Breaking a Taboo
Type de matériel :
7
Public awareness of the sexual crime that is incest—the incestuous relationship between a full-grown man and his relative, i.e. daughter or younger sister—is a very recent phenomenon. After two centuries of legislative shyness about the judicial qualification of these acts, of censorship being imposed on literature, of refusing to take into consideration these “family disorders,” and of silence in the media, incest has become a topic in both the media and in politics, thereby leading to more interest and action from the public authorities. The development and the various components of this true cultural shift are analyzed in this paper—although it is quite clear that this process of shifting has not yet reached its end. By following the analytical approach of the sciences of the psyche and by exploring the sensitive dimensions of the consequences of incest, the media has been essential to the reconfiguration of the dominant representations of incest. This greater media coverage has had contrasting and ambivalent effects on the physiognomy of the victims who up to then had rarely been considered as anything other than consenting, the victims whose words are now sought after and whose suffering is now understood. At the same time, the act itself in its entirety has been reevaluated. The workings of the law and the judicial response are obviously subject to a transformation accompanied by a certain confusion of judicial and psychological reparation. However, it is still not certain that the ways in which incest is perceived and talked about in the public sphere are no longer affected by a major taboo, even if it is a less abstruse one than before.
Réseaux sociaux