Do you want to know what incest is? What it really is? No ...

not think that there should be a statute of limitations for incest.
I wrote legislation that was passed in the California legislature and took effect on
January 1, 1991, providing that adult survivors have an automatic right to sue the
perpetrator until their twenty-sixth birthday. The previous statute of limitations was age
nineteen.
Lear: So you've been acting politically.
Karney: Yes. It's a political issue. People don't understand the political ramifications of
molesting a child. When you victimize a young girl, she becomes eventually an adult
who has children and doesn't want to recognize it when her own children are getting
incested. You have somebody who doesn't have personal power and doesn't take
power politically or financially. You have a victim. The courts believe that parents have
an absolute right to power and control over their children. We need a children's bill of
rights.
Lear: What is it like to go into the courts and legislatures?
Karney: I wish judges knew what incest looks like, what sexual abuse looks like. As for
legislators—I have to tell you that when I testified before the California Assembly's
Judiciary Committee, which is composed almost exclusively of men, it was an extremely
abusive experience. They sit in these huge chairs and they scream down at you.
They're so concerned about the rights of the perpetrators. When I appeared before the
committee, I said, "I don't get it. We're just trying to get the victims equal rights." And the
head of the committee started screaming at me. "What don't you understand? How dare
you speak to me in this way?"
Lear: Why are those guys like that? What is threatening to them?
Karney: I think when you say that men are going to be accountable for where they put
their penises. . . . It's the first time they're being made accountable for their acts, and
they don't like it.
Lear: Are you suggesting that the politicians and the men on the courts have put their
penises in their children?
Karney: I think so, in the same proportion that men everywhere are doing it. I don't say
they're all perpetrators, but they take care of their own. They are into protecting other
men's rights. And children are considered chattel—the property of men.
Lear: What about the mothers?
Karney: I think the mothers are the silent partners. To be honest, I have to tell you that I
haven't run into any cases of females abusing children sexually.
Lear: There are women who are perpetrators, of course. And then there are women
who are perpetrators of a sort. They probably don't act out, and they're blind to it, but
they are very incestuous with their sons.
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