[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
RE: sibling incest and consent
<x-html><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 5.5.2655.35">
<TITLE>RE: sibling incest and consent</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I would never consider small age differences the only criteria for deciding if an act was consensual. Given the way you report this girl described the encounters they were clearly not consensual. But I do think that with children very close in age whether it was consensual or not needs to be specifically considered whereas when there is a large age difference, even if the victim-child states it was voluntary we return to the issue of whether children can give 'informed consent' to sexual encounters.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Christina Risley-Curtiss, MSSW, PhD</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Associate Professor & Co-Director, Child Welfare Training Project</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Arizona State University</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>School of Social Work</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Tempe, AZ 85287-1802</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>480-965-6076</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Fax: 480-965-5986</FONT>
</P>
<BR>
<BR>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>-----Original Message-----</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>From: lisa fontes [<A HREF="mailto:lfontes@javanet.com";>mailto:lfontes@javanet.com</A>]</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 5:12 PM</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>To: Child Maltreatment Researchers</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Subject: Re: sibling incest and consent</FONT>
</P>
<BR>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Even the seemingly "neat" categories supplied by Jennifer Guimond below are</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>messy. I remember a student disclosing to me tearfully after a university</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>class on child sexual abuse that her brother--who was less than 2 years</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>older--had dragged her off to his room IN FRONT OF THEIR PARENTS "for a good</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>tickling" repeatedly over the years. She had tried to disclose to her</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>parents who hadn't believed her. he was (and remains) the preferred son--on</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>his way to medical school, while she was (and remains) the troubled younger</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>sister. She was quite distressed to learn that their relations would be</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>considered "consensual" because of their relatively small age difference.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>She did not feel they were consensual at all. I guess there are many ways in</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>which a sibling can have power over another--and many would not be</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>discovered in a typical quantiative research study.</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Jennifer Guimond wrote:</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>> The consent issue in sibling incest can be pretty fuzzy when the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> siblings in question are close in age and no obvious coercion is</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> present. My reading of the literature suggests that sexual contact</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> between siblings can be classified in three ways:</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> 1. age-appropriate sexual play and exploration by children of similar</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> age.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> 2. sexual abuse in which one child clearly has more power than the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> other due to age, status in the family, physical strength, etc.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> 3. consensual age-inappropriate sexual contact such as an 11-year-old</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> and 12-year-old having consensual sexual intercourse.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> The first two scenarios have been studied, but the third scenario is</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> less understood. The third scenario involves sexual contact that is not</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> age-appropriate exploration but is also not coercive. When researchers</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> study sexual abuse, they use a 5 year age difference between the victim</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> and the perpetrator as a criteria for sexual abuse. Thus, many cases of</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> sibling incest (as well as incest with cousins) may be overlooked.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> I find the topic fascinating and I would love to exchange e-mail and</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> share references with anyone else on the list.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>> Jennifer Guimond</FONT>
</P>
</BODY>
</HTML></x-html>From ???@??? Mon Jan 07 11:02:40 2002
Status: U
Return-Path: <owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
Received: from elist01.mail.cornell.edu (elist01.mail.cornell.edu [132.236.56.28])
by postoffice.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA18852;
Sat, 29 Dec 2001 15:42:51 -0500 (EST)
Received: (from daemon@localhost)
by elist01.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id PAA14122;
Sat, 29 Dec 2001 15:42:50 -0500 (EST)
Received: from elist01.mail.cornell.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by elist01.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA13714;
Sat, 29 Dec 2001 15:38:22 -0500 (EST)
Received: from mailhub2.mail.cornell.edu (mailhub2.mail.cornell.edu [132.236.56.26])
by elist01.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA20814
for <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@elist01.mail.cornell.edu>; Thu, 27 Dec 2001 23:28:29 -0500 (EST)
Received: (from daemon@localhost)
by mailhub2.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id XAA24009
for CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@elist01.mail.cornell.edu; Thu, 27 Dec 2001 23:28:28 -0500 (EST)
Received: from mailserv1.students.niu.edu (mailserv1.students.niu.edu [131.156.99.8])
by mailhub2.mail.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA23990
for <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>; Thu, 27 Dec 2001 23:28:27 -0500 (EST)
Received: from mailserv1.students.niu.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by mailserv1.students.niu.edu (8.11.4/8.11.4) with ESMTP id fBS4SRu27500
for <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>; Thu, 27 Dec 2001 22:28:27 -0600 (CST)
Received: from niu.edu (ts2-8.cso.niu.edu [131.156.115.73])
by mailserv1.students.niu.edu (8.11.4/8.11.4) with ESMTP id fBS4SQW27496
for <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>; Thu, 27 Dec 2001 22:28:26 -0600 (CST)
Message-ID: <3C2BF450.C7DCD88F@niu.edu>
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 22:25:52 -0600
X-PH: V4.1@mailhub2 (Cornell Modified)
X-PH: V4.1@elist01.mail.cornell.edu (Cornell Modified)
From: Jennifer Guimond <jguimond@niu.edu>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win95; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: sibling incest and consent
References: <3C241EE1.BE8C5025@niu.edu> <3C2A6742.E52E508@javanet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-Tag: 3840
Reply-To: CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
Sender: owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.2.09.cu01/000107/15:22 -- ListProc(tm) by CREN
Legally, the age of consent varies from state to state and we say that children
cannot consent to sex. However, preteens and early adolescents are choosing to
have sex with boyfriends/girlfriends. When both partners are mutually involved
and there is no significant age difference or coercion, we view it as kids
making poor choices and having sex too soon (and maybe not being supervised well
enough). We don't necessarily call it nonconsensual. (Please correct me if I'm
wrong.)
And of course, nothing is ever as clearly defined as researchers would like it
to be. It definitely sounds to me like in the case described by Lisa Fontes the
brother had more power than the sister and sexually abused her. The sister felt
abused and no one should dispute her experience. However, there are cases when
siblings become mutually sexually involved as if they are boyfriend and
girlfriend and neither find the experience abusive. Bank and Kahn (1982) refer
to this as nurturance-oriented incest (as opposed to power-oriented incest).
They say that nurturance-oriented incest occurs within dysfunctional families
where children turn to each other to meet their needs for love and affection. I
have no idea how often this occurs, but antecdotes are seen in the literature.
I agree with the replies to my post. Perhaps instead of using the term
consensual it would be more appropriate to call some sibling incest experiences
atypical but nonabusive.
lisa fontes wrote:
> Even the seemingly "neat" categories supplied by Jennifer Guimond below are
> messy. I remember a student disclosing to me tearfully after a university
> class on child sexual abuse that her brother--who was less than 2 years
> older--had dragged her off to his room IN FRONT OF THEIR PARENTS "for a good
> tickling" repeatedly over the years. She had tried to disclose to her
> parents who hadn't believed her. he was (and remains) the preferred son--on
> his way to medical school, while she was (and remains) the troubled younger
> sister. She was quite distressed to learn that their relations would be
> considered "consensual" because of their relatively small age difference.
> She did not feel they were consensual at all. I guess there are many ways in
> which a sibling can have power over another--and many would not be
> discovered in a typical quantiative research study.
>