Identity Ministry and Irene Beany’s Story

I recently read Irene Beany’s story of recovery from horrifying ritualized sexual abuse. It’s a miracle she’s alive today. Her ministry, “Identity Ministry,” has some close parallels with JSASSN International. To learn more, visit:

http://www.identityministry.org/Story.html

Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International

Understanding Incest

I recently read a book about incest called Betrayal of Innocence: Incest and Its Devastation (1979, rpt. 1982) by Susan Foreword and Craig Buck. Although dated in its language and Freudian (not Christian) in its perspective, it nevertheless provided some valuable insights.

When I was at the Exodus International conference last month, I was reminded that sexually abused children are often abused by family members, and 75% (Forward 55) of sexual abuse cases within the family involve father-daughter incest. So it seemed like a good idea to learn more about this terrible phenomenon.

In her book, Forword begins by noting that incest and the taboo against it are present in every society on earth. The incest taboo prevents confusion of roles within the family: a father who is also a husband to his daughter makes the daughter compete with her mother/his first wife in a distorted way; a daughter who ends up fulfilling a wife’s role cannot become independent and start her own family. In fact, Forward argues that the main purpose of the incest taboo is to foster independence in children. Independent children can grow up to start their own families and perpetuate a healthy society.

She describes the victim’s anguish in an incestuous situation and the role of the “silent partner,” usually the mother, who either consciously or unconsciously allows the incest to occur. The victim is enraged at her father’s betrayal of her trust and violation of her physical integrity as well as of her mother’s failure to protect her. Her mother is often a “dependent, infantile, passive woman” (51), disenchanted and emotionally neglectful of her family, often willing to put up with abuse. Sometimes the mother is severely mentally or physically ill, rendering her further dependent on her incestuous husband. Certainly she is conflicted about confronting or leaving the aggressor because of the family’s typical dependence upon him to meet their needs, physical and emotional. The daughter, in consequence, is made vulnerable to emotional and physical incest as the father looks to her for what he cannot get from his wife.

Forward carefully sketches a picture of the incestuous father, one that gives hope for rehabilitation:

“The incestuous father is the most misunderstood sex criminal in our society — and the easiest to rehabilitate. He is rarely a freak, a dangerous criminal, or psychotic. Instead, he is often an otherwise law-abiding, hard-working guy-next-door who, somewhere along the line, has lost the ability to control his impulses … Incestuous fathers are often baffled and horrified at their own behavior.” (31)

Forward carefully makes the distinction between violent incestuous fathers and nonviolent ones. Her description above applies to nonviolent aggressors. She goes on to note that nonviolent incestuous fathers have the following characteristics: they tend to be more intelligent than other convicted sex offenders; often, they have been either physically or emotionally abused as children, beaten by their fathers and ignored by their mothers, and are therefore unable to learn what a healthy family life looks like; and ironically, many are regular churchgoers.

According to Forward, incestuous fathers have identifiable motivations:

“Aggressors rarely commit incest to satisfy purely sexual needs. Instead they use sex with their young daughters as a vain attempt to satisfy a variety of emotional needs — needs they’re not able to understand, that they have no way of knowing how to meet appropriately … In most cases, incest is the aggressor’s attempt to find the tenderness and understanding that should issue from his relationship with his wife but usually does not … He may be unconsciously seeking revenge against either his wife or his mother for what he considers a variety of emotional crimes against him.” (33)

Forward notes that although the incestuous father is “virtually victimized by his own impulses,” he is still responsible for his actions, a responsibility which he will usually deny. Forward says, “I have yet to meet an aggressor who openly understands and admits his responsibility for incest. The reaction is classic — denial of guilt and projection of blame onto the victim or his own wife.” (34)

In examining the case of Daniel Alman, Forward noted that the aggressor had a strong desire, even a fantasy-based desire, to have a happy family life. So, he:

“participated in the incest because of his need to keep the family together. The concept of incest as a strategy to keep the family together may be difficult to accept, but [it occurs] in case after case. A team of Marine Corps physicians concluded from a 1966 six-case study that incest served to ‘reduce family tension by preventing confrontation with the sources of tension. The preservation of the family group is the central function of incest to the group.’” (42)

To spell this out more clearly, essentially, the incestuous father seeks tenderness and sexual gratification from his daughter when he cannot get it from his wife rather than working through the issues that he has with his wife because of his fear that it will break up his happy family.

If the father has a strong belief in his own patriarchal authority within the family, this can contribute to the perpetration of incest, since, in his view, his children are more like objects who must be conformed to their father’s will and who exist to meet their father’s needs and desires. The father may also justify his behavior by projecting his own lusts onto his children, believing that they want to meet his needs and desires in the way that he fantasizes.

But Forword, a survivor of father-daughter incest herself, insists:

“the majority of incestuous fathers respond well to treatment and many have been successfully reunited with their families. Though there are some men whose violent or sadistic impulses are so deeply ingrained that both their families and society are better served by their imprisonment, they are not common. Viewing incest aggressors as human beings may be our hardest task in understanding and reducing incest in our society … but it is a necessary step.” (43)

I agree with Forward that incestuous fathers, despite their lack of impulse control and empathy, should be viewed as human beings capable of being not only rehabilitated but restored. Essential to this restoration is their admittance of guilt — a clear confession — and their willingness to take responsibility for the things that they have done.

June/July 2009 Update

In June, I joined the children’s church volunteer staff at Church of the Resurrection (aka Rez) in order to help at the church’s Vacation Bible School. I was so pleased when I learned that, under family life pastor Janet Williamson, Rez has developed a child protection program that all of its volunteer children’s workers must participate in before they can work with children. I took the class and discovered a valuable curriculum that any church can use to screen and train its volunteer staff. The curriculum is called Reducing the Risk, and I recommend all church children’s programs look into using it.

In July, I attended the Exodus International Freedom 2009 Conference held at Wheaton College. The experience was very worthwhile. I attended educational workshops and met a variety of people who, like me, have accepted the brokenness in their lives but continue to see God redeem their past as they look forward to a joyful future. See my post from earlier this month on Exodus International.

Later in July, I attended the Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is a gathering of poets, painters, and lyric songwriters as well as other artists. The purpose is to promote faith, art, and mystery within our culture and to do so with Christian integrity. While there, I had the chance to meet and talk with more than half a dozen childhood sexual abuse and assault survivors or their friends and family members. They shared parts of their story with me, and I shared JSASSN resources with them. I also shared my testimony with a small group of twelve or so toward the end of the week.

I praise God for all that I’m learning, and I continue to ask your prayers for me, for JSASSN, and for all the survivors of abuse, assault, and trafficking worldwide.

Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International