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In contrast to the sexually preoccupied and adolescent-regressive fathers who focused on their daughter, the instrumental self-gratifiers blocked what they were doing from their mind: "They used their daughter's body as a receptacle." The fact that they were abusing a daughter or that a daughter was so young was actually "a distracting element" that these fathers had to work to ignore. While one man was giving his sevenyear-old a bath, she rubbed against his penis. "I realized that I could take advantage of the situation," he said. "She wasn't a person to me." Another man said, "I abused her from behind so I wouldn't see her face." Instrumental self-gratifiers abused sporadically, worried about the harm they were causing, and felt great guilt. To alleviate the guilt, some convinced themselves that their daughter was aroused. Type 4 – Emotionally Dependent Just over 10 percent of the sample fit this category. These fathers were emotionally needy, lonely, depressed. They thought of themselves as failures and looked to their daughter for "close, exclusive, emotionally dependent relationships," including sexual gratification, which they linked to intimacy and not to their daughter's real or imagined sexual qualities. One man, separated from his wife, saw his five-year-old daughter only on weekends. "It was companionship," he said. "I had been alone for six months. We slept together and would fondle each other. The closeness was very good and loving. Then oral sex began." The average age of the daughter when the incest began was six to seven years. But it happened with older daughters as well. The fathers of older daughters described the girls as their "best friends," and the relationships had a more romantic quality: The men described their daughter as they might have described an adult lover. Type 5 – Angry Retaliators About 10 percent of the men were in this category. These fathers were the most likely to have criminal histories of assault and rape. They abused a daughter out of an g er at her or. More often, at her mother for neglecting or deserting them. Some denied any sexual feelings for the daughter. One father of a three-year-old said, "My daughter has no sex appeal for me at all. What I did was just an opportunity to get back at my daughter for being the center of my wife's life. There was no room for me." Sometimes the daughter was abused because she resembled her mother, sometimes because of the father's desire to desecrate her or to possess her out of an angry sense of entitlement. Some angry retaliators tied up, gagged, beat, and raped their daughter and were aroused by the violence. OTHER FINDINGS Alcohol and drugs: While 33 percent of the men reported being under the influence of alcohol when the abuse occurred, and 10 percent reported that they were using drugs, only 9 percent held alcohol or drugs responsible. "Preliminary analysis indicates that the incestuous fathers are not more likely than the comparison fathers to have drug or alcohol abuse problems, although they may use alcohol or drugs to lower their inhibitions to abuse." Page 52 of 56
Marital discord: Forty-three percent of the men felt that their relationship with their wife was part of the reason for the incest. "However, the wife was rarely the only factor mentioned.... Different men probably come to incestuous acts as a result of different needs, motives, and impairments." Sexual abuse of the offender as a child: Significantly, 70 percent of the men said they themselves had been sexually abused in childhood. Half were physically abused by their father and almost half—44 percent—had been physically abused by their mother. "Although not all who are abused go on to become perpetrators, it is critical that we learn more about how child sexual victimization affects male sexual development and male sexual socialization." RECOMMENDATIONS Finkelhor and Williams suggest, considering the "intergenerational transmission of sexual abuse," men be given improved opportunities for positive fathering—including paternity leave and more liberal visitations in cases of divorce or separation. Also that they be encouraged to be intimate in nonsexual ways, beginning in boyhood. The study argues that, based on the evidence, it ' s very likely that people can become more aware of the precursory signs of incest. "It is conceivable," Finkelhor and Williams conclude, "that the sequence of events that leads to abuse can be interrupted." -------------------------------------- INCEST LAWS Criminal Prosecution The narrow legal definitions of incest, together with the stringent requirements for proof, the meager punishments generally handed down, and the trauma for victims who must testify, tend to make the criminal prosecution of incest a doubtful and sometimes impossible enterprise. In most cases criminal prosecution for incest can be undertaken only if the victim is a minor at the time the abuse is discovered. To complicate the issue, however, most incest does not come to light until the victim reaches adulthood and begins to remember what happened. By then, the statute of limitations on criminal offenses has usually long since expired. Incest statutes: The states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia have no incest statutes. Incest cases in these states are prosecuted under other sexual-abuse statutes, which often carry a higher penalty. Blood-relatedness: In California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and North Dakota, blood relationship is a requisite to prosecute for incest. In all other states it is not. Vaginal penetration: The states that deem vaginal penetration necessary in order for incest to have occurred are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Page 53 of 56
Page 1 and 2: Return to www.LongBeachALIVE.org LE
Page 3 and 4: "I take responsibility for what hap
Page 5 and 6: eaches for me and pulls me down. I
Page 7 and 8: Every morning, under the guise of w
Page 9 and 10: "What happened to me was bad," says
Page 11 and 12: compulsive masturbation, precocious
Page 13 and 14: PTSD Also prevalent among incest vi
Page 15 and 16: Child incest victims often become a
Page 17 and 18: greatest detail. One year later Goo
Page 19 and 20: Although we want to believe that we
Page 21 and 22: loved ones had abruptly dumped me!
Page 23 and 24: generally and direct them toward th
Page 25 and 26: thought that their mother was menta
Page 27 and 28: mental illness. Unlike the seductio
Page 29 and 30: The interior is depressing, monoton
Page 31 and 32: This opinion is echoed by Cynthia F
Page 33 and 34: hired Gary Stickel, Ph.D., an inter
Page 35 and 36: the ability of the children to tell
Page 37 and 38: fenders, continues as needed for as
Page 39 and 40: I am on my way, reluctantly, to int
Page 41 and 42: urden of life," writes T. Thomas ps
Page 43 and 44: 100 percent on the offender. If the
Page 45 and 46: suggested that she join Alcoholics
Page 47 and 48: esponsible for their actions long a
Page 49 and 50: Karney: I think there's a lot of em
Page 51: their daughter for a period of year
Page 55 and 56: Mary Williams of California, these

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