What a label to wear around your neck, huh! Well, I’m so much more than the word indicates.
As defined in Merriam-Webster, incest is “sexual intercourse between persons so closely related that they are forbidden by law to marry.”
I wonder if this is the right word for children that are forced to have intercourse with their parent? It’s not lawful for a child to marry, let alone have intercourse with a family member, right?
I’m not frightened to use the word, I’m just not sure it’s accurate for childhood sexual abuse.
Wikipedia has a broader definition, they define incest as “human sexual activity between family members or close relatives.”
That fits better.
Is this all just semantics? These definitions are trying to bring logic and sense around a topic that has no logic and certainly no sense.
Does it help us as a society to classify each other?
I can tell you this, I don’t wear that label of shame any more. It is not who I am, it is what I came through. That is a very different thing.
Sure, I’ll carry the scars of the train wreck that I was born into, but that badge or label isn’t meant for me, it is meant for those that perpetrated the crime. I didn’t do it – they did!
On self
C.S. Lewis
The more we get what we now call “ourselves” out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. . . I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call “me” can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
From Mere Christianity
I am so thankful to be a kid in God’s kingdom. That’s what changes me, leads me on and certainly heals all wounds.