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Authors: Melinda Tankard Reist,Abigail Bray
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Check, James (1995) ‘Teenage training: The effects of pornography on adolescent males’ in Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado (Eds)
The price we pay: The case against racist speech, hate propaganda, and pornography
. Hill and Wang, New York, pp. 89–91.
Check, James and Kristin Maxwell (June, 1992a) ‘Adolescents’ rape myth attitudes and acceptance of forced sexual intercourse’. Paper presented at the Canadian Psychological Association Meetings, Quebec.
Check, James and Kristin Maxwell (June, 1992b) ‘Children’s consumption of pornography and their attitudes regarding sexual violence’. Paper presented at the Canadian Psychological Association Meetings, Quebec.
Davies, N. (November 26, 1994) ‘Dirty business’
The Guardian
, pp. 12–17.
Dines, Gail (2010)
Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality
. Beacon Press, Boston, MA; Spinifex Press, North Melbourne.
Dines, Gail, Robert Jensen and Ann Russo (1998)
Pornography: The production and consumption of inequality
. Routledge, New York.
Dowd, Nancy E., Dorothy G. Singer and Robin Fretwell Wilson (Eds) (2006)
Handbook of Children, Culture, and Violence
. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California.
Durham, Meenakshi Gigi (2008)
The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It
. Overlook Press, Woodstock, New York.
Ferguson, J. (1985) ‘Effect of pornography on women and children’ (prepared statement). Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary (98th Congress, Second Session on Oversight on Pornography, Magazines of a Variety of Courses, Inquiring into the Subject of Their Impact on Child Abuse, Child Molestation, and Problems of Conduct Against Women). US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, pp. 281–288.
Fredrickson, Barbara L. and Tomi-Ann Roberts (1997) ‘Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks’
Psychology of Women Quarterly
21, pp. 173–206.
Greaves II, Phillip Ray (October, 2010)
The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct
. Self-published e-book.
Healy, Margaret (February 27, 2002) ‘Child pornography: An international perspective’ Paper presented at the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, Yokohama, Japan.
Heussner, Ki Mae (11 November, 2010) ‘Amazon Removes Pedophilia Book From Store’
ABC News Online
, <
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/amazon-removes-pedophilia-book-store/story?id=12119035
>.
Hughes, Donna M. (1999)
Pimps and predators on the Internet: Globalizing the sexual exploitation of women and children
. The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Kingston, Rhode Island.
Itzin, Catherine (1996) ‘Pornography and the organisation of child sexual abuse’ in P.C. Bibby (Ed)
Organized abuse: The current debate
. Aldershot, Hampshire, UK, pp. 167–196.
Jenkins, Philip (2001)
Beyond tolerance: Child pornography on the Internet
. New York University Press, New York.
Kelly, Liz (1992) ‘Pornography and child sexual abuse’ in Catherine Itzin (Ed)
Pornography: Women, violence, and civil liberties
. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, pp. 113–123.
Kelly, Liz, Wingfield, Rachel and Linda Regan (1995)
Splintered lives: Sexual exploitation of children in the context of children’s rights and child protection
. Barnardos, Ilford, Essex, UK.
Levin, Diane E. and Jean Kilbourne (2009)
So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids
. Ballantine Books/Random House, New York.
Levy, Ariel (2005)
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture
. Free Press, New York.
Linz, Daniel and Dorothy Imrich (2001) ‘Child pornography’ in Susan O. White (Ed)
Handbook of Youth and Justice
. Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York, pp. 79–111.
LoPiccolo, Joseph (1994) ‘Acceptance and broad spectrum treatment of paraphilias’ in Steven C. Hayes, Neil Jacobson, Victoria M. Follette and Michael Dougher (Eds)
Acceptance and change: Content and context in psychotherapy
. Context Press, Reno, Nevada, pp. 149–170.
M’jid Maalla, Najat (2009) ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography’ A/HRC/12/23 Human Rights Council, Geneva.
McGuire, R.J., J.M. Carlisle, and B.G. Young (1965) ‘Sexual deviation as a conditioned behavior: A hypothesis’
Behavioral Research and Therapy
2, pp. 185–190.
Oppliger, Patrice A. (2008)
Girls Gone Skank: The Sexualization of Girls in American Culture
. MacFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina.
Paul, Pamela (2005)
Pornified: How Pornography is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families
. Times Books, New York.
Rachman, S. and R. Hodgson (1968) ‘Experimentally-induced “sexual fetishism”: Replication and development’
Psychological Record
18, pp. 25–27.
Russell, Diana E.H. (1977) ‘On Pornography’
Chrysalis
4, pp. 11–15.
Russell, Diana E.H. (1986)
The Secret Trauma: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women
. Basic Books/Perseus, New York.
Russell, Diana E.H. (1993)
Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography
. Teachers College Press, New York.
Russell, Diana E.H. (1994)
Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm
. Russell Publications, Berkeley, California.
Russell, Diana E.H. and Natalie Purcell (2006) ‘Exposure to Pornography as a cause of child sexual victimization’ in Nancy E. Dowd, Dorothy G. Singer and Robin Fretwell Wilson (Eds)
Handbook of Children, Culture and Violence
. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California.
Russell, Diana E.H. and Nicole Van de Ven, (1976/2000)
Crimes Against Women: The Proceedings of the International Tribunal
. Russell Publications, Berkeley, CA.
Senn, Charlene (1993) ‘Women’s responses to pornography’ in Diana E.H. Russell (Ed)
Making violence sexy: Feminist views on pornography
. Teachers College Press, New York, pp. 179–193.
Silbert, Mimi and Ayala Pines (1993) ‘Pornography and sexual abuse of women’ in Diana E. H. Russell (Ed)
Making violence sexy: Feminist views on pornography
. Teachers College Press, New York, pp. 113–119.
Stock, Wendy (1995) ‘The effects of pornography on women’ in Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado (Eds)
The price we pay: The case against racist speech, hate propaganda, and pornography
. Hill and Wang, New York, pp. 80–88.
Tabuchi, Hiroko (9 February, 2011) ‘In Tokyo, a crackdown of sexual images of minors’
New York Times
, <
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/business/global/10manga.html?_r=1
>
Tankard Reist, Melinda (Ed) (2009)
Getting Real. Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls
. Spinifex Press, North Melbourne.
Tate, Tim (1990)
Child pornography: An investigation
. Methuen, London, UK
Tate, Tim (1992) ‘The child pornography industry: International trade in child sexual abuse’ in Catherine Itzin (Ed)
Pornography: Women, violence, and civil liberties
. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, p. 213.
Taylor, Maxwell and Ethel Quayle (2003)
Child pornography: An Internet crime
. Brunner-Routledge, New York.
United States Senate (1984)
Child Pornography and Pedophilia
. 98th Congress, second session, pp. 30–37.
Whetsell-Mitchell, Juliann (1995)
Rape of the innocent: Understanding and preventing child sexual abuse
. Accelerated Development, Washington, DC.
Whisnant, Rebecca (2010) ‘From Jekyll to Hyde: The Grooming of Male Pornography Consumers’ in Karen Boyle (Ed)
Everyday Pornography
. Routledge, London and New York, pp. 114–33.
Wyre, Ray (1990) ‘Why do men sexually abuse children?’ in Tim Tate (Ed)
Child pornography: An investigation
. Methuen, London, pp. 281–288.
___________________________
1
This article is a much shortened version of a chapter I co-authored with Natalie Purcell (in Dowd et al., 2006, pp. 59–83). I would like to thank Alix Johnson for her conceptual and editorial assistance.
2
Use of the term ‘men’ includes juvenile males in this chapter. While acknowledging that women too sexually abuse children,
Russell’s Theory
focuses on males because they are the overwhelming majority of child pornography consumers and perpetrators of child sexual victimization.
3
I include References to research findings from the 1960s onwards to demonstrate what an epic, long-standing, and ongoing struggle it has been to expose the pernicious activities of child pornography consumers.
4
I wrote my first feminist analysis of pornography in an article published in 1977, and started my anti-pornography activism in 1976. This included being a founding member of Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM) in 1976, which was the first feminist activist group in the world to focus on combating pornography.
5
Factor 4 is not necessary to
Russell’s Theory
, but it can be a significant facilitator of child sexual victimization.
6
The book describing how this International Tribunal was organized is still in print. See Russell and Van de Ven (1976/2000).
The price we pay: The case against racist speech, hate propaganda, and pornography
. Hill and Wang, New York, pp. 89–91.
Check, James and Kristin Maxwell (June, 1992a) ‘Adolescents’ rape myth attitudes and acceptance of forced sexual intercourse’. Paper presented at the Canadian Psychological Association Meetings, Quebec.
Check, James and Kristin Maxwell (June, 1992b) ‘Children’s consumption of pornography and their attitudes regarding sexual violence’. Paper presented at the Canadian Psychological Association Meetings, Quebec.
Davies, N. (November 26, 1994) ‘Dirty business’
The Guardian
, pp. 12–17.
Dines, Gail (2010)
Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality
. Beacon Press, Boston, MA; Spinifex Press, North Melbourne.
Dines, Gail, Robert Jensen and Ann Russo (1998)
Pornography: The production and consumption of inequality
. Routledge, New York.
Dowd, Nancy E., Dorothy G. Singer and Robin Fretwell Wilson (Eds) (2006)
Handbook of Children, Culture, and Violence
. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California.
Durham, Meenakshi Gigi (2008)
The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It
. Overlook Press, Woodstock, New York.
Ferguson, J. (1985) ‘Effect of pornography on women and children’ (prepared statement). Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary (98th Congress, Second Session on Oversight on Pornography, Magazines of a Variety of Courses, Inquiring into the Subject of Their Impact on Child Abuse, Child Molestation, and Problems of Conduct Against Women). US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, pp. 281–288.
Fredrickson, Barbara L. and Tomi-Ann Roberts (1997) ‘Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks’
Psychology of Women Quarterly
21, pp. 173–206.
Greaves II, Phillip Ray (October, 2010)
The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct
. Self-published e-book.
Healy, Margaret (February 27, 2002) ‘Child pornography: An international perspective’ Paper presented at the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, Yokohama, Japan.
Heussner, Ki Mae (11 November, 2010) ‘Amazon Removes Pedophilia Book From Store’
ABC News Online
, <
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/amazon-removes-pedophilia-book-store/story?id=12119035
>.
Hughes, Donna M. (1999)
Pimps and predators on the Internet: Globalizing the sexual exploitation of women and children
. The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Kingston, Rhode Island.
Itzin, Catherine (1996) ‘Pornography and the organisation of child sexual abuse’ in P.C. Bibby (Ed)
Organized abuse: The current debate
. Aldershot, Hampshire, UK, pp. 167–196.
Jenkins, Philip (2001)
Beyond tolerance: Child pornography on the Internet
. New York University Press, New York.
Kelly, Liz (1992) ‘Pornography and child sexual abuse’ in Catherine Itzin (Ed)
Pornography: Women, violence, and civil liberties
. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, pp. 113–123.
Kelly, Liz, Wingfield, Rachel and Linda Regan (1995)
Splintered lives: Sexual exploitation of children in the context of children’s rights and child protection
. Barnardos, Ilford, Essex, UK.
Levin, Diane E. and Jean Kilbourne (2009)
So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids
. Ballantine Books/Random House, New York.
Levy, Ariel (2005)
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture
. Free Press, New York.
Linz, Daniel and Dorothy Imrich (2001) ‘Child pornography’ in Susan O. White (Ed)
Handbook of Youth and Justice
. Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York, pp. 79–111.
LoPiccolo, Joseph (1994) ‘Acceptance and broad spectrum treatment of paraphilias’ in Steven C. Hayes, Neil Jacobson, Victoria M. Follette and Michael Dougher (Eds)
Acceptance and change: Content and context in psychotherapy
. Context Press, Reno, Nevada, pp. 149–170.
M’jid Maalla, Najat (2009) ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography’ A/HRC/12/23 Human Rights Council, Geneva.
McGuire, R.J., J.M. Carlisle, and B.G. Young (1965) ‘Sexual deviation as a conditioned behavior: A hypothesis’
Behavioral Research and Therapy
2, pp. 185–190.
Oppliger, Patrice A. (2008)
Girls Gone Skank: The Sexualization of Girls in American Culture
. MacFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina.
Paul, Pamela (2005)
Pornified: How Pornography is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families
. Times Books, New York.
Rachman, S. and R. Hodgson (1968) ‘Experimentally-induced “sexual fetishism”: Replication and development’
Psychological Record
18, pp. 25–27.
Russell, Diana E.H. (1977) ‘On Pornography’
Chrysalis
4, pp. 11–15.
Russell, Diana E.H. (1986)
The Secret Trauma: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women
. Basic Books/Perseus, New York.
Russell, Diana E.H. (1993)
Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography
. Teachers College Press, New York.
Russell, Diana E.H. (1994)
Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm
. Russell Publications, Berkeley, California.
Russell, Diana E.H. and Natalie Purcell (2006) ‘Exposure to Pornography as a cause of child sexual victimization’ in Nancy E. Dowd, Dorothy G. Singer and Robin Fretwell Wilson (Eds)
Handbook of Children, Culture and Violence
. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California.
Russell, Diana E.H. and Nicole Van de Ven, (1976/2000)
Crimes Against Women: The Proceedings of the International Tribunal
. Russell Publications, Berkeley, CA.
Senn, Charlene (1993) ‘Women’s responses to pornography’ in Diana E.H. Russell (Ed)
Making violence sexy: Feminist views on pornography
. Teachers College Press, New York, pp. 179–193.
Silbert, Mimi and Ayala Pines (1993) ‘Pornography and sexual abuse of women’ in Diana E. H. Russell (Ed)
Making violence sexy: Feminist views on pornography
. Teachers College Press, New York, pp. 113–119.
Stock, Wendy (1995) ‘The effects of pornography on women’ in Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado (Eds)
The price we pay: The case against racist speech, hate propaganda, and pornography
. Hill and Wang, New York, pp. 80–88.
Tabuchi, Hiroko (9 February, 2011) ‘In Tokyo, a crackdown of sexual images of minors’
New York Times
, <
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/business/global/10manga.html?_r=1
>
Tankard Reist, Melinda (Ed) (2009)
Getting Real. Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls
. Spinifex Press, North Melbourne.
Tate, Tim (1990)
Child pornography: An investigation
. Methuen, London, UK
Tate, Tim (1992) ‘The child pornography industry: International trade in child sexual abuse’ in Catherine Itzin (Ed)
Pornography: Women, violence, and civil liberties
. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, p. 213.
Taylor, Maxwell and Ethel Quayle (2003)
Child pornography: An Internet crime
. Brunner-Routledge, New York.
United States Senate (1984)
Child Pornography and Pedophilia
. 98th Congress, second session, pp. 30–37.
Whetsell-Mitchell, Juliann (1995)
Rape of the innocent: Understanding and preventing child sexual abuse
. Accelerated Development, Washington, DC.
Whisnant, Rebecca (2010) ‘From Jekyll to Hyde: The Grooming of Male Pornography Consumers’ in Karen Boyle (Ed)
Everyday Pornography
. Routledge, London and New York, pp. 114–33.
Wyre, Ray (1990) ‘Why do men sexually abuse children?’ in Tim Tate (Ed)
Child pornography: An investigation
. Methuen, London, pp. 281–288.
___________________________
1
This article is a much shortened version of a chapter I co-authored with Natalie Purcell (in Dowd et al., 2006, pp. 59–83). I would like to thank Alix Johnson for her conceptual and editorial assistance.
2
Use of the term ‘men’ includes juvenile males in this chapter. While acknowledging that women too sexually abuse children,
Russell’s Theory
focuses on males because they are the overwhelming majority of child pornography consumers and perpetrators of child sexual victimization.
3
I include References to research findings from the 1960s onwards to demonstrate what an epic, long-standing, and ongoing struggle it has been to expose the pernicious activities of child pornography consumers.
4
I wrote my first feminist analysis of pornography in an article published in 1977, and started my anti-pornography activism in 1976. This included being a founding member of Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM) in 1976, which was the first feminist activist group in the world to focus on combating pornography.
5
Factor 4 is not necessary to
Russell’s Theory
, but it can be a significant facilitator of child sexual victimization.
6
The book describing how this International Tribunal was organized is still in print. See Russell and Van de Ven (1976/2000).
S. Caroline Taylor
The Pornification of Intrafamilial Rape
1
The topic of my chapter is the pornification of intrafamilial rape – commonly termed ‘incest’. I have elsewhere argued at length why I do not use the term ‘incest’ when describing the rape and sexual assault of children, adolescents or young adults within a family setting (Taylor, 2001a, 2004a, 2004b). It is a misogynist’s word. It is a word that is used to denigrate children and young people who are raped by their father or other relatives. As the majority of offenders are fathers and the majority of victims are daughters (though males are abused also),
2
intrafamilial rape and sexual assault is considered a gendered crime. The word ‘incest’ is derived from Latin and means impure, unchaste, soiled, and unclean. More generally, the word invokes illicit but consensual sex. Anthropologists have used the term to describe inbreeding practices among close relatives and other forms of tabooed consensual sexual behaviour among lineal relatives. But men raping their girl or boy children are not doing so in order to breed, and they are not engaging in ‘consensual’ sex. What they are doing is committing sexual, physical and emotional violence against their children.
Lawyers prefer the word ‘incest’ because it continues to embed ideas of ‘consent’ in the minds of the public. It masks the reality of what is actually happening, that a child or young person is being systematically raped by their relative. Use of the term ‘incest’ arouses all manner of stigma towards the victim – so the use of the word helps to protect perpetrators. The term is proactive in that its use immediately conjures up a prohibited ‘sexual relationship’, making the term even more inappropriate to describe the systematic rape and sexual abuse of children by their parent or other relative. The media too is guilty of pornographising the term ‘incest’ and I have highlighted this trend elsewhere (see Taylor, 2002). In a 2010 news story, in print and on TV, about a perpetrator
who was found guilty of sexually abusing his young daughter, he was called a man who “had sex with his daughter.”
3
Many survivors report feelings of intense distress, shame and humiliation when they encounter this continued intimation of victims as proactive partners to their own rape.
4
Such language continues to fuel a public discourse of intrafamilial sexual abuse as ‘incest’ and as such, an illicit but consensual, even if only partially, act involving the victim.
The word ‘incest’ has become so eroticised that it fuels the staple diet of pornography users, readers and pornography makers. International research highlights the significant degree to which pornography is dedicated to ‘incest’ themes (e.g. Finkelhor, 1984; Itzin, 1996; Jenkins, 2001; Russell and Purcell, 2006). But not just any theme – pornography makers know their market well – and they know what men want to see. Nearly always the theme is of father and daughter. Reflecting patriarchal psychological theories of ‘incest’, pornography depicts the girl child as seducing her father. The mother is portrayed as sexually unavailable or sexually unattractive – either way, in a pornographic script, the mother fails to sexually service her husband’s needs – just as she does in much of the literature on child sex abuse. The child is portrayed as nymph-like. Most importantly, she ‘loves’ being penetrated vaginally, orally and anally by her own father. Being penetrated is great fun for girls of all ages according to porno makers. Even in popularised pornography such as
Playboy
and
Penthouse
, a lot of energy is directed toward fathers raping their daughters (see Russell, this volume). ‘Rape’ is what every child and woman wants. Female bodies are designed for penetration and it is considered a male right to access women’s and children’s bodies any time they wish to do so. Pornography provides and enforces such an ideology – an ideology of rape.
Gail Dines argues that much of ‘incest porn’ is pseudo child pornography, a popular genre within the increasingly violent billion-dollar gonzo pornography market that is now mainstream (2010, p. 154). Many ‘incest’ porn Websites urge fathers to rape their daughters, often providing them with advice about how to ‘seduce’ their daughters. As ‘Family Seduction’ puts it: “you won’t get this advice anywhere. Family Seduction is here to help. Don’t wait anymore. Go tell the family member that you want sex right now!” This incitement to child rape is described as a “step-by-step guide to sexual heaven!” Questions such as “how can I seduce my own daughter?” rotate relentlessly in a pop-up window on the Website along with gratuitous prompting: “always get an erection when
she’s around” which then rapidly segues to numerous pornographic images of old, greying, overweight men penetrating childish-looking females. Other sites show younger-looking men and pre-pubescent girls with small hands, flat chests, hair in pigtails and ankle socks with lace around the edge and button-flat shoes, like a 5-year-old might wear. Her hands look tiny against the erect penis of the father with the text next to it saying, “daddy’s little girl knows what she wants” or “daddy’s little girl loves to suck his cock.” Short stories accompanying these images tell of little girls with ‘hairless pussies’ seducing their daddy and begging for sex. The father is simply gratifying his highly sexualised and nymphomaniac child. Just satisfying her wish.
Promoting mother–son ‘incest’ is also a feature of pornography. Clearly the trendy but repugnant term of MILF (mothers I’d like to fuck) is promoted on some of these sites as sons fulfilling a type of Oedipal fantasy, and mothers, as some sites say, simply ‘gagging’ for it.
5
‘Incest’ pornography Websites often mock and trivialise the criminalisation of child rape. As YoungDaughter puts it:
Raping dependent children is transformed by pornography into a natural, open-minded, love story. “[F]eel the overwhelming incest passion flowing through your body and mind – and get ready to enjoy!” boasts ‘3D incest videos’.
Narratives about seductive children saturate the ‘incest’ genre. In
Daddy’s Whore
viewers can watch “sexy naughty girls seducing their own fathers”. In
My Sexy Daughter
children are “sweet, irresistible angels teasing and tempting their own daddies.” Websites such as ‘First Time with Daddy’ are common. Girl children are depicted as devious and sexually rapacious, even resorting to drugging fathers in order to seduce them. In many of the written pornographic stories, daughters are eager, willing and cooperative and are turned on rather than traumatised. This
fantasy of the child willing, wanting and loving it, reflects men’s desires and the patriarchal rule of the father.
Unfortunately, one doesn’t even need to access ‘incest’ pornography to find these scenarios. Read Family Dysfunction literature from the discipline of psychology and social sciences and you will find research-based scenarios that explain ‘incest’ as illicit sexual desires girls harbour for their fathers. And of families where the mother is sexually unattractive or sexually unavailable to the husband and so the daughter ‘substitutes’, most often with the full knowledge and support of the mother.
Family Dysfunction theory is replete with proactive language describing the ‘incest’ as a father–daughter ‘affair’; a ‘sexual relationship’; ‘consensual’ sex and ‘seduction’. Some of the research case studies read like pornographic vignettes, a point I have made explicit in previous published work. Read some legal judgements in ‘incest’ trials: far from understanding that a girl or young woman has been raped by her father or other male relative, some judges are prone to talk down trauma and talk up the ‘sexual relationship’ between the offender and victim. In some cases, the ‘culpability’ of the victim has been discussed on the basis that ‘incest’ is consensual and simply cannot be regarded as rape (for sources see Taylor, 2001a 2001b, 2004a and b).
In
Court Licensed Abuse
(2004a) I discuss a court judgement where a 12-year-old girl was merely a “sexual substitute to replace the dissatisfying sex the man was having with his wife.” Under the rubric of ‘incest’ laws, the victim can be co-charged with the offender as they are considered complicit in the commission of the crime (Taylor, 2001a). Indeed, some disturbing studies have shown the very real propensity for health and welfare professionals to view child abuse identified as ‘incest’ as less serious than other forms of child abuse with the child held accountable for the abuse to varying degrees (see Taylor, 1997; 2001a and b; 2004a). And several studies on juror attitudes have shown that the longer a child is subjected to abuse within the family unit, the more likely those jurors were to blame the child (Taylor, 2001a and 2004a).
Male pornography consumers can ‘choose’ between porn that perpetuates the self-serving fantasy that fathers and daughters are engaged in consensual sex, or pornography which celebrates fathers violently raping their daughters.
MySexyDaughter.com
states that “We know you enjoy
rough and bewildering incest action
, so we have a very special thing for you” (my emphasis). ‘
UseMyDaughter.com
’ has a banner that reads, “Want to Fuck My Daughter?” and then states “Watch this slut take cocks for cash in my pockets.” The word ‘rape’ is a key word in the advertisement for these popular ‘incest’ Websites. In ‘How I Became My
Daddy’s Whore’ a father repeatedly rapes his daughter in her bedroom one night: “I flipped my daughter over and shoved my cock back into her sopping wet pussy and pounded the shit out of my little girl! I pulled her hair, and made her scream into her pillow and said ‘Be yer daddy’s little whore tonight, baby’ … I raped my little girl on all fours on the floor.” A disclaimer at the end of this child rape story states: “The author does not condone child abuse, this story is meant as an erotic fantasy not real life.” I ask: For whom is the raping of children an erotic fantasy?
Another large ‘incest’ site is described as “a unique site offering reality videos from a real
incest-addicted
family” (my emphasis). Here viewers can watch videos called
brother rapes little sister, dad fucks his little daughter in ass, old dad fucks his little daughter, little daughter raped in the bath
, and
innocent daughter raped by daddy
. The normalisation of ‘incest’, rape and abuse are, as Gail Dines (2010) argues, achieved by desensitising the users of pornography through repetitions and gradual escalations of violence.
Smiling or providing the necessary groans and/or self-derogatory language that will excite the unknown eyes that view her flesh are common in ‘incest’ pornography. Because she is only flesh that is there for men to penetrate and control and denigrate.
But children’s expressions of terror and horror are also a source of sexual excitement for men. In 2004, I was informed about a case in Australia when police swooped on a child sex abuse and pornography ring. One lot of pornographic images showed an infant girl the police believed to be approximately 2 years old. The photographs show her being held down by at least two adult men while she is being fully penetrated. The child’s face is twisted in pain and terror. Police also uncovered a video of the same horrendous crime. During an interview, the man who had penetrated the toddler told a female detective that there was “nothing quite like hearing the ‘crack’ of an infant’s pelvis while you are penetrating them.” This ‘crack’ was the breaking of the child’s pelvic bone.
Pornography debases women – every woman and every girl child. Those who view pornography are not partaking in a morally neutral activity. They are acting as ‘patrons’. Their patronage fuels pornography, commissions further pornography and leads to ever more degrading ways of depicting women and children. Furthermore, those who view pornography are more likely to then act out what they see. In my previous and current research on intrafamilial sexual abuse, many survivors have relayed to me how they were forced to view pornography by the offender and how the offender then wanted them to replicate the sex acts portrayed on the screen. In several cases I know of victim/survivors who were abused well into adolescence were forced to take part in sexual acts that were
filmed. Many live with the sheer terror that one day these photos will surface. This greatly exacerbates their trauma. A 2009 US media article identified a serious case of long-term, repeated rape and sexual abuse of children and adolescents by family relatives, with the case only coming to light when the wife of one of the men found ‘incest porn’ in the family home. The case has revealed years of horrendous rapes and sexual assaults on children and adolescents including the production of pornography. Authorities identified the accused men as being in possession of significant amounts of ‘incest porn’ and as the authorities noted, while ‘incest’ is illegal, pornography depicting incest is often not illegal (CBS News, 2009).
Here is my question for you: Does pornography reflect fantasy or reality? We often hear the arguments that pornography affords a ‘release’ and an ‘escape’ from reality and that it delivers just harmless sexual fantasies. But we know that far from providing fantasies, pornography reflects only too sharply the lived reality of so many women and girl children. Yet given the theoretical and legal placement of victims in much of psychological and legal discourse, is it any wonder that pornography is defended as a ‘right’ of men to purchase, produce, commission and view?
The Pornification of Intrafamilial Rape
1
The topic of my chapter is the pornification of intrafamilial rape – commonly termed ‘incest’. I have elsewhere argued at length why I do not use the term ‘incest’ when describing the rape and sexual assault of children, adolescents or young adults within a family setting (Taylor, 2001a, 2004a, 2004b). It is a misogynist’s word. It is a word that is used to denigrate children and young people who are raped by their father or other relatives. As the majority of offenders are fathers and the majority of victims are daughters (though males are abused also),
2
intrafamilial rape and sexual assault is considered a gendered crime. The word ‘incest’ is derived from Latin and means impure, unchaste, soiled, and unclean. More generally, the word invokes illicit but consensual sex. Anthropologists have used the term to describe inbreeding practices among close relatives and other forms of tabooed consensual sexual behaviour among lineal relatives. But men raping their girl or boy children are not doing so in order to breed, and they are not engaging in ‘consensual’ sex. What they are doing is committing sexual, physical and emotional violence against their children.
Lawyers prefer the word ‘incest’ because it continues to embed ideas of ‘consent’ in the minds of the public. It masks the reality of what is actually happening, that a child or young person is being systematically raped by their relative. Use of the term ‘incest’ arouses all manner of stigma towards the victim – so the use of the word helps to protect perpetrators. The term is proactive in that its use immediately conjures up a prohibited ‘sexual relationship’, making the term even more inappropriate to describe the systematic rape and sexual abuse of children by their parent or other relative. The media too is guilty of pornographising the term ‘incest’ and I have highlighted this trend elsewhere (see Taylor, 2002). In a 2010 news story, in print and on TV, about a perpetrator
who was found guilty of sexually abusing his young daughter, he was called a man who “had sex with his daughter.”
3
Many survivors report feelings of intense distress, shame and humiliation when they encounter this continued intimation of victims as proactive partners to their own rape.
4
Such language continues to fuel a public discourse of intrafamilial sexual abuse as ‘incest’ and as such, an illicit but consensual, even if only partially, act involving the victim.
The word ‘incest’ has become so eroticised that it fuels the staple diet of pornography users, readers and pornography makers. International research highlights the significant degree to which pornography is dedicated to ‘incest’ themes (e.g. Finkelhor, 1984; Itzin, 1996; Jenkins, 2001; Russell and Purcell, 2006). But not just any theme – pornography makers know their market well – and they know what men want to see. Nearly always the theme is of father and daughter. Reflecting patriarchal psychological theories of ‘incest’, pornography depicts the girl child as seducing her father. The mother is portrayed as sexually unavailable or sexually unattractive – either way, in a pornographic script, the mother fails to sexually service her husband’s needs – just as she does in much of the literature on child sex abuse. The child is portrayed as nymph-like. Most importantly, she ‘loves’ being penetrated vaginally, orally and anally by her own father. Being penetrated is great fun for girls of all ages according to porno makers. Even in popularised pornography such as
Playboy
and
Penthouse
, a lot of energy is directed toward fathers raping their daughters (see Russell, this volume). ‘Rape’ is what every child and woman wants. Female bodies are designed for penetration and it is considered a male right to access women’s and children’s bodies any time they wish to do so. Pornography provides and enforces such an ideology – an ideology of rape.
Gail Dines argues that much of ‘incest porn’ is pseudo child pornography, a popular genre within the increasingly violent billion-dollar gonzo pornography market that is now mainstream (2010, p. 154). Many ‘incest’ porn Websites urge fathers to rape their daughters, often providing them with advice about how to ‘seduce’ their daughters. As ‘Family Seduction’ puts it: “you won’t get this advice anywhere. Family Seduction is here to help. Don’t wait anymore. Go tell the family member that you want sex right now!” This incitement to child rape is described as a “step-by-step guide to sexual heaven!” Questions such as “how can I seduce my own daughter?” rotate relentlessly in a pop-up window on the Website along with gratuitous prompting: “always get an erection when
she’s around” which then rapidly segues to numerous pornographic images of old, greying, overweight men penetrating childish-looking females. Other sites show younger-looking men and pre-pubescent girls with small hands, flat chests, hair in pigtails and ankle socks with lace around the edge and button-flat shoes, like a 5-year-old might wear. Her hands look tiny against the erect penis of the father with the text next to it saying, “daddy’s little girl knows what she wants” or “daddy’s little girl loves to suck his cock.” Short stories accompanying these images tell of little girls with ‘hairless pussies’ seducing their daddy and begging for sex. The father is simply gratifying his highly sexualised and nymphomaniac child. Just satisfying her wish.
Promoting mother–son ‘incest’ is also a feature of pornography. Clearly the trendy but repugnant term of MILF (mothers I’d like to fuck) is promoted on some of these sites as sons fulfilling a type of Oedipal fantasy, and mothers, as some sites say, simply ‘gagging’ for it.
5
‘Incest’ pornography Websites often mock and trivialise the criminalisation of child rape. As YoungDaughter puts it:
The disapproval of incest, especially between father and daughter, is a classic example of ‘projection’. The alleged reason for disapproval [sic] is that incest is the same as sexual abuse, aggression and violence. These are all rational argument [sic] but they are used to justify an irrational opinion. In fact, most cases of incest have little to do with violence.
‘First Time With Daddy’ flatters the ego of fathers who want to rape their daughters: “when a dad is so handsome incest is natural. Don’t think it’s filthy. After all, father will always be the paragon man for their daughter. Just set your mind free and get in! Tons of XXX love stories inside!”Raping dependent children is transformed by pornography into a natural, open-minded, love story. “[F]eel the overwhelming incest passion flowing through your body and mind – and get ready to enjoy!” boasts ‘3D incest videos’.
Narratives about seductive children saturate the ‘incest’ genre. In
Daddy’s Whore
viewers can watch “sexy naughty girls seducing their own fathers”. In
My Sexy Daughter
children are “sweet, irresistible angels teasing and tempting their own daddies.” Websites such as ‘First Time with Daddy’ are common. Girl children are depicted as devious and sexually rapacious, even resorting to drugging fathers in order to seduce them. In many of the written pornographic stories, daughters are eager, willing and cooperative and are turned on rather than traumatised. This
fantasy of the child willing, wanting and loving it, reflects men’s desires and the patriarchal rule of the father.
Unfortunately, one doesn’t even need to access ‘incest’ pornography to find these scenarios. Read Family Dysfunction literature from the discipline of psychology and social sciences and you will find research-based scenarios that explain ‘incest’ as illicit sexual desires girls harbour for their fathers. And of families where the mother is sexually unattractive or sexually unavailable to the husband and so the daughter ‘substitutes’, most often with the full knowledge and support of the mother.
Family Dysfunction theory is replete with proactive language describing the ‘incest’ as a father–daughter ‘affair’; a ‘sexual relationship’; ‘consensual’ sex and ‘seduction’. Some of the research case studies read like pornographic vignettes, a point I have made explicit in previous published work. Read some legal judgements in ‘incest’ trials: far from understanding that a girl or young woman has been raped by her father or other male relative, some judges are prone to talk down trauma and talk up the ‘sexual relationship’ between the offender and victim. In some cases, the ‘culpability’ of the victim has been discussed on the basis that ‘incest’ is consensual and simply cannot be regarded as rape (for sources see Taylor, 2001a 2001b, 2004a and b).
In
Court Licensed Abuse
(2004a) I discuss a court judgement where a 12-year-old girl was merely a “sexual substitute to replace the dissatisfying sex the man was having with his wife.” Under the rubric of ‘incest’ laws, the victim can be co-charged with the offender as they are considered complicit in the commission of the crime (Taylor, 2001a). Indeed, some disturbing studies have shown the very real propensity for health and welfare professionals to view child abuse identified as ‘incest’ as less serious than other forms of child abuse with the child held accountable for the abuse to varying degrees (see Taylor, 1997; 2001a and b; 2004a). And several studies on juror attitudes have shown that the longer a child is subjected to abuse within the family unit, the more likely those jurors were to blame the child (Taylor, 2001a and 2004a).
Male pornography consumers can ‘choose’ between porn that perpetuates the self-serving fantasy that fathers and daughters are engaged in consensual sex, or pornography which celebrates fathers violently raping their daughters.
MySexyDaughter.com
states that “We know you enjoy
rough and bewildering incest action
, so we have a very special thing for you” (my emphasis). ‘
UseMyDaughter.com
’ has a banner that reads, “Want to Fuck My Daughter?” and then states “Watch this slut take cocks for cash in my pockets.” The word ‘rape’ is a key word in the advertisement for these popular ‘incest’ Websites. In ‘How I Became My
Daddy’s Whore’ a father repeatedly rapes his daughter in her bedroom one night: “I flipped my daughter over and shoved my cock back into her sopping wet pussy and pounded the shit out of my little girl! I pulled her hair, and made her scream into her pillow and said ‘Be yer daddy’s little whore tonight, baby’ … I raped my little girl on all fours on the floor.” A disclaimer at the end of this child rape story states: “The author does not condone child abuse, this story is meant as an erotic fantasy not real life.” I ask: For whom is the raping of children an erotic fantasy?
Another large ‘incest’ site is described as “a unique site offering reality videos from a real
incest-addicted
family” (my emphasis). Here viewers can watch videos called
brother rapes little sister, dad fucks his little daughter in ass, old dad fucks his little daughter, little daughter raped in the bath
, and
innocent daughter raped by daddy
. The normalisation of ‘incest’, rape and abuse are, as Gail Dines (2010) argues, achieved by desensitising the users of pornography through repetitions and gradual escalations of violence.
Smiling or providing the necessary groans and/or self-derogatory language that will excite the unknown eyes that view her flesh are common in ‘incest’ pornography. Because she is only flesh that is there for men to penetrate and control and denigrate.
But children’s expressions of terror and horror are also a source of sexual excitement for men. In 2004, I was informed about a case in Australia when police swooped on a child sex abuse and pornography ring. One lot of pornographic images showed an infant girl the police believed to be approximately 2 years old. The photographs show her being held down by at least two adult men while she is being fully penetrated. The child’s face is twisted in pain and terror. Police also uncovered a video of the same horrendous crime. During an interview, the man who had penetrated the toddler told a female detective that there was “nothing quite like hearing the ‘crack’ of an infant’s pelvis while you are penetrating them.” This ‘crack’ was the breaking of the child’s pelvic bone.
Pornography debases women – every woman and every girl child. Those who view pornography are not partaking in a morally neutral activity. They are acting as ‘patrons’. Their patronage fuels pornography, commissions further pornography and leads to ever more degrading ways of depicting women and children. Furthermore, those who view pornography are more likely to then act out what they see. In my previous and current research on intrafamilial sexual abuse, many survivors have relayed to me how they were forced to view pornography by the offender and how the offender then wanted them to replicate the sex acts portrayed on the screen. In several cases I know of victim/survivors who were abused well into adolescence were forced to take part in sexual acts that were
filmed. Many live with the sheer terror that one day these photos will surface. This greatly exacerbates their trauma. A 2009 US media article identified a serious case of long-term, repeated rape and sexual abuse of children and adolescents by family relatives, with the case only coming to light when the wife of one of the men found ‘incest porn’ in the family home. The case has revealed years of horrendous rapes and sexual assaults on children and adolescents including the production of pornography. Authorities identified the accused men as being in possession of significant amounts of ‘incest porn’ and as the authorities noted, while ‘incest’ is illegal, pornography depicting incest is often not illegal (CBS News, 2009).
Here is my question for you: Does pornography reflect fantasy or reality? We often hear the arguments that pornography affords a ‘release’ and an ‘escape’ from reality and that it delivers just harmless sexual fantasies. But we know that far from providing fantasies, pornography reflects only too sharply the lived reality of so many women and girl children. Yet given the theoretical and legal placement of victims in much of psychological and legal discourse, is it any wonder that pornography is defended as a ‘right’ of men to purchase, produce, commission and view?
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