Word: incest
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...branded with cigarette burns that spelled I CRY. One remarkable Connecticut woman named Carol,* 38, who is a volunteer counselor of imprisoned rapists, knows freakishly well that home is not necessarily a haven: it was in her childhood home in the early 1950s that she was the victim of incest, at a friend's home that a half-dozen men gang-raped her, in her very own home that her second husband beat the living daylights out of her again and again...
...willingness among officials in schools, hospitals, law-enforcement and social agencies to detect and report instances of child abuse. Relatives and neighbors of the victims also seem more ready to ask the relevant local authorities to intervene. The wall of silence is breaking down even in cases of incest and sexual abuse of children by close acquaintances, which were almost always hushed up in the past...
...difficulty dealing with physical abuse that falls short of wanton cruelty or life-endangering acts. The line between a generally approved spanking and a beating that escalates into brutality and illegality is often fuzzy. But the law, like society in general, is not ambivalent about sexual abuse of children. Incest, usually defined as intercourse between blood relatives extending through first cousins, is illegal in every state. Sexual offenders who are not family members may be charged with rape, child molesting or similar crimes. Pedophiles, who have an obsessive fixation on sex with children, can abuse their own sons and daughters...
...hillbilly communities. They contend that it is just as prevalant in urban areas and among middle-and upper-class families. Nor are victims only girls. Homosexual abuse of boys by adult males in the home is more common than generally realized, they say, although no reliable statistics are available. Incest between mothers and sons is hardly ever reported...
Chronic offenders or potential abusers can work to control their impulses through the peer support of groups like Parents Anonymous, patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous. Indeed, some experts say that incest, like alcohol and drugs, is mood altering, since it can provide a momentary escape from feelings of loneliness or inadequacy. "Sexual offenders and chemical dependents have the same thinking patterns," says Richard Seely, director of the Intensive Treatment Program for Sexual Aggressives at the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter. "They get highs each step...