Incest. Perhaps the most deeply entrenched taboo in Western society. Forbidden by moral codes, forbidden by most religious customs, and in certain circumstances where it is not forbidden by law, it is at least discouraged. It is, surely, our strongest sexual taboo.
During the last two decades we have seen the stigma that was once associated with other "different" forms of sex begin to lessen. When, around 1955, the subculture of mate-swapping began to surface, it caused quite a furor. Many tried to write it off as a passing fad, and those who engaged in swapping were widely condemned. Today, though society has by no means given its approval of the practice, it has recognized that swapping is the personal business of those who engage in it, and that society has neither the need nor the means to control it. The taboo has not completely vanished — but much of the stigma has faded.
Oral sex — such as cunnilingus and fellatio — was once considered by many to be the most perverted of sexual acts. It was condemned as "unnatural" and was illegal in many states — even when practiced by a man and his wife, in the privacy of their own bedroom. While this act remains forbidden by statute in some states, such laws are rarely enforced — except in cases where minors are involved — and oral sex is seen in a new and much brighter light.
Anal intercourse is known to be used by a great number of couples, and the mention of this act no longer creates the revulsion that it once did. If not completely toppled, another taboo has at least been weakened.
Homosexuals, both male and female, have gained a new acceptance. Without putting it in writing, without changing the statutes that have discouraged and suppressed acts of homosexuality, society has finally conceded to these people their right to behave as they choose so long as their acts do not infringe upon the rights of others.
Yes, most of the taboos have faded away into limbo; and others are faltering. This is due in large part to the great advances made in psychosexual knowledge during recent years; due to studies such as the Kinsey reports, which showed such acts to be much more widespread than had previously been thought. It was information obtained from such studies that created a new atmosphere in which such acts are seen as small parts of the sexual scene rather than the "sick" acts of a "perverted" mind.
But what about incest?
Incest, of course, refers to sexual relations between members of the same family — between brother and sister, between mother and son, between father and daughter. The relationship may be homosexual such as a lesbian experiment between two sisters: or it may be troilistic (troilism is sex involving three partners) such as the case described by Brenda at the opening of this book. Still, it is incest.
The actual sex act may be oral, it may be anal, or it may be ordinary copulation; but, if it involves two members of the same family, it is incest.
And it is the one taboo on which Western society has refused to yield. There is little evidence to indicate that it will.
Much of the rationale upon which society bases its condemnation of the incestuous relationship springs, of course, from genetic and biological factors. There is certain evidence that pregnancies which result from intercourse between closely related couples show a high incidence of genetic complications in the offspring — deformed or mentally retarded children. This is the basis of the laws by which many of our states forbid marriages between close relatives, such as first cousins.
A much larger portion of the arguments against incest, however, are based on custom. There was a time when it was the duty of a daughter — nearly her sole duty — to bring a husband into the household, thus expanding the size, the wealth, and the strength of the family. Virginity was highly prized, especially during the Victorian era, and a girl was expected to remain a virgin until marriage. For this reason, all contacts with male members within the family structure were closely supervised, rigid separation of the sexes was imposed. Even the most innocent of contacts between brother and sister, for instance, were condemned and punished, and the child was guided outward — to expand and strengthen the family. To err was to live forever in guilt.
Edward M. Brecher, in his book The Sex Researchers, reports that Henry Havelock Ellis, one of the first and most famous of those who have explored the intricate world of sex, had his first sexual experience with a young cousin' who came to visit. Though the event is described as very mild and timid, young Ellis, raised in the strict Victorian era of the mid-1800s, seems to have borne the memory to his grave.
For years, the book reports, Ellis was totally incapable of enjoying sexual intercourse, never achieving ejaculation until he was well into his thirties. Then, when finally he chose to marry, Ellis chose a lesbian to be his bride. He knew of her lesbianism, and is said to have accepted it. Anna, his wife, brought her conquests into their home.
It was only after the death of his wife, the author reports, that Ellis was able to achieve full sexual gratification — and he found it with a former mistress of his deceased wife. Brecher attributes much of the sexual problems of Havelock Ellis to the lingering guilt in his mind — guilt brought on by an affair so mild that it would go unnoticed today.
So it is that society enforces its customs.
But this work will not concern itself with the milder forms of incest — the innocent kissing and fondling of children — and it will not attempt to explore the full spectrum of such relationships… It will, instead, focus on one aspect of the subject. Daughters and fathers.
In these pages you are going to meet daughters and fathers who obey no rules but their own, daughters and fathers who choose to violate the moral codes imposed by our culture, and you are going to hear, in their own words, with no apologies, why and how they do so.
You are going to meet the people who have passed the barrier against incest, the barrier that Freud described in the following manner:
… Respect for this barrier is essentially a cultural demand made by society. Society must defend itself against the danger that the interests which it needs for the establishment of higher social units may be swallowed up by the family; and for this reason, in the case of every individual, it seeks by all possible means to loosen their connection with their family — a connection which, in their childhood, is the only important one.
… The parents' affection far the child may awaken his sexual instincts prematurely to such a degree that the mental excitation breaks through in an unmistakable fashion to the genital system. If, on the other hand, the parent is able to postpone this excitation until later, the affection can perform its task of directing the child in his choice of a sexual object when he reaches maturity.
… Time has been gained in which the child can erect, among other things, the barrier against incest, and can thus take up into himself the moral precepts which expressly exclude from his object-choice, as being blood-relations, the persons whom he has loved in his childhood.
"The barrier against incest," Freud continues, "is probably among the historical acquisitions of mankind, and, like other moral taboos, has no doubt already become established in some persons by organic inheritance. Psycho-analytic investigation shows, however, haw intensely the individual struggles with the temptation to incest during his period of growth and haw frequently the barrier is transgressed in fantasies and even in reality." While many researchers dispute Freud's theory of organic inheritance of the "barrier against incest", most will agree that the barrier is frequently transgressed "in fantasies and even in reality".
But how frequently?
Statistics on the frequency of incest are difficult to came by, and even mare difficult to judge as to accuracy. Most cases of incest are revealed only when, through some other occurrence, such as the pregnancy of a minor, the law becomes involved. This, of course, is only the tip of an iceberg. It is difficult to judge the size of the iceberg itself.
The late Alfred Kinsey, during research for his Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, asked the 4,441 women who were interviewed if they had experienced sexual contacts before adolescence. Nearly one in four reported that they had; and, in 609 cases where the older males were identified, only 52 percent were strangers, friends or acquaintances accounted far 32 percent, and the rest were members of the family. Uncles accounted far 9 percent of the first sexual contacts of the women interviewed, brothers, accounted far 3 percent and the other 4 percent were introduced to sex by their own fathers.
These figures represent the percentages of the 609 cases in which the first sexual contact was identified, of course, and it may be inaccurate to attempt to extend them to the full survey. Still, they indicate that a startling number of young females were — and are — first seduced by a member of their own family. And seduced may be an inappropriate term. It seems reasonable to assume that there are many cases where the daughter take the initiative, leading her own father dawn the primrose path that leads to incestuous intercourse.
If the Kinsey report can be accepted as an accurate cross-section of the sexual habits of the human creature — and mast researchers concede that it is exactly that — then the number of people who have engaged in intercourse with members of their own family must be truly staggering. As a matter of fact, many researchers have argued that, if the Kinsey figures were inaccurate in any way — it was because they underestimated the number of people who have engaged in the sexual practices not readily accepted by our society.
The recent changes in the family structure are another fact or that must be taken into consideration in any objective study of incest. The Kinsey study was published in 1953. In that year the family was, in mast cases, headed by the father. He was respected as the one who provided. The profile he presented to his child was probably much stronger than is seen by the daughter of today, and for that reason she may well have been less likely to attempt to hurdle the barrier of incest by which they were separated.
Today, in ever-growing numbers, women are gaining equality within the family structure. They work. They contribute to the support of the family — and the father thus becomes more human, and more approachable, in the eyes of his children.
In 1953, the year of the Kinsey report, people were far more reluctant than today to admit that they had engaged in sexual behavior which might be considered antisocial. Thus, considering today's atmosphere of greater sexual freedom, it seems reasonable to conclude that a new study of sexual attitudes and experiences would find an even higher number of women willing to admit that they had engaged in incestuous intercourse.
Youth of today is more aware, sexually, than the young people of years gone by, and it may well be that this awareness will lead to an increase in intra-family sex. Only time will tell. But it is a certainty that the children of those couples who engage in the mate swapping to which we have referred will, in most cases, become aware of the activities of their parents. The effect of such a discovery is hard to predict and will, of course, vary in each case; but it may be that many children, seeing one barrier fall, will feel free to abandon their own moral codes.
The youth communes, too, are another attack upon the traditional structure of the family, and the effect may be tremendous and far-reaching.
In many of these communes, where all property is shared, nudity is accepted without comment, and there are no traditional husbands and wives, even sex is a communal item. "Making like", it is often called — and the responsibility for the rearing of the children is often shared among the members of the commune.
In such an atmosphere, the child is likely to find it difficult to find a father-image with which she may identify. When the mother is shared equally between several men, and the child receives both her affection and her discipline from more than one "father", it seems highly unlikely that her mind will erect what Freud called the barrier against incest and erect may be the key word in Freud's writings on the subject.
Raised in such a commune, knowing the females are shared, feeling an equal affection for the male adults of the household, and reaching puberty — is the child likely, if aroused sexually, to make a distinction between her natural father and another? Probably not.
The attitudes of the other members of the commune, of course, will bear heavily upon the development of the child. It may well be that the parents, following their instincts, will maintain the taboo against incest. Perhaps they will not. But the tremendous number of communes now forming across the nation does seem a point worth watching. This final destruction of the family unit could be the first signal that society is shedding its traditional taboo against incest. During the coming years, as the children of these communal families reach puberty, we may well see a tremendous increase in the incidence of sex within the family.
Many members of these communes will no doubt return to the mainstream of our society, picking up the moral codes from which they have attempted to flee. Others will take their place. The communes may be a permanent thing; they may fade into oblivion.
But they are surely the most concerted attack ever made upon the accepted structure of the family and the barrier erected against the incest taboo.
Will the barrier fall? Only time will tell. This book does not pretend to hold the answer to that question. Time and research will provide that answer. And the book is not about the people society calls "hippies"; nor is it about communes. It is about the people next door. The businessman with the lovely young daughter. It is about the people who, perhaps, work with you, or attend your church; the daughter may go to school with your own daughter. For it is a fact — like it or not — that incest does occur.
The people you will meet within these pages are real. The stories are their own, and so are the words. Sometimes sordid, sometimes heartbreaking, each of them is true. They are case histories of daughters and fathers…
… Daughters and fathers who ignore the barrier against incest.
Mama would have raised pure hell if she could have seen us there, naked, four in one bed, sweating even though the air conditioner in the motel room was turned to its coldest. I always sweat when I fuck, sweat until my body gets slippery; and now, as we rested after our first balling of the night, I could feel the perspiration forming cold beads on the flesh of my knockers, on my thighs, my belly. It felt good.
Daddy was sweating, too. His dark hair was wet and pasted to his forehead. The hair on his broad chest and muscular legs was wet and glistening with sweat. He was resting with one arm thrown over his eyes, shielding them from the glare of the overhead light, and I could see that the dark hair beneath his arms was also damp. So was his cock. And the hair around it.
But that was wet with come, not sweat.
Moving closer to him, so that my body was pressed against his side, I pulled his arm down from over his eyes and slipped it under me, snuggling close. With my other hand I reached down to touch his sticky, half-hard prick. His white teeth flashed as he smiled lazily at me.
I kissed him in the hollow of his throat, tasting the salt of his sweat, and I felt his rough hand move down and close over the globe of my tit. My nipple was still hard and erect, the way it always gets when I fuck, or when I even think about fucking, and I felt myself getting hornier as he idly played with my knocker. I began to wonder how long he would have to rest before he could fuck again. Not long, I hoped.
On the other side of my father lay Jodi and her dad, legs still tangled together so that her wet little pussy was pressed against his thigh. She moved it against him as I watched. Both had their eyes closed, the way people will do after a good piece of ass, and I sort of got a kick out of looking them over.
Jodi was seventeen, a year older than me, but she was little. I had it all over her when it came to tits, and I was several inches taller. She was a blonde, just like Ken, her father, and the blondeness was natural. The hair around her cunt proved that. Me, I have the black hair of my father; and it tangles in a thick bush around my cunt. All in all, black hair and blonde, me with the big tits and Jodi with the petite little body she had, we should have made a picture you could put on sale. I reached across the bed and touched Ken's prick.