marry, the average (median) man did so at age 23.1—i.e., neither unusually early nor late.
Since the average age at marriage was twenty-three and the average age of the ever-married homosexual offender vs. adults at the time of interview was about thirty-eight, one might expect that they had spent half or more than, half of their postpubertal years as married men. This, however, is not the case. Only 23 per cent of their years were spent as husbands, the smallest percentage displayed by any group. While it is true that they were unusually monogamous (76 per cent of those who married had married only once—second only to the control group), it is also true that an unusually large number (41 per cent, again second in rank-order) had one marriage that lasted less than two years. In brief, many of their marriages were of short duration and they were disinclined to marry again.
The average homosexual offender vs. adults had known his future wife nine months before marrying her, and slightly over half of these offenders had premarital coitus with their wives-to-be. None of these figures are unusual. Owing chiefly to the low frequencies of premarital coitus, very few of the brides were pregnant when they married (only 2 per cent, the second smallest proportion recorded). Only 18 of the 49 homosexual offenders vs. adults who married had children in marriage, and 13 of the 18 had only one child, making this the least fertile of all groups. For every ten homosexual offenders vs. adults there were only eight offspring.
While there is nothing outstanding about the amount of time that the homosexual offenders vs. adults spent in precoital play with their wives, certain of their precoital and coital techniques do merit special note. A relatively large number (10 per cent) had been fellated by their wives but had never had cunnilingus with them. This was true also of the homosexual offenders vs. minors and to a lesser degree of the homosexual offenders vs. children. In their use of various coital positions the homosexual offenders vs. adults appear as the most conservative of all—about one third, had confined themselves exclusively to the conventional male-prone female-supine position and had tried nothing else. This may indicate a lack of interest in or an insecurity about heterosexual activity rather than any moral objection. Lastly, the percentage of offenders who had had anal coitus with a spouse is in no way unusual.
While between one third and two fifths of the homosexual offenders vs. adults married, the percentage of ever-married individuals by any given age is always quite low; for instance, by age thirty only one quarter had ever married. Consequently the number of married males we have to deal with in given, periods of time is small: 20 in age-period 21-25; 22 in. age-period 26-30; 14 in age-period 31-35; and. 12 in age-period 36-40. Such small numbers explain the erratic nature of some of the frequency data.
The average (median) offender has intermediate frequency figures which begin at 3 a week in age-period 21-25 and drop to 1.8 in age-period 36-40. Recall, however, that these are “active” figures—figures based only on the married persons who had marital coitus. While in most groups marriage and coitus are virtually synonymous before senility, among the homosexual offenders vs. adults this is not always so: in age-periods 21-25, 26-30, and 36-40 there was one individual (not the same one) lacking such coitus. Abstention from marital coitus is more common among homosexual offenders than among any other group.
The mean frequencies are quite erratic because our sample is small and because the homosexual offenders vs. adults are typified by high frequencies of sexual outlet, and this unusual capacity was sometimes directed into heterosexual coitus—at least sporadically. It is true that some homosexually oriented males plunge into marriage, as though by sheer coital frequency they could “cure” themselves of homosexuality or “prove” their masculinity. In any case, in age-period 21-25, four of the 20 married males had marital coitus daily or more than daily, which paradoxically ranks the group first in frequency of marital coitus at this time (5.37 per week, far exceeding any other group). In the following age-period they rank next to lowest with 2.75.
The homosexual orientation of these married males is more clearly evident when one looks not at the frequency of marital coitus, but at the proportion of total sexual outlet such coitus constitutes. These men derived less of their total outlet from this source than the men of any other group, the figures ranging from 51 to 73 per cent. The remaining 49 to 27 per cent was not wholly derived from contact with other males; self-masturbation was frequently as important quantitatively as was homosexual activity.
By and large the wives of the homosexual offenders vs. adults were reported to have reached orgasm in their marital coitus less often than the wives of other men. While only a moderate proportion (15 per cent) of their married lives was spent at a low (0-10 per cent) level of orgasmic response, these wives had the smallest proportion (39 per cent) of their married lives spent at a high (90 per cent plus) level. These percentages appear realistic since they match, fairly well, the reports by females of equivalent socioeconomic level. This accuracy of reporting by these homosexual offenders may be the result of their being less ego-involved and under less compulsion to demonstrate heterosexual prowess.
In terms of the over-all happiness of their marriages (as reported by the males), the homosexual offenders vs. adults occupy an intermediate status in comparison with other groups.
*205\161\2*
Of all our comparative groups, the incest offenders vs. adults appear to be the least responsive to visual and fantasy stimuli, being even less so than the incest offenders vs. minors. While three quarters obtained some arousal from seeing or thinking of females, and a fair additional number had once done so but did no longer, very few (12 per cent) responded strongly. This is the smallest percentage, about one third that of the control and prison groups. Similarly, extremely few were aroused by the sight or thought of males. None reported sexual arousal from sadomasochistic pictures or stories, and it will be recalled that they claimed never to have dreams with such content. Lastly, they were the least responsive of any group to pornography, over three fifths reporting little or no response. These findings fit well with the fact that this is the oldest, least educated, most rural, and most religiously devout group in our study.
While alcohol was very important to the incest offenders vs. children and while the incest offenders vs. minors had a large number of alcoholic members, the incest offenders vs. adults took an opposite tack. Rather few of them (8 per cent) were alcoholics, the majority were moderate drinkers, and a substantial minority (17 per cent) abstained completely. This conservatism is also evident in their gambling patterns: they gambled mainly for social reasons, and very few of them (4 per cent, a figure below even that of the control group) gambled for income.
*163\161\2*
Incest offenders vs. children are adult males who have had sexual contact with their daughters or stepdaughters under twelve years of age. In this definition it is immediately evident that we have sidestepped the problem of force or threat. We have done so at this point because the authoritarian position of the father makes the differentiation between threat, duress, acquiescence, and willingness almost impossible. Furthermore, most incest offenses are not single occasions; the majority of incest offenders have had repeated contacts with their daughters, and the degree of willingness on the daughter’s part often varies. Consequently, we decided to omit force or threat as a category criterion and, instead, simply identify within the present categories the cases where force or threat were clearly evident. Such cases are few in number.
The father-daughter incest taboo is, and has been, world-wide. It is one of the few items concerning which all people are in accord. From an anthropological point of view, the necessity for a father-daughter incest taboo is obvious: such incest would create an intrafamily competition and favoritism that would threaten the continued existence of the family unit; any resultant procreation would intolerably complicate the inherited obligations and rights that form the basis of human organization; and, moreover, it would interfere with the daughter’s form ing a liaison with a male outside the family. In brief, no known human society could tolerate much incest without ruinous disruption.
In the rest of the mammalian world, father-daughter incest is determined solely by propinquity: there is no inherent deterrent regarding such activity. The incest taboo is a cultural and not a biological necessity. Consequently we find that among humans who, because of their environmental circumstances or because of intellectual limitations have not been so strongly imbued with the culture as the average person, there are more breaches of the taboo. The usual stereotypes come to mind: the family in a backward remote rural area, a poverty-stricken slum family with alcoholic overtones, the Jukes and Kallikaks, Tobacco Road families, etc. Beyond these, however, one finds previously conforming males who break the taboo during periods of emotional stress or intoxication, and who subsequently suffer strong guilt reactions. The incest offenders, it may be noted, are the most guilt-ridden of any group.
The incest offender vs. children is doubly despicable in the eyes of his fellow men: he has not only broken the most ancient and widespread sexual taboo against incest, but he has also broken the almost equally old and universal taboo against sexual contact with young children. Even in prison where there exists a social hierarchy based upon the charge that resulted in imprisonment, and where the sex offender is at the bottom of the social ladder, the incest offender vs. children does not even have his hand on the bottom-most rung.
*121\161\2*
Ninety-two per cent of the aggressors vs. children had had premarital coitus—by age fourteen a moderate 28 per cent, but by age sixteen 75 per cent, putting them in first place. At older ages, as other groups begin to surpass them, they drop in position but still remain in the upper half of the scale.
The age-specific incidence of premarital coitus with companions is moderate among these aggressors. The importance of premarital coitus with prostitutes to these aggressors is very clear in the age-specific incidence figures. In the three age-periods available for comparison, puberty-15, 16-20, and 21-25, the aggressors vs. children display by far the largest proportions of men having premarital coitus with prostitutes, the figures being 21, 71, and 92 per cent respectively. This record is impressive: by the time they were twenty more of them had contact with prostitutes than the individuals of the prison group or the control group had in their entire lifetimes. Moreover, these aggressors are the only group in which from ages sixteen to twenty the number of men who had coitus with prostitutes equals the number who had coitus with companions. In all other groups coitus with companions Overshadows that with prostitutes.
In frequency of premarital coitus with companions (i.e., nonprostitutes) the heterosexual aggressors vs. children rank low generally, never exceeding twice a month. This is particularly noticeable in the average (mean) frequency wherein between ages twenty-one to twenty-five, they rank lowest, far lower than the control group, and even below the homosexual offenders. In terms of median frequency they are seen as moderate up to age twenty and low between ages twenty-one and twenty-five.
We suggested previously that since during their late teens the aggressors vs. children did not get along well with females and yet had an above-average coital history, they depended heavily upon prostitutes. This surmise is validated when one examines their frequency of contact with prostitutes. They rank first in frequency from sixteen to twenty, whether measured by mean (20 a year) or median (10 a year), but drop to intermediate position in later life. The importance of paid relationships to the aggressor vs. children is also revealed in the number whose first postpubertal coitus was with a prostitute—44 per cent, again by far the largest figure.
While they constitute a numerically small group, what evidence we have suggests that they had a rather large number of coital companions (15) and an extremely large number of prostitute coital partners (18) in their premarital years.
The generally low frequencies account for the small proportion (3 to 20 per cent) of the total sexual outlet that is derived from premarital coitus with companions, but in age-period 16-20 they rank first in the proportion of their total sexual outlet derived from premarital coitus with prostitutes (15 per cent); in the following age-period they fall to fourth rank, and sample size precludes calculation at older ages.
Many of the various restraints on premarital coitus that strongly influenced some groups seem to have been relatively inoperative for the aggressors vs. children. Very few were inhibited by a fear of pregnancy, disease, or public opinion. A moderate number (20 per cent) were restrained by purely moral considerations. Extremely few (10 per cent, the second lowest percentage) reported that a lack of interest prevented more premarital coitus—these aggressors evidently were far from fulfilling what they felt were their sexual needs. A large number (76 per cent) blamed lack of opportunity, a complaint especially typi cal of all aggressors. It is interesting to note that as a whole the aggressors (vs. children, minors, or adults) were relatively unperturbed by the possible immediate consequences of premarital coitus: pregnancy, disease, and adverse social reaction. This is especially well illustrated when comparison is made between the aggressors vs. children and their counterparts, the offenders vs. children. Twenty-one per cent of the latter were deterred from premarital coitus by fear of pregnancy, whereas only 8 per cent of the aggressors vs. children were similarly affected; 19 per cent of the offenders vs. children were held back by fear of disease as opposed to 4 per cent of the aggressors vs. children; and 14 per cent of the offenders vs. children strongly feared social opinion, while not a single aggressor vs. children shared this concern.
*79\161\2*
An inspection of all the case histories of offenders vs. children resulted in our differentiating no less than eight varieties. At first glance these varieties may appear to be based upon causative or at least explanatory factors, but actually they are simply gross descriptive categories. Between one fifth and one fourth of the case histories were not classified either because they fell into two or more categories or because sufficient background data were lacking. The classification is shown below:
Pedophiles
The sociosexually underdeveloped
Amoral delinquents
Situational cases
Psychotics
Drunks
Senile deteriorates
The great majority of the offenders vs. children tend to fit one of these categories more logically than others. This does not imply mutual exclusivity; one may find a feeble-minded male who got drunk and responded in a situational fashion. In such a case one must try to determine which was the more important element in the offense behavior. Because of such overlapping, because of the subjective judgments involved, and because of the variable amounts of data available, we feel it wise to speak only in broad generalities about the varieties of offenders vs. children and eschew exact figures.
*36\161\2*
… the mood is one of confidence.
Medium or mid-tone colours fall into the colour range between light and dark. You can have medium neutrals, medium brights or just medium colours.
Medium colours are uplifting without being tiring. As long as they are not too muted, they have a sense of fun and lightheartedness about them. They are not as romantic as pastels, not as overpowering as the brights, not as oppressive as the darks. They are easy to live with. They exude a warm and energising feeling to most people and they can be seen as ‘cocooning’, giving a bedroom a sense of security and comfort.
By choosing medium colours you are making a statement. You have not chosen to be neutral at all. You are letting your boldness show, albeit gently. It tells you and the rest of the world you are taking the middle road in your relationship. You are not playing it safe as the neutral voters do. You are more adventurous than them but not as outgoing or spontaneous as someone who chooses a bright contemporary colour.
Your sex life is probably medium too, with no extremes. You are, however, confident in the bedroom and in bed. You are not ultra-romantic, not boring or safe and not too controlled. This colour choice is often a favourite of Classics and Practicals.
Key words: middle-of-the-road, uplifting, easy to live with, no extremes, confident.
*53\74\8*
The following questionnaire will help you to identify the decoration style you have chosen for your rendezvous with sensuality, passion, emotion, affection, rest and sleep. After all, your preferred choices give you and a partner, a bird’s eye view of the way you make sense of the world.
A bedroom questionnaire
1. Please tick your answers. Is your bedroom basically:
(a) frilly and detailed
(b) softly romantic with curves
(c) classic with clean lines and angles
(d) tailored and neat
(e) practical and basic
(f) comfortable and textured
(g) dramatically different in colour or design
(h) filled with the influence of Italy, Mexico or another recognisable country
(i) cottagey or rustic
(j) a creative mix of furniture and styles from anywhere and everywhere (k) modern with clean lines (1) themed and dream-like (m) simple, neat and comfortable
(n) bold with shiny surfaces
(o) like entering and being immersed in a different country (p) bright, colourful with few accessories
(q) like a trip to another place and time
(r) cluttered with unusually arranged memorabilia
Identifying answers, (a) romantic,- (b) romantic,- (c) classic,-(d) classic,- (e) practical,- (f) town and country,- (g) dramatic,-(h) ethnic,- (i) town and country,- (j) creative,- (k) contemporary,-(\) fantasy,- (m) practical,- (n) dramatic,- (o) ethnic,-(p) contemporary,- (q) fantasy,- (r) creative.
2. Tick the other decorative items you have in the room
(a) pictures
(c) photos
(d) small accessories
(e) something humorous
(f) other furniture
(g) lamps
(h) bedside tables/drawers
(1) mirror
(j) what is on the wall above your head as you lie in bed?
3. What styles in your accessories can you identify according to the suggestions in question 1?
4. Look around and decide:
(a) Is my bedroom comfortable?
(b) Is it really how I want it to be?
5. Is the overall appearance: (a) boring
Intimate Design
(b) too dramatic
(c) too neutral
(d) too anything else?
6. Does the look of my bedroom relate to how I feel about sex?
7. Does the look of my bedroom relate to the state of my sex life at the moment?
*70\74\8*