The Ethical Seduction of the Analytic Situation: The Feminine-Maternal Origins of Responsibility for the Other (The International Psychoanalytical ... Psychoanalytic Ideas and Applications Series)

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As adults, the majority of men in Lucetta’s study felt “very trapped, very isolated, very afraid and very unsure of how to go about getting help and understanding the power dynamics that they had been subjected to.” It’s an incredibly confusing situation for victims, explains Lucetta, because “the boys still love their mother” and just like Hamish, “they don’t want the family to break apart.” From this distance Hamish now understands he was just a child when the abuse occurred; he was unable to consent to sex with an adult in a position of power. To an outsider, these could be understood as simple words of encouragement. Lucetta knew their real meaning; this was an urgent final plea. The family dynamic was complicated. Ian, his two brothers, mother and her husband — we’ll call him John — lived in poverty in rural South Australia.

I honestly believe she [his mother] had probably been sexually abused herself,” he says, adding: “I feel pity for her.”She saw me as like some sort of de facto relationship, I’ve got no doubt about that. She’d say: ‘You’re the man of the house’,” he recalls. Quietly reflecting on this, he says: “It’s really hard to tell someone you love, ‘By the way, my mother abused me and I had sex with my mother’.” Despite growing up in a wealthy suburb and going to a private school, home life was difficult. His single mother suffered frequent physical illnesses, such as pneumonia and pleurisy. In retrospect Hamish thinks his mother was also mentally unwell. I’ve] spent most of my life trying to repress these thoughts and memories,” he says, “I haven’t talked to anyone for 30 years about it.”

Marcus died by suicide two years ago and when he did, he left University of Canberra researcher Lucetta Thomas a message. While some boys were mentally coerced into “a full sexual relationship” with their mother, Lucetta explains that others were on the receiving end of “incredible violence” if they tried to resist. Mothers might also withdraw of basic human needs, such as food and shelter. When he was just 15, Hamish’s mother died. While making it clear he didn’t wish for her death, Hamish is blunt: “She did me a favour … I’ve always felt that it enabled me, in some respects, to get on with my life.” The sentence that stayed with her was this one: “The only course of action is for you to do something positive, like finish the PhD.”

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How can you have a healthy sexual relationship? How can you become a father, husband, grandfather?” he asks.