Tragic 60s Incest Case Shattered Lives
“A ‘dark, disgusting and very well-kept family secret’ tearfully spilled out in court yesterday in the case of a man who raped his sister and got her pregnant 42 years ago. The 61-year-old Edmonton-born man was given a two-year conditional sentence to be served in the community after pleading guilty to having sex with a female under 14… Interestingly, one of the people in court was the actual child born of the 1964 incestuous relationship, a woman who said she came to see the man who had fathered her. She listened raptly as her birth mother spoke. ‘I was robbed of my childhood and my innocence,’ said the 55-year-old woman. ‘The years of sexual abuse have been forever woven into the fabric of my life. As a child, I was betrayed by my brother, my parents and my own body. At the age of 13, when other girls were being children, I was a child giving birth to a child.’ The woman said she had no say in the childbirth and her parents told her ‘to never speak of this ever again.’ She said: ‘I was the family embarrassment and I was emotionally abandoned by my parents.’ The woman added she has lived every day of her life with the belief she was ‘damaged goods’ and her family’s ‘dirty little secret.’ She also said she was left with a ‘huge gaping hole’ in her from giving up her daughter for adoption… Court heard brother and sister lived in northeast Edmonton in the early 1960s with their parents and one other sibling. The man began to fondle his sister when she was 10 and the inappropriate sexual touching increased over time. In 1964, when she was 13 and he was 19, they had sexual intercourse, court heard. The girl got pregnant and the child was put up for adoption. In 2005 she went to police and, when contacted, the brother took full responsibility.” — Edmonton Sun (Canada)
Without denying the myriad ways in which this act of sibling incest changed and traumatized people’s lives, there is something extremely unsettling about it becoming a court case forty-two years after the fact. In the first place, times have changed. In 1964 this was still the way that families handled difficult events like a teen pregnancy. Was abortion even legal in Canada in 1964? How else should the parents have handled it? Should the parents have turned their son over to the police? Wouldn’t that have just worsened the family’s trauma? Would the victim really have felt any retribution, or would she have felt guilt for sending her brother to jail? How would you handle it? Wouldn’t you try just to minimize the damage? Plainly it was a fucked up situation, but the parents probably managed it the best they could. Passing judgement on it now is like passing judgement on the practices of a different era. Something doesn’t seem fair about it.
In the second place, what point does it serve for people approaching retirement age to create a court case out of something that they’ve already been living with for forty-odd years? Ok, the victim suffered. What her brother did was wrong. But at some point isn’t the psychologically healthy thing just to get on with life? To accept the past, however difficult it may have been, and to move on into the future? There are living victims of the Holocaust who seem to have done a better job letting go of the past. Is it insensitive to say that? Perhaps. Please comment if you think so. But in the end it is difficult to see how this really rights any wrongs — and if it doesn’t, then you’re just left with a melodrama of selfish vengeance, the victim becoming a victimizer.
Why not go after Senator Robert C. Byrd of WV for being a member of the Klu Klux Klan in the 60’s or the Pope for being a former Nazi Youth? I guess it depends on how much political or religious pull you have to keep the door closed on your closet of skeletons.
You didn’t post pics, and therefore, this article has about as much solidity as an African with Diarreha.
The most crucial factor was missed out: was she hot?
Do any US states have statutes of limitations for sex crimes? I don’t think we do here in Canada.
“Abortion had been illegal in Canada for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thus forcing women to find dangerous alternative methods. With growing pressure on the government by women’s groups, an amendment to the Criminal Code in 1969 allowed abortions in hospitals under restrictive circumstances. Over time, however, this law has been subject to interpretation through court challenges.”
(http://www.collectionscanada.ca/02/02012002/0201200211_e.html)
People, this was cathartic for her. The words closure, accountability and justice come to mind as well. Insensitive? Some women go an ENTIRE lifetime without finding their voice. I am glad she found hers, before it was too late. In our society, where it is still the overall norm to blame the victim, it does become too late for many. Were women of that generation encouraged to be or become psychologically healthy? You can pass all the laws you want, but until rape becomes culturally unacceptable, it will continue to happen, to women and men alike.
And Supervert, I would want him to find HIS voice, too. No matter how much time it took.
God help us all.
Interesting point, LG. You think perhaps it was cathartic for him too? He readily admitted everything to the police.
It is possible that it was cleansing for him as well; if he suffered abuse that lead him to be a perp, I hope he finds healing. But I was actually referring to men who are raped, they also suffer from the stigma that causes silence.
I think their everyday life is being overlooked. If it is really so that her brother was the cause of a child she could never raise and the loss of respect she could never gain back, then it would become worse each year. Without being allowed to talk about it, she must’ve been in that house for at least another six years, all the while forced to live peacefully with her rapist. Every thanksgiving and Christmas she would have to sit with her family, silent about the things she’d like to shout out into the world. I don’t know what triggered it, perhaps a husband that convinced her that rape is unforgivable, but point is, she was finally able to confront her family with a past they had been hiding. I agree completely that one should just move on after so many years, but I also know some people are unable to. Especially if they keep it bottled up inside.
HP
what about closure for the daughter of this rape victim this must have been important for her as wel now she has a chance at findinging out her medical history and whether their are any risky genes she needs to worry about because of the inbreeding.plus i believe its never to late to take a rapist/perv off the streets.
THough I’m too young to talk about “back then” my thinking is, yes, there were better ways to handle the situation. I don’t care if the perp is also my child, if one of my kids is raped, touched, or otherwise assaulted, the person who did it will pay. Again, i can’t speak for those times, but today people would still be shamed to admit something like that happend, but in the end the only person punished was the victim. she should never have felt at fault. what he did was wrong and he should have been tried right then and there for molesting his sister.
as for the now grown child, i can’t even imagine the suffering, knowing just being alive is a product of so much pain and shame. i hope she is able to move forward with her life and the pain is not something that is past down to future generations. 3 (counting the original parents) is enough.
I agree with the closure…
But couldn’t there have been a
better medium rather than a courtroom…?
With so many years passed one has to think
that a person is capable of some rational
reasoning…Why make it public…?
The past wasn’t humiliating enough…?
Perhaps that’s the twist… Years of living
in your rotten family’s closet and all you
need is the fresh air of some sympathizers…
Might work in a small town…
But it’s sure to get bastardized somehow…
Again I think there must have been a better medium…
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Bukkake
