Unmastered Masturbation Conflict
<< Sexual Assault of a Mother by her Preadolescent Son
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William Arroyo, M.D.1, Spencer Eth, M.D.1, and Robert Pynoos, M.D.1
1 Departments of Psychiatry, Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center and Neuropsychiatric Institute, University of California at Los Angeles
American Journal of Psychiatry [Vol. 141 (9), pp. 1107-1108.
September, 1984. Received May 27, 1983; revised Jan. 6 and April 16, 1984]
The authors report a case of an 8-year-old boy who sexually assaulted his mother. Pertinent literature on incest and rape and the relevant clinical issues are briefly reviewed.
INTRODUCTION
Adults generally are the perpetrators of sexual assaults that occur within their families, and usually it is a man who assaults his wife or child. Although rapes committed by adolescents have been reported in the medical literature, to our knowledge the raping of a parent by a teenager or child has not. We report a case of a child who sexually assaulted his mother and nearly sodomized her.
CASE REPORT
Bobby, an 8-year-old boy who lived with his natural parents and three younger siblings, was treated unsuccessfully for 1 year with methylphenidate when he was 6 years old. He was referred to our clinic 1 year later because of complaints of fighting with classmates and siblings, defying teachers and parents, setting fires, stealing money from his mother, and engaging in sexual activity with his 6- and 4-year-old brothers (e.g., aggressively fondling their genitals, forcibly attempting to insert his fingers into their rectums, and coercing them to perform fellatio on him). At age 6, Bobby
unsuccessfully attempted sexual intercourse with an adolescent babysitter, and at age 8 he was forced by a 9-year-old playmate to perform fellatio on him. The details of Bobby’s sexual activities were provided by him and corroborated by his mother.
Before her marriage, Bobby’s mother lost custody of her first two children because of neglect. Two years before Bobby came to our clinic, his mother attempted suicide by overdosing after her husband learned of her sexual affair with her brother-in-law. Bobby’s father also had a history of extramarital affairs.
Bobby denied having any sexual activity with adults until he was 8 years old. His observations of adult sexual activity were limited to his father’s accessible pornographic literature and one viewing of his parents during sexual intercourse. On weekend mornings Bobby and his two brothers joined their parents in bed.
While his mother slept alone one morning, 7-year-old Bobby climbed into her bed and began to squeeze her breasts. She awakened, reprimanded him, and ordered him out of the room. Five months later while his mother again slept alone, he quietly sneaked under the sheets, began fondling her anogenital area, and attempted to insert his erect penis into her anus. His mother was appalled and angry with Bobby. He told his therapist that he had been viewing pornographic materials just before entering his parents’ bedroom and that he had intended to “fuck” his mother. Bobby claimed to have received a severe scolding by his father later that day. Physical abuse of Bobby by his father had not been reported by the mother or the child; however, our suspicions were raised by the fears of the mother and Bobby that if the father learned of certain behavioral problems, “he would kill” Bobby.
Bobby’s father refused to attend any of the weekly family therapy sessions and repeatedly discouraged Bobby from attending his individual psychotherapy sessions. The father knew that the local authorities had been anonymously notified that Bobby was suspected of being a victim of child abuse.
Bobby’s sexual assault successfully elicited a brief period of firm limit-setting and supervision by his parents in what was an otherwise chronically chaotic personal world. Treatment provided an opportunity to explore his relationships with his father, whom he perceived as threatening, and his mother, whom he perceived as erratic, in the context of a safe, consistent, and nonstimulating play psychotherapy. His therapist’s attention to the sexual and impulse control issues seemed to offer some external restraint on all family members and validated the child’s sense of victimization. After 1 year of weekly treatment, Bobby continued to seek pornographic materials but was not known to have engaged in sexual contacts; at his age this behavior is further testimony to both the seriousness and the chronicity of his psychopathology.
DISCUSSION
Cases of mother-son incest are only rarely described in the literature and are seldom identified in surveys or brought to the attention of police authorities. A sample of 14 incest cases reported by Browning and Boatman (1) did not include even one case of mother-son incest. Wahl (2) described two cases of incest between a mother and her adult son in which at least one of the participants was psychotic. Frequent sexual intercourse between a 12-year-old boy and his alcoholic mother has been reported by Yorukoglu and Kemph (3). Lewis and Sarrel (4) and Yates (5) reported a case of mother-son incest involving a child under 5 years of age. The mothers have been seductive (4) and/or the initiators (2-5) of the sexual activity.
Rape performed by a child is very infrequently noted and tends to be judicially excused. For example, a Massachusetts statute exempts males under the age of 14 from prosecution for rape (6). Children who have behaved in a sexually aggressive manner toward adults usually have a history of incestuous involvement (5). Documentation exists of children initiating sexual behaviors that they have observed and experienced (7). Thus, Bobby’s sexual activity with his mother is not entirely surprising in view of his direct and indirect sexual experiences.
A complementary explanation can be framed in an incestuous family model. Weiss and associates (8) categorize sexual involvement between adults and children into the accidental type and the participant or collaborative type. The sexual relationship in the incestuous situation is described as only one facet of a highly pathological parent-child relationship. Weinberg (9) further divides incestuous families into the endogamous type and the promiscuous type. In the former, the family appears normal to most relatives and friends. In the latter type, which characterizes Bobby’s family, the family disorganization is so extensive that incest is but one small part of the chaotic picture. These parents are frequently involved in anti-social activities, promiscuity, alcoholism, and gross social deviancy. The main difference between other incestuous family models (8-10) and Bobby’s family is that mother-son incest is not specifically described in the former groups of families. This may be a reflection of the comparative infrequency of mother-son incest or of the severity of Bobby’s family disorganization.
REFERENCES
1. Browning DH, Boatman B: Incest: children at risk. Am J Psychiatry 134:69-72, 1977
2. Wahl CW: The psychodynamics of consummated maternal incest. Arch Gen Psychiatry 3:188-193, 1960
3. Yorukoglu A, Kemph JP: Children not severely damaged by incest with a parent. J Am Acad Child Psychiatry 5:111-124, 1966
4. Lewis M, Sarrel PM: Some psychological aspects of seduction, incest, and rape in childhood. J Am Acad Child Psychiatry 8:606-619, 1969
5. Yates A: Children eroticized by incest. Am J Psychiatry 139:482-485, 1982
6. Groth AN: The adolescent sexual offender and his prey. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 21:249-254, 1977
7. Finch M: Sexual activity of children with other children and adults. Clin Pediatr (Phila) 6:1-2, 1967
8. Weiss J, Rogers E, Darwin M, et al: A study of girl sex victims. Psychiatr Q 29:1-27, 1955
9. Weinberg SK: Incest Behavior. New York, Citadel Press, 1955
10. Rosenfeld AA: Endogamic incest and the victim perpetrator model. Am J Dis Child 133:406-410, 1979
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