INCEST OFFENDERS VS. ADULTS
Incest offenders vs. adults are adult males who have had sexual contact with their daughters or stepdaughters who were aged sixteen or older at the time. As in the other incest groups, the use of force will not be a separate category. When a female is sixteen or older, the presence or absence of threat or force is more easily determined than when she is younger; both parental authority and the disparity in physical strength are less and, to be effective, physical force or threat must ordinarily be so extreme as to be easily identified.
All the elements that served as real or fancied mitigating factors in the case of incest offenders vs. minors are intensified in the incest offenders vs. adults. The females were all physically mature and would be considered appropriate sexual partners by most men. The “child molesting” element of the other incest offenders no longer exists. Bluntly speaking, society tells the father or stepfather of a female aged sixteen or over, “You must live on rather intimate terms with a female who is old enough for sex and who is sexually attractive, but you must not allow yourself to take advantage of this situation.” To the average person this dictate seems a reasonable law and one easy to obey. However, in certain circumstances even the most conservative person must admit that obedience to the law requires an iron will. For example, there are cases where a man marries a woman who has a full-grown daughter perhaps far more attractive than her mother; here the man may find himself sharing a home with a female with whom he could have a socially acceptable sexual relationship were it not for the fact that he married her mother. To view this female, whom he can scarcely look upon as a true daughter, in provocative dishabille without any thought of sex entering his mind is a virtual impossibility. The daughter, looking upon him not as a father but merely as her mother’s husband, may make the situation more acute by applying to him the semisexual behaviorisms that have proved useful in obtaining her way with other males.
Many a father who would rather commit suicide than have sexual contact with his daughter has guiltily repressed incestuous thoughts that come unbidden to his mind. It is hard to recognize sexual attractiveness without being sexually attracted.
At the other extreme one sometimes finds cases that bring to mind the primate families or European peasant families of the past, where the wife and nubile daughters were regarded as the personal property of the male to do with as he pleased. Even today in some nations incest is looked upon as a family problem rather than a matter calling for legal action by society. In these cases the male’s basic attitude is a simple and not illogical one: “I’ve reared them, fed them, and protected them for years; by rights I should have sexual access to them in recompense.” Vestiges of this old pattern remain in some of our culturally “backward” communities and urban slums. These vestiges are not only recognized but expected by the persons involved—”Pop’s drinking again tonight, Sis; you’d better go over and stay with Aunt Jennie.” Such a situation, accepted as one of life’s hazards by the participants, is enough to send the college-educated social worker running for the nearest policeman.
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