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From: travis@houston.cs.columbia.edu (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: How to lie with statistics in one easy lesson
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Date: 30 Aug 90 17:14:22 GMT
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In article <1990Aug21.161820.3398@caen.engin.umich.edu> davids@mondo.engin.umich.edu (David Snearline) writes:
>
>   Kimberly Rollins writes:
>   | On the contrary: most traditional or religious families do *not*
>   | encourage the reporting of (possibly emotionally damaging) incest
>   | because they regard sex as something both private and dirty.
>   | Enlightened families would see victimizing incest as solely the
>   | fault of the perpetrator, and be more likely to report it to the
>   | police.  If a young woman is made to feel guilty about sex, and
>   | is moreover taught to honor her mother and father, would she be
>   | more or less likely to report that her father occasionally
>   | rapes her?
>
>   I think the distinction should be made between a family that is
>   nominally religious and one that _really_ attempts to live out
>   their religious values.  Both Judaism and Christianity condemn
>   incest and believe that sex is a God-given blessing (to be
>   practiced within the bounds of marriage, of course.)  My guess is
>   that incest (and covering it up) is more likely to occur in a
>   semi- to non-religious family where they are less likely to
>   believe in the true nature of sex as stated in Judeo-Christian
>   beliefs.

Well, since no one else jumped up to answer this...

Your assertion is trivially true: many (most? all?) anthropologists
believe that bans on incest are at the foundation of _all_ human
cultures and religious beliefs.  (I know Levi-Strauss held this view; I
don't know if he originated it.)  The Judeo-Christian-Islamic beliefs
are not distinguishable in this regard from any other religion, either
in its precepts or in the actions of its followers.  I am charmed by the
implicit idea that all we would have to do to stop child molestation is
to convert to Judaism or Christianity.  However, child molesters may be
found among the followers of all beliefs, including their religious
leaders, so it seems fair to conclude that something else other than
lack of piety is behind these crimes.  In fact, there was a UPI story in
the last few weeks -- unrelated to the parallel investigation of Father
Ritter -- that described how Roman Catholic church leaders had
repeatedly squashed investigations into charges of sexual harassment and
molestation from priests.

However, it is interesting that you guess that incest is more likely to
occur in non-religious families: the book I was reading (on therapy for
various types of traumas) cautioned investigators that it is much more
difficult to believe in a reported case of incest (among other things)
when the investigator and the family member(s) are of the same race,
gender, and class.  It is always easier to suspect the Other.  Although
they didn't caution against it, religion is clearly a similar factor.

I won't attempt to debate you on the "true nature of sex," nor would the
moderators allow it.  However, your assertion that you know what it is
should greatly interest this group because any claim on absolute
knowledge like yours _necessarily_ leads to intolerance of new forms of
knowledge and to challenges to authority, both of which are found in
feminism.  In this case, I think Kimberly has a better handle on the
social pressures than you: treating sexuality as something private and
dirty inevitably leads to problems.  Of course, I don't know how many
religious families actually have such an attitude.

t