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Book Review: Incest A New Perspective, by Mary Hamer. Blackwell Publishing, 2002. 200 pages; 6 x 9in. Paperback, ISBN 0745624162; Hardback, ISBN 745624154.
Reviewed 2002 by Sue McPherson, MA. Analyst and researcher on sexuality and gender issues, life cycle development and aging, and social inequality.
In this book, Mary Hamer introduces new perspectives on incest that take it out of the realm of the abnormal and the wholly distasteful and place it within the centre of ordinary social life. The timing of this book is more than appropriate, with the recent attention towards Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse, and what may be society's increasing tolerance and acceptance of the crossing of sexual boundaries. Hamer draws attention to the different kinds of incest that fall under this umbrella term, that are not solely based on restrictions due to blood ties or sexual abuse in its most horrific forms. Questioning the contradiction between the taboo on incest and its widespread practice, she connects her own work with that of Ian Suttie, the early British psychoanalyst, investigating what she sees as the main problem - a taboo in our world on tenderness, rather than on incest.
The book is divided into two parts, the first explaining Hamer's framework and introducing the work of writers and analysts on incest and related aspects, the second bringing in works of art as supporting evidence for her views. Using a self-reflective style, connecting what she learns to her own experience, Hamer offers her interpretations of these movies and books, together with photos throughout of scenes from the films. Carol Gilligan and Judith Herman, mentioned in the preface as having been an influence on Hamer during the writing of this book, have written on sensitive topics themselves, expanding as they do so on traditional ways of knowing and thinking. Werner Sollors was yet another influence, his work drawing her attention to similarities between incest and inter-racial sex. Hamer makes this book accessible for readers willing to meet the challenge of confronting old ways of thinking and consider new models of thought about incest and the social order.
Part One, On Knowing and Not Wanting to Know, focuses on society's blindness to the prevalence of incest and the emotional and social conditions that give rise to it. In the chapter Intimacy and Pleasure, starting out with her own story the author recalls memories of her education in the catholic school system, drawing a link between religious teaching and abuse, and going further, viewing education of girls in terms of abuse. Hamer draws on the work of psychoanalyst Ian Suttie who, in his 1935 book, The Origins of Love and Hate, explains how children, in their early years of development, are required to undergo a process of separation from their mother as a means of preparation for the world outside. In his view, the world is organised around separations rather than intimacy, between women and men, for example, although he sees the child's relationship with the mother as the most important in establishing identity and inner life.
Reflecting on Suttie's views, Hamer agrees that it is the taboo on tenderness, rather than against incest, which structures individuals' inner world and the outer one in which we live in society. Thus, Hamer argues in this book, there are crucial links between the compulsive behaviour of those who perform acts of sexual abuse and the forced separation of children from their mothers, fathers, and siblings. But she is firm, also, that "incest and abuse are not synonymous" (p. 11). Relations of incest can take different forms, Hamer explains, involving situations not only on the basis of blood ties, or that are coercive. The experience of adolescents who become incestuously involved, the consensual relationship between two adults, and the brutal penetration of a young child all fall under the same blanket term. To consider these seriously means taking into account not only trauma and damage, but the question of pleasure.
The chapter Mystification tells of the need for sexual pleasure and intimacy but of the demand for silence on forbidden pleasures. Hamer explains how Sigmund Freud brought to our attention the shame and the 'choosing not to see' that reflect our western society. When Freud re-introduced the Greek myth of Oedipus, about the man who slept with his own mother, he was emphasising the link between shame and intimacy and choosing not to know. The story of Oedipus, despite its violence and abandonment of the child by its parents, came to be known as the prototype for human development. Here, too, the links between incest, religion, education, race, gender and family are explored, with Hamer concluding that the taboo on asking questions of community authority impairs the ability to reflect on experience and to effect change.
In Danger, Hamer relates what she knows to her own life circumstances. She recalls the emotional abandonment by her mother and the awareness of her strained relationship with her father as she longed for, yet feared, the emotional closeness she had once had with him as a child. The point she makes here, about her own life, is that in retrospect, nothing seems more dangerous than her own blindness at that time - towards her emotional life and the choices she made.
Continuing on in Part One with the theme 'knowing and not wanting to know', while continuing to reflect on the psychological resistance in herself, the author draws on the work of film-maker Louis Malle in Murmur of the Heart, and on the case of Father James Porter, the Catholic priest charged with sexual abuse in Massachusetts, to examine experiences of incest of adolescent boys, between a mother and son, and priests with boys. In both of these situations, what is at stake, says Hamer, is the accomplishment of the transition of the boys into manhood, and what often goes unexamined, besides the system of education, is masculinity itself.
In Art for Teachers of Children film-maker Jennifer Montgomery tells about the relationship she initiated with her professor while at college. The authority he held over her, as her teacher, is seen as part of the problem in the ensuing struggle for power, but for each it is a question of seeking something from the opposite sex in response to earlier life experience. As with the story of writer Sappho Durrell's relationship with her father, the writer Lawrence Durrell, the relationships have more to them than being only about power, and Hamer believes there are gender differences in the ways resistance against separation is enacted. For both these women, Montgomery and Durell, Hamer sees an overriding form of resistance based on "a fierce intellectual determination to understand" (p. 69).
Noting the contributions of psychoanalyists Sandor Ferenczi and Sigmund Freud to knowledge about incest, intimacy, and the treatment of patients, Hamer then turns to recent developments with two London analysts. Valerie Sinason explains her reflexive approach to her work as a therapist, intended to counter the impulse in the therapist to refrain from knowing and naming. Estela Welldon's decision to have together in a group clients who have been abusers with clients who have been abused is a break with the usual techniques of treating patients, but is a method well in line with the general theme of Hamer's work in the way she deals with the notion of separation.
Part Two, On Being Reminded, begins with Hamer explaining the aims of the writers and film-makers whose work is presented here. None of them, she says, started out with the aim of presenting a study of sexual abuse. Rather, they were attempting to explain central aspects - painful aspects - of their own identities. They were attempting to discover how it had been created by that particular culture and within their families. Hamer explores the stories of individual experiences with the aim of linking them with the structures of everyday life. She questions the inconsistency between the incest taboo and what is happening in daily life world-wide, using the work of artists to state the problem - not to solve it, but to illustrate it and explain it - with the aim of forming an understanding for the reader.
Hamer describes the young woman in Suddenly Last Summer (1959) - played by Elizabeth Taylor - as someone who is being pressured to give up the last of her independence of mind, not permitted to discuss her rape or her cousin Sebastion's death. The movie brought out controversial ideas of homosexuality and cannibalism, with incest perhaps being the most well-kept secret of all. Hamer's analysis of this movie and of three others, Through the Glass Darkly (1961), and Lolita (1962 and 1997), relate to ideas discussed in the first part of the book. But as she says in the introduction to the book, "In movies I find a picture of the world which is put together using the first language of the psyche, the language of images" (p. 5). Viewing these four movies first-hand is vital in order to gain full benefit of Hamer's insights.
Toni Morrison and Arundhati Roy, dealing with incest in their novels, The Bluest Eye and The God of Small Things, tell of the African-American experience of self-hatred, and through the family life of one Indian family, the legacy of the colonized. Hamer explains that in each of these novels the artist begins from the same point, from the figure of a young woman telling the story of her confusion, with the aim of telling of their own inner lives. The novel Lolita, written by Vladimir Nabokov, although about a young woman - or girl - is written from the perspective of Humbert, says Hamer, with masculine identity the main theme. Hamer's choice of novels to include in this book permits incest to be examined from several different perspectives, exploring the many forms that incest can take.
I would have liked to have seen Atom Egoyan's imaginative movie Exotica (1994) included among those selected for this book. Set in Canada, in a strip club, this is the story of Francis, whose daughter has been murdered. In an atmosphere of sex, desire, and a taboo against touching, Francis is drawn to Christina, a dancer who performs her routine dressed as a schoolgirl. As with the creators of the books and films in Incest: a New Perspective, the inspiration for Exotica came from the film-maker's own experience. The film is similar in ways to those Hamer has selected, but I believe it offers something that may be lacking in them. The emphasis is on masculinity, dealing with the themes of confusion and uncertainty, innocence and guilt, sexual desire and the desire to protect, suggesting a struggle with masculine identity and notions of fatherhood, but in relation to Francis's story incest cannot be assumed. However, his memories and fantasies of the daughter who is now dead are just one aspect of the film. Christina's inner struggle over trauma in her past and an overlapping storyline of interracial marriage add further intensity.
In her conclusion, Hamer suggests that separateness is the means by which adult sexuality is formed. The church, the law, and schools, she claims, are all part of the social system through which this formation takes place. The books, films, and true accounts that she has analysed to explore sexual abuse and incest draw to our attention the need to question the social order itself rather than just putting the blame on individuals who have abused, she says, or on the system which fails to protect children. She sees the first step as coming to the recognition that abuse is not an aberration but the consequence of the social order as it is now, suggesting that "Closing up the gap between sexuality and the tenderness that is children's due, these images might well be viewed as mute reminders, taking each of us back to a connection that has all but been forgotten, the connection between our loss of the tenderness we knew as children and our fears as adults" (pp.177, 178). The author's aim in writing this book has been towards greater understanding, and there is every indication that this book would be invaluable for readers wanting to broaden their perspectives.
This book review is being made available on the website page: Essays and Other Writing:
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/EssaysandOtherWriting.html
Posted 7 Nov. 2006
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