Terri, my little sister, could take my place in the bed of my father.
'I would take her there myself.'
It may very well be that Brenda's incestuous interlude with her father can be more easily understood by the reader if we first analyze the things she omitted from her narrative, rather than concentrating our attention on what she said. People often avoid what they wish to conceal.
Her mother is dismissed, in Brenda's recollections of her incestuous affair, so lightly that one cannot help but conclude that the relationship between the two was less than close. There is no mention of love for her mother. There is no expression or grief. At no time is her mother even physically described, except in comparison to Brenda herself.
At no time does Brenda dwell on the events which occurred prior to the death of her mother. It is as though life began for her at the moment of her mother's demise. The tone of her narrative clearly indicates she was eager to assume the parental role within the family structure, cooking, cleaning, shopping, caring for her younger sister… and providing a sexual outlet for her father.
While this last desire may have been totally contained in Brenda's subconscious until the moment of first release, it is interesting to note that, at no time, did she fight the temptation to commit incest. Although she describes the first sexual contact with her father as 'accidental', there probably existed, prior to this time, a desire to receive what her subconscious saw as payment for the other burdens that had been thrust upon her. Sexual intercourse is, after all, too often treated as a reward within our society.
Her eagerness to fully assume the role of 'wife' to her father is a clear indication that there existed within her mind a need to compete with her mother, and that this need probably existed long before the events which provided her the opportunity to assume the role she subconsciously longed for.
While she attempts to describe her father as a 'strong man, who went to pieces' due to circumstances beyond his control, her narrative clearly shows that he was anything but strong. It seems very likely that she is describing the man she wanted him to be.
While the subject of this case history makes only the briefest reference possible to any feelings of guilt, it is interesting to note that she dwells at some length on the feelings of guilt and self-loathing caused by her masturbation. This is especially true when one considers the fact that the taboo against masturbation is now almost non-existent; it is widely known, conceded and accepted that masturbation is a common sexual outlet. The fact that she did feel guilt because of her masturbation shows that Brenda had been raised to respect certain moral codes, however incorrect and out-dated they may have been, despite the fact that she was obviously somewhat sexually experienced before she entered into the sexual relationship with her father.
The strength of Brenda's incestuous desire was expressed by the aggressiveness shown by her during the first 'accidental' sexual interlude with her father. Her assumption of the dominant 'female on top' position for the actual sex act was probably prompted by this strong and previously unexpressed desire. It was certainly encouraged by the weakness shown by her father.
Here we have seen a classic example of the destruction of the family structure which Freud felt was the foundation of the barrier against incest. Children traditionally look to the father for strength, for the provision of food and comfort, and for protection. And, without knowing it, children look to the father for affection that is very much akin to sexual love. Freud was aware of this last when he wrote:
'Children themselves behave from an early age as though their dependence on the people looking after them were in the nature of sexual love. Anxiety in children is nothing more than an expression of the fact that they are feeling the loss of the person they love.'
When Brenda's father succumbed totally to his grief, thus losing the image of the strong father who provides and protects, he opened the way for her to express these hidden feelings of sexual love.
The actions of Brenda's father, following the death of his wife, seem to bear out the following theory from the writings of Freud:
'… an adult who has become neurotic owing to his libido being unsatisfied behaves in his anxiety like a child; he begins to be frightened when he is alone, that is to say when he is taken away from someone of whose love he had felt secure, and he begins to assuage this fear by the most childish measures, casting about for another object of love… often a sexual object.'
Long-running incestuous relationships such as the one between Brenda and her father are probably a rarity. Due to the closeness of most families within the structure of our society the opportunity for such a relationship is seldom present. The presence of other family members prevents such an arrangement, or, at least, discourages it.
Such an arrangement would quickly be discovered within a total family unit; and it is probably for this reason that most incestuous relationships — be they between daughter and father, brother and sister or between mother and son — are usually one time occurrences, or, at the most, brief affairs. That is to say, they are more likely to be quite like the 'accidental' sexual contact which Brenda described, though hers was only a beginning.
These brief sexual involvements between members of the same family occur when both opportunity and arousal rear their heads in unison — as mentioned previously — and, for various reasons, including moral restrictions and the always present chance of discovery, seldom lead to prolonged affairs. Brenda's case was totally different.
With no mother present to represent the chance of discovery, and having severed other social contacts, she was free to develop her own moral code, to continue the affair with her father as a small part of the barrier against incest — a reminder that she was, after all, her father's daughter, not his wife. Brenda's incestuous relationship with her father may well have been a major reason for the sexual promiscuity of Terri, the younger sister.
'Kids have big eyes,' as Brenda put it, and the knowledge that her father was regularly having intercourse with his own daughter, Terri's older sister, is certain to have contributed heavily to the destruction of any moral code the young girl may have been taught or developed on her own… Any taboo against casual intercourse, for instance, would surely seem ridiculous to a child who knows that those who seek to impose it are acting in violation of the strongest taboo of all — the taboo against incest.
'Do as I say, not as I do,' is seldom a good philosophy by which to rear a child. And so the stage was set for Terri's entry into the world of incest. She was aware that Brenda and her father were regularly engaged in coitus: she was already past the age of first sexual experience, and Brenda had decided to introduce her to the bed of her father.
There are few statistics available regarding the frequency of what is probably best described as 'multiple incest'. That term is used in reference to a situation where incest, once begun, is repeated within the family. It does seem safe to assume, however, that the barrier against incest, once it has fallen, will never again be erected, and that a father who has passed the barrier with one daughter will find the barrier no longer exists when he is provided the opportunity to repeat the act with another.
In any case, Brenda had reached her decision.
'Christ, you're raunchy tonight,' Daddy said as I knelt beside him on the bed, teasing his cock and balls with my fingers, getting ready to take his cock in my mouth and suck him off. He knew that I had to be really horny before I would blow him without being asked, or at least encouraged, and I was going after his cock like a dog goes after a bone. And his cock — hot and rigid inside the moving circle of my fingers — was a pretty good bone to be going after. As I bent low and fitted my lips around the smooth head of it, I heard him say, in a teasing voice, 'What's gotten into you to make you so eager tonight?'
'That's the problem,' I said, turning my head so that the smooth tip of his prick was resting against my cheek and I was smiling into his face. 'Nothing's gotten into me yet… And it never will unless you stop talking and let me get down to the business of sucking this dick.'
'Suck away, Dolly,' he said as I stuck out my tongue then, turning my head, slowly licked a circle around the purplish head of his tool. I heard him exhale loudly, and he shifted his hips on the rumpled sheets.
Holding his cock in the grasp of my right hand and slowly and steadily and methodically licking the upper inches of it, I pressed the index finger of my left hand deep into the yielding, wrinkled and hair-covered flesh that covered his nuts. I heard him moan. But it was a moan of pleasure, I knew I had long ago learned that he liked a tiny bit of pain with his sex, especially when his cock was being sucked. I liked to give him that pain — especially when I was horny.
