“And I Let It All Out”: Survivors’ Sibling Sexual Abuse Disclosures

Abstract

There is consensus in child sexual abuse (CSA) literature with respect to the central role of the disclosure process. However, CSA disclosure is challenging for all children, those who have experienced intrafamilial abuse. In recent years, there has been growing research into sibling sexual abuse (SSA), which is a prevalent and severe, but also the least studied form of intrafamilial CSA. This study was designed to advance theory on SSA disclosure by examining the narratives of adults who have disclosed the abuse and discuss it with reference to the perceived role of disclosure recipients—including perpetrating siblings, parents, and professionals. In-depth interviews with 25 adults were conducted and analyzed thematically. The results highlighted the significance of disclosure for survivors, as well as the central roles played by significant others in the process, including the offending and nonoffending siblings, parents, and professionals. The discussion addresses the important role of the family system in the disclosure narratives. The conclusions point to the need of all actors taking part in the disclosure itself, as well as in the survivors’ lives postdisclosure, to become “better” disclosure recipients by acknowledging survivors’ needs. This in turn would also empower survivors to disclose their stories and cope with the potential familial and societal ramifications of their disclosure.

Keywords

sibling sexual abuse (SSA)child sexual abuse (CSA) disclosure disclosure recipients adults survivors of CSA

Introduction

Disclosing child sexual abuse (CSA) is challenging for children and—it is generally agreed—particularly in the case of intrafamilial CSA. This study was delved into the disclosure experiences of adult survivors of sibling sexual abuse (SSA), so as to broaden our knowledge regarding this phenomenon. By examining their retrospective perceptions of their disclosure experiences, it aimed at a better understanding of SSA, the people involved in its disclosure and the roles of disclosure recipients.

SSA

According to Finkelhor (1980), SSA is sexual behavior between at least two siblings that is (a) age inappropriate, (b) intransient, and (c) not motivated by developmental or otherwise appropriate curiosity. Caffaro and Conn-Caffaro (2005) include under SSA behaviors ranging from noncontact abuse (such as viewing pornography or exposing genitalia in front of another sibling), through physical contact with or without clothes, to genital, anal, or oral penetration. Due to the poor state of knowledge, however, these definitions are not consensual.

In general, siblings’ sexual behaviors may be developmentally inappropriate in the milder case, or strictly abusive. The former range from obsessive sexual curiosity to precocious full intercourse, before attaining physical and emotional maturity, and abusive behaviors, on the other hand, involve using manipulation, threat, or coercion (Hatch, 2005; McVeigh, 2003). Note, however, that these two types of behavior are not mutually exclusive (Carlson et al., 2006). Moreover, there are still no agreed-upon criteria for distinguishing between sibling sexual behaviors that may be inappropriate but relatively are harmless, and outright abusive ones (Caffaro, 2014).

With regard to prevalence, data are relatively scarce. According to a seminal U.S. study (Finkelhor, 1980), 15% and 10% of women and men in a sample of college students, respectively, reported having experienced SSA; nearly half (43%) had been abused at age of 8 years or less. A more recent study reported that nearly 5% of a large American retrospective sample of both genders, mostly college students, had been involved in SSA relationships (Griffee et al., 2014). A retrospective study of a large British adult sample found SSA to be one of the commonest types of intrafamilial sexual abuse, at a rate twice as high as that of parental abuse (Cawson, Wattam, Brooker, & Kelly, 2000). In Israel, the National Council for the Child (2013) reported that 5.2% of at-risk, neglected, and abused children had been abused by a sibling according to their own testimony.

Disclosure of SSA

The general literature on CSA points to the vital role of its disclosure (e.g., McElvaney & Culhane, 2017) for a number of reasons. Disclosing CSA early on could, among other things, facilitate the termination of the abuse; prevent repeated victimization; protect other children; enable the provision of psychological intervention; and make it possible to hold the abuser(s) accountable (e.g., Leclerc et al., 2011; Leclerc & Wortley, 2015; Lev-Wiesel & First, 2018; McElvaney & Culhane, 2017).

Note, however, that disclosure can have unintended consequences. That is, it may affect victims’ future well-being, and whether these effects are positive or negative depends largely on the recipients’ reactions (e.g., Ahrens, 2006; Ullman, 2011). Disclosing CSA can result in family denial, family disruption, blaming, stigmatization, legal processes, and in some countries, life-threatening consequences due to cultural mores (Celik et al., 2018).

With regard to SSA in particular, it is less likely than other types of CSA to be reported to law enforcement or welfare authorities, given, among other things, the prevailing tendency to misidentify it as playacting or as a manifestation of age-appropriate curiosity (Ballantine, 2012; Bass et al., 2006; Cyr et al., 2002; McNevin, 2010; Rayment-McHugh & Nisbet, 2003). Accordingly, only about a fifth of all SSA cases are reported and eventually treated (Welfare, 2010), a ratio that is particularly worrisome given the well-documented severity of SSA in general (e.g., Relva et al., 2017).

Any kind of disclosure—formal or informal, within or outside the family—is rare. In general, the abuse terminates not because it has been disclosed and stopped, but because the perpetrator is of an age when he or she has moved out of the family home. It is due to this lack of disclosure—that is, of bringing the abuse to the attention of people who could potentially put an end to it—that SSA tends to continue longer than do other forms of intrafamilial abuse (Caffaro & Conn-Caffaro, 2005; Finkelhor, 1980).

Disclosure Recipients

The literature on disclosure of CSA points to the central role played by the recipients in the disclosure process. Individuals—such as family members, peers, and neighbors—as well as the community, society, and the broader cultural context, are all key actors in the disclosure process. Researchers differentiate between two different types of disclosure: formal and informal. Formal disclosure refers to disclosure that is made to professionals, such as social workers or teachers. Informal disclosure refers to disclosure that is made to individuals in the community, friends, and/or family members. Studies indicate that most CSA survivors utilize informal disclosure, with significantly fewer survivors utilizing formal disclosure (Lahtinen et al., 2018; McElvaney & Culhane, 2017).

Given the unique dynamic of SSA, it is important to address the way its nature affects the disclosure recipients. The family dynamic involved is one where survivors and their abusive siblings face multiple adverse childhood experiences. These include physical and sexual abuse, parental neglect, and intense jealousy and rivalry seemingly encouraged or allowed by the parents, with abuse survivors squarely blaming the parents for allowing the abuse to occur and continue, and in some cases even encouraging it (Cyr et al., 2002; McDonald & Martinez, 2017). Maybe this is why disclosure of SSA has been described in the literature as the precursor to a major family crisis (Caffaro & Conn-Caffaro, 2005; Katz & Hamama, 2017). This crisis revolves around several factors, not least of which is the fact that the parents, in these cases, are the parents of the victim, the perpetrator, and potentially additional children (Bass et al., 2006; Cyr et al., 2002; Falcão et al., 2014; Lafleur, 2009). The parents therefore find themselves in a position of not knowing where their loyalties should lie and struggling to act in all of their children’s best interests (Daly, 2014; Harper, 2012). The difficulty associated with having both abusive and abused children in the family often results in radical changes in relations between the parents and the siblings who are directly involved, as well as with the parents’ other children, and changes in relations within the sibling subsystem itself.

A study on SSA disclosure at a child advocacy center (CAC) in Israel revealed several main postdisclosure parental responses. The first was that the sexual acts had never occurred at all. The second was that some sexual acts had occurred, but had not been abusive; rather they had been “games,” or normative acts of sexual exploration. Yet, when the acts were perceived as serious by the parents, they responded as such; that is, the abuse created an enormous rupture in the family’s previously held image of itself as “ideal” (Tener et al., 2018).

Religious or cultural beliefs regarding “what a family should be” may play an important part in shaping parents’ reactions to disclosure. For example, in some minority cultures, a family’s destroyed reputation may be a cost too great to bear. Families that are deeply connected to their communities or religious institutions may face being shunned by their extended families and/or ethnic communities if they allow them to learn of a child’s abuse (Alaggia, 2002; Fontes & Plummer, 2010).

There is a clear gap in the SSA literature with respect to disclosure, which is imperative to address given the powerful impact disclosure has on all those involved. Whereas in the case of CSA, the literature has established the unique family dynamic involving disclosure, it is important to analyze disclosure stories in the context of this specific and less-studied type of interfamilial CSA.

The Current Study

As reviewed above, SSA disclosure is a complicated construct, for a variety of reasons, and it has not received enough research attention. This study was designed to examine the narratives of adult survivors who did disclose through the following questions: (a) How did SSA survivors experience and perceive disclosure, as it pertained to both their childhood and their adulthood? (b) Who were the other people involved in the disclosure discourse and what were their responses? The need to enhance the development of both a conceptual and an empirical framework for the understudied domain of SSA disclosure was the rationale for the qualitative approach used in this research.

Method

Sample

The sample consisted of 24 Jewish Israeli women and one man, who were sexually abused by a sibling during childhood or adolescence. The sample size was determined based on inductive thematic saturation; that is, interviews were conducted until the point at which no new data, themes, or codes emerged (Saunders et al., 2018). Participants were recruited via organizations that treat survivors of sexual abuse and by posting notices on websites specifically aimed at this population. The participants’ ages ranged from 19 to 45 years. Their age when the first incident took place ranged from between under 10 (n = 21) to 11 through 18 (n = 4). In most cases (n = 23), the age gap between the offending and abused sibling ranged from 1 to 9 years (m = 5.3). In two cases, the offending siblings were younger than the abused siblings were by 2 to 5 years. All offending siblings were male. In most cases, the abuse was carried out by one sibling; however, was one participant had been abused by two siblings.

Five participants described single incidents, and six described repeated incidents of abuse. One participant described abusive incidents that lasted about 6 months, 12 described incidents lasting between 2 and 5 years, and two could not recall the duration or the frequency of the abuse. As for the form of abuse, 13 participants described the touching of private parts above or beneath their clothes and 10 participants described incidents that included oral or anal penetration. Two struggled to elaborate on the incidents and remembered the abuse only vaguely. Yet, it should be noted that these participants did remembered the disclosure process and were able to appropriately discuss these events despite not remembering some parts of the abuse itself. In 16 cases, the abuse was disclosed during childhood either by the participants themselves or as a result of others in the family (parents/other siblings) who saw the abuse when it was happening. Seventeen participants disclosed the abuse to their parents, during childhood or adulthood.

Procedure

Twenty-one face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted by graduate school social work students as part of a research seminar on SSA. Three semi-structured interviews were conducted by the first author as part of her doctoral dissertation in social work. A semi-structured qualitative interview includes an outline of topics and questions reflecting the issue under study; the outline is prepared by the researcher, but does not require rigid adherence and does allow for flexibility in terms of posing more detailed questions than the ones initially drafted (Stuckey, 2013). In this way, in real time, the researchers can delve into the topics that most naturally evolve in the actual presence of the interviewee (Adhabi & Anozie, 2017; Stuckey, 2013). All students were provided with thorough and intensive training and supervision by the first author, an expert on CSA and qualitative research. Priority was given to creating dignified and respectful interview conditions, including having the interviews conducted in the participants’ homes or in another location of their choice.

Lasting an average of 90 min, the interviews followed a guide that covered several content categories, including perceptions concerning the sexual abuse/acts (e.g., “Tell me your story”; “Tell me about the sexual acts/abuse with your brother”), the disclosure process (“Could you tell me who knows about what happened and the ways in which this information became known?”; “Who did you choose not to tell? Please explain”), and the consequences of the disclosure for the participants’ lives (“How did the disclosure affect your life”?; “How did it affect your relationships with others?”).

The interviews were semi-structured, and usually conducted as an open conversation on a number of general topics on which the interviewee was asked to elaborate. The questions were most often in response to the content the interviewer had raised. Only if necessary, and at the request of the interviewee himself, were more specific questions asked (e.g., after an open question such as “tell me your story” encountered confusion on the part of the interviewee, he or she would be asked to tell his or her “abuse story”).

All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed by the interviewers. All transcripts were analyzed using MAXQDA software. To present the data in this study, all the interview transcriptions (originally in Hebrew) were professionally translated into English and double-checked by the authors to ensure accuracy.

Given the study’s focus on highly sensitive issues, several steps were taken to protect participants. Ethical approval was obtained from the Hebrew University’s ethics committee, and all participants were asked to sign a consent form and told they could terminate the interview any time. In addition, the interviewers, who were supervised by the first author, created an empowering environment for the participants. This included ensuring that the interviews were conducted in an environment that was comfortable for them and at their own pace. During the interview, the interviewers allowed the participants to tell their story fully and completely in their own words, without judgment, and expressed their gratitude for the interviewees’ willingness to share. After completing the interview, participants were asked about their feelings and, if necessary, were referred to professional help. Finally, special attention was paid to issues of confidentiality and dignity, all identifying details were removed from the data, and pseudonyms were used throughout.

Data Analysis

The data analysis was carried out according to several interrelated stages of the qualitative thematic analysis as defined by Braun and Clarke (2006). The aim of the first stage is for the researchers to become familiar with the data and to identify initial ideas. Accordingly, the researchers in this study read the transcripts several times. Next, all of the transcripts were entered into the MAXQDA software, and an open coding that yielded initial categories was performed. The cases were then broken down into small segments of text, representing discrete units of meaning, and each was labeled according to its content.

Following this stage, the codes were grouped together as initial themes. Based on the authors’ reading and understanding of the cases, some of the themes were removed or revised and additional codes and categories added. For example, several cases had been assigned to the code “disclosing to mothers during childhood,” whereas others had been assigned to the code “disclosing to mothers during adulthood.” However, at a certain stage, it became clear that the focus should shift away from the theme of comparing childhood with adulthood disclosure—as this theme simply did not reflect the essentials of the participants’ narratives—and to focus instead on the disclosure recipients. It was also decided, in keeping with the same rationale as described above, to add a category dealing with the offending sibling during the disclosure process.

In the third stage, the themes and subthemes were reviewed and classified in accordance with their dimensions and properties (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). For example, the various perceptions that were related to “disclosing to mothers” were merged and separated from all other perceptions concerning emotional components of the disclosure.

In the fourth and final stage, themes were refined, named, and interrelationships between them were suggested (Braun & Clarke, 2006). For example, the previously identified theme (i.e., “disclosing to mothers”) was changed, for the sake of accuracy, to “the role of the parents during the disclosure process.” At this stage, the authors referred back to the transcripts when necessary to retrieve additional information needed to develop the categories (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994).

Trustworthiness (Guba & Lincoln, 1985; Morse, 2015) was secured by member checking, peer debriefing, and audit trails. Member checking was conducted during the data collection process, when participants were asked to clarify, elaborate, and give examples of their perceptions, and to respond during the interview to issues raised in previous interviews (Morse, 2015). Peer debriefing took place throughout several stages of the thematic data analysis process (Nowell et al., 2017) by having the two first authors analyze each interview with weekly meetings held throughout the coding process to ensure that the work was systematic, as well as to ensure the uniformity and accuracy of the coding system (Nowell et al., 2017). The audit trail consisted of detailed documentation maintained throughout the research, to show how the raw data were collected and analyzed. Excerpts from the raw data were attached to all interpretations, and the peer debriefing process was documented in writing (Bowen, 2009). Finally, the authors kept reflective journals where they wrote about their personal experience during the study, among other things to raise awareness of influences on their interpretations and the relationship between those influences and the topic at hand/participants (Jootun et al., 2009).

Findings

The disclosure experiences of the SSA survivors interviewed for this study were highly diverse. Some disclosed during childhood and others during adulthood. Some disclosed to parents, others to their nonabusive siblings or to professionals, and still others to several recipients at around the same time. Responses to disclosure also varied. Some recipients believed the participants and acted to stop the abuse; some expressed disbelief; and others believed the participants but made it clear they could not help them. No matter what the context of disclosure was, however, when the survivors talked about disclosing, they used terms such as “let it all out” or “spill it.” Disclosure seemed to be a turning point, but equally important, the act of telling the story had its own significance. Telling others what had happened with their siblings was meaningful even if the consequences of disclosure were harsh for survivors: even if they were doubted, blamed, had to undergo harsh investigations, or lost relationships with the entire family. Disclosure meant freedom, as they were no longer paralyzed by the abuse or the need to conceal it.

Two major themes emerged from the analysis: (a) The offending siblings in the context of disclosure, and (b) the meaning of disclosing to others—specifically, parents, nonoffending siblings, and professional figures who intervened after the initial disclosure (educators, social workers, psychologists, and law enforcement officers) as major recipients of disclosure during either childhood or adulthood.

“Look Me in the Eye and Tell Me What You Did to Me”: The Offending Siblings in the Context of Disclosure

All participants talked about their offending siblings in the context of disclosure, during both childhood and adulthood. The literature on SSA describes a continuum of sexual relations ranging from age-appropriate curiosity and reciprocity to intrusive unilateral abuse. The participants described mostly the abusive end of the continuum and painful acts that had significant negative emotional and, at times, physical effects on their lives during childhood and adulthood. The offending siblings were described, first, as major inhibitors of disclosure, and second, in the context of the confrontation concerning the abuse.

First, some participants described how the offending siblings tried to prevent them from disclosing, or convince them to conceal the abuse again after they had made initial attempts to disclose (both as children and as adults), using verbal or physical aggression. Reut, sexually abused by her 15-year-old brother at age of 6 years, tried to disclose to her mother during adolescence:

I do not even know why it came out, how it came out. I remember that I started getting messages from my brother, all kinds of threats and things like . . . “Your life is shit already, I’ll turn it into hell”; “I know where you are, I’ll kill you.”

Some participants described the “high social status” of the offending sibling (at least as perceived by the participants), as opposed to their own lowly status, created or used by the offending siblings to present the victims as unreliable and make it difficult or impossible for them to disclose either in childhood or in adulthood. Naama, abused by her 14-year-old brother at the age of 6 years, disclosed the abuse to her parents and other siblings as an adult:

My siblings confronted him . . . So he told them that I had always been crazy and that I had always made things up; you couldn’t trust me, I never said the right things. Then his wife embarked on a crusade against me . . . and she threatened to sue me.

Reut similarly described her lowly status in relation to the abuser’s “impeccable reputation”:

Out in the world, in front of people and friends and school . . . He was seen as the best guy on earth. At home, he was in control . . . even of my father . . . I suffered a lot from him! There was such evil in him.

Some participants did not want to disclose out of fear that doing so would destroy their sibling’s life; at the same time, they felt the unfairness of the situation. The perpetrators were (ostensibly) successful in life, whereas the victims had various life issues and problems due to the abuse:

I was a divorced woman; I was in an emotional situation that was not simple, while he made progress in his life and succeeded, and I knew that if I even just opened my mouth everything would explode. I would end up hurting him . . . And it also made me wonder how he could possibly have such an aura around him when he sexually abused his sister. (Tamar, abused by her 13-year-old brother at age 11)

The second subtheme referred to confronting the offending siblings about the abuse. Most participants described how the abuse was usually not discussed with the offending siblings, either in childhood or in adulthood, and how it had therefore essentially been deleted from their lives. For the participants, sometimes the lack of discussion about the abuse with the offending sibling seemed to mean that for them (the offending siblings) it did not exist and had never happened. Confronting the offending siblings therefore meant giving voice, presence, and existence to an abuse that the offender had either denied, repressed, or forgotten about, making this confrontation much like an abuse disclosure. Whether the abuse was disclosed to others or not, some participants decided to confront the offending sibling during adulthood. For some, this confrontation became a source of significant emotional relief, gave new meaning to the abuse, or helped them move it from the foreground to the background of their lives. They mostly sought recognition and acknowledgment from the offending sibling, and convincing the sibling to apologize or ask for forgiveness was described as a highly important step in their recovery. This experience was further described by Ronit:

Then I went up to him and told him and we talked about what had happened . . . I asked him, How could you have done that to me? And he said that he’s felt guilty about it his whole life. He works on ships now. He . . . said that he has always escaped to the sea where there are no people he can hurt . . . So I gave him the psychologist’s number and forced him to go. And my psychologist checked with his psychologist to make sure he was really going. He has also started treatment so that, God forbid, this won’t happen to anyone else. If it did, I would feel guilty about it, even though I really don’t have to feel guilty.

For some participants, the act of confronting the offending siblings was meaningful but did not bring emotional relief, and did not involve full acknowledgment by the offending siblings, as described by Sarit, sexually abused by her 17-year-old brother when she was 11 years old:

I remember his look, after this meeting, sitting in the car like that, his head like that on the steering wheel. And this sight tears . . . me up. I don’t even know why . . . I think that something in this image makes me understand it a lot more and realize that he really can’t handle it. I don’t know—there was something very desperate and it makes me cry . . . And he really was charming, just did not really show me that he really remembered it.

Several participants chose to take legal action during adolescence or adulthood, and at times, this decisive action became a source of recognition and strength, as described by Batia, who was 10 years old at the time she was abused by her 16-year-old brother:

They told me, “You don’t have to testify, you don’t have to testify.” And I wanted to, as if part of the purpose of this process was to stand in front of him and tell him: “Look me in the eye and tell me what you did.” This was my dream, so I went to testify . . . It added a lot to the trial, the judges themselves told me . . . I stood there steadily and said what I had to say . . . that’s it. Three years. Now he’s in jail. Three years.

The Meaning of Disclosing to Others: Parents, Nonoffending Siblings, and Professionals

“It’s over now”: Disclosing to the parents

Most participants described parents who were unaware of the abuse while it was happening. The offending sibling found effective ways to conceal it, and at times managed to abuse the victims when the parents were at home, and even in the next room. Participants described how disclosing to parents was hard for them as children because the offending siblings had threatened them, or because they did not know how to put what had happened to them into words. Instead, they sometimes tried to send signals to the parents in other ways—ways that the parents unfortunately never managed to interpret correctly:

I felt as though I were unprotected . . . that although my father loved me, it was not a supportive kind of love . . . It was love in name only; not love and understanding . . . Like, You suspected nothing? How did you not suspect? How did you not suspect anything? How? How? How did you go on with your routine? How come I came and grabbed my mother like this, like [begging her]: “Don’t go out! Please, why are you going out?” How come there was no question, “Why don’t you want us to go out?” There was no understanding, nothing. There was only obtuseness. (Reut)

In most cases, survivors did choose to tell their parents directly, either in childhood or in adulthood. The literature is filled with examples of parents who refused to acknowledge that their children were sexually abused, even after the abuse was disclosed. However, most of the participants did not have this kind of experience. When they disclosed, the parents recognized that sexual acts did take place, and yet their responses were mostly perceived (by the participants) as either ineffective or as not meaningful enough. Thus, some participants described how they avoided disclosure for a long time, fearing that to disclose would destroy their parents and the entire family. When they did eventually disclose, most described how the parents usually acted to stop the abuse, but at the same time, they allowed the story to end there, and tried to go on living life as usual without further mentioning what had happened:

I really expected this to break all of them . . . but . . . nothing happened, for better or for worse . . . Somewhere inside me, I wanted something to happen, because something terrible had happened. I was hurt and all the people who were supposed to have protected me were not there, and now I felt it was repeating itself: Again I’m not protected and I’m left to deal with it alone. (Ronit, abused at age 9 by her 11-year-old brother)

These attitudes hurt and disappointed the victims, who (as children) had hoped that their parents would acknowledge their abusive experience, its severity, and its implications for their lives.

During childhood, when parents put an end to the abusive acts subsequent to the disclosure, this “intervention” was described as something that was done inside the family, usually as a single brief or partial act by one of the parents. This act generally consisted of confronting the offending sibling and requiring that he stop, without involving any professionals from the legal or medical (psychiatric/social work) professions, or the removal of the offending sibling from the home. Even during the interviews, parents’ actions were described briefly, as by Dana, who was seven when first abused by her 15-year-old brother:

It was late at night . . . my sister went and woke my father and she called him to the kitchen, and then she said to him in these words: Ethan put his willy in . . . I don’t know what exactly he said but he did not lose his composure. In retrospect, today I understand that he was not surprised. And he said that it would not happen again and that he would see to it that it would not happen again . . . We went back to sleep.

Yet, several participants felt that whereas their parents did not speak much about the abuse after it was disclosed, they were shocked by it. That is, the participants felt that their parents did think the abuse was a big deal, that it was serious. In Ronit’s words,

And then one day I managed to tell my mother . . . She was shocked. I asked her not to tell anyone . . . and she convinced me to tell my father and then my father said, “It happened, it’s over now, under the carpet” . . . As soon as I let it out, I saw that my parents, although they were sweeping it under the carpet, were shocked and did not know how to swallow it. I realized that something even bigger than I thought had happened, had happened here.

The combination of the parents’ perceived attempts to belittle the abuse and keep its existence far away from family life on one hand, and their reaction to it as a major crisis on the other hand, left the survivors in an intolerable situation—knowing something bad had happened to them but not being allowed to express it. The result was that they directed the pain back inward, causing them great suffering and sometimes leading them to hurt themselves, as described by Ela, who was 7 years old when first abused by her 12-year-old brother:

The good thing is that it stopped: obviously a significant benefit . . . and probably the only one . . . But what did I lose? A lot in the sense that I was left alone . . . once you do not process this thing, like in therapy, and when the environment is so silent and unwilling to deal with this huge thing then . . . so I was left alone. And when the whole message is silence, no wonder everything went inward. Like tearing out my hair, like cutting myself. Because it’s all so hush-hush . . .

In some cases, after disclosure, participants felt that their parents took the offending sibling’s side; for example, by allowing him to remain at home, leaving the abused sibling feeling unprotected. In other cases, when parents supported the offending sibling after disclosure, the participants experienced a turning point, a moment at which they decided to take legal action:

And then I went to the social workers and told them that I wanted an investigator, and then I called my dad and told him that if you promise me now that he won’t come home anymore, I’ll withdraw the complaint. He told me, “I need to think about it.” I told him, “No! You have to promise me now!” He told me, “No, I have to think about it,” and I told [the social workers]—“Call the investigator now!” (Sharon, 11 years old when first abused by her 16-year-old brother)

“We have to go and tell daddy”: Disclosing to the nonoffending siblings

The participants described the responses of their nonoffending siblings to their disclosure in a variety of ways. One such response, on the part of the siblings, was ignoring or misinterpreting hints of abuse (resembling the previously described parental dynamic). However, when participants described their feelings about these other siblings during childhood, for the most part they did not hold them responsible for missing the cues. When it came to their feelings about these siblings in adulthood, they expressed disappointment that they sometimes adopted the parents’ position of not mentioning the abuse, or supporting the offending brother at their expense and continuing the relationship with him despite being made aware of his acts:

I decided that I did not want . . . to remain silent for the sake of peace in the family . . . During treatment I came to realize that this family structure is not sacred and that it certainly should not be sacred at my expense. And if my mother and the rest of my brothers want to keep this silence, that’s fine. I don’t have to keep it. Even if it means hurting my mother and even if it means hurting my brothers. (Ela)

In some cases, however, the nonoffending siblings were described as initiating the disclosure and resisting parental silence:

Then he came into my room where I slept with my sister who was two years older

. . and she suspected, and one day she pretended to be asleep, and when he left she got up and said, “I saw what he did and we have to go and tell daddy.” (Dana)

I told my sister . . . and she really quarreled with my parents, saying that reporting such things was mandatory, that they had to report it. In the end, she was the one who reported to the welfare system. (Batia)

“It’s mostly about finding the good people”: Disclosing to professionals

Disclosure to professionals such as social workers, psychologists, law enforcement officers, and educators was described by several participants. These included professionals who were present in their lives prior to the disclosure, such as educators, but mostly after the disclosure (e.g., when they were transitioning to an out-of-home placement, or in connection with welfare and justice systems). This aspect is the focus of the present theme.

Professionals were considered positive figures in the disclosure process if they believed the participants’ stories, and if they provided encouragement, particularly when family members had not. This aspect was further described by Ronit, who as an adolescent decided to report her offending brother to the police but then dropped the charges because of familial pressure. In the following quote, she describes the police officer’s response to her decision to drop the charges:

When did I realize they believed me? As soon as I came to cancel the complaint, the investigator simply looked at me . . . and it was as if I could feel her thoughts going, “Don’t do it.” It was like she knew I was lying, but she had to write down what I was telling her.

The professionals who were helpful were also described by participants as completely attuned to their emotional needs, helping them deal with the severe consequences of the abuse without judgment. In the following quote, Anna describes several helpful professionals in various formal systems, such as out-of-home placement personnel:

People shielded me to such a crazy level, support I never received before, I felt as if I were the most protected person in the world . . . a lot of support, and a lot of willingness to understand me and accept me as I was and not mock me as they did to me in the family . . . and not trying to bring me down but trying to help me get up on my feet . . . It’s mostly about finding the good people . . . (Anna, abused by her two siblings, 15 and 17, when she was 11 and 12 years old)

In some cases, formal interventions after SSA disclosure were described as harmful, such as in the following description of a child investigation after disclosure by Rachel, sexually abused by her 9-year-old brother at age of 6 years:

She asked me the same question over and over again, and I remember feeling guilty because she asked me what I was wearing and why I put it on and she seemed to give me the feeling that I was guilty . . . and she also put me in a room that really gave me a creepy feeling. An empty room with nothing but cameras, and she was accusing me! It was just horrible, truly horrible.

Several participants also referred to the organizational difficulties that the professionals faced, such as a lack of financial resources and/or time. This situation made it difficult for the professionals to remain involved after the disclosure, despite their good intentions and sincere wish to help:

In the welfare system, things move slowly . . . I now know how to talk with them. Today I can get them moving far more than I could ever have then. It’s like I’d come and say [to the social worker], “I want to see you now” and she’d say she couldn’t, so I’d tell her, “Well I’ll sit here until you can” . . . Not everyone is like that. They can’t help it; the welfare system does not meet the needs of the population that needs to be treated. (Batia)

Finally, the participants referred to their need for professionals to recognize their unique story without casting it into a standard mold. This point was emphasized by Tamar, who was 18 years old when abused by her 13-year-old brother:

I would like professionals to have a lot of openness and flexibility when they listen to stories of abuse, and to not have preconceived notions about people’s ages and the kinds of acts that can be included, because my story does not fall neatly into this category . . . I was in a rape crisis center and they opened a group there and I wanted to see if it would suit me to participate, and I sat in front of two moderators and they asked me to talk a little bit about myself . . . And I started by saying I was the eldest in the family and that my brother messed with me. And then they asked, “By how many years is your brother older than you?” Now, a second ago I had told them that I was the eldest . . . so this means that in order for abuse to take place your brother must be older than you? So it was very hard for me . . .

Discussion

Disclosure of CSA has been extensively addressed in the theoretical and empirical literature (e.g., Alaggia, 2010; Kenny & Wurtele, 2012). At the same time, disclosure of SSA remains almost taboo (Rowntree, 2007). Disclosing SSA involves unique challenges (e.g., Caffaro, 2017; Yates, 2017). The findings of this study emphasize above all the complexities and difficulties involved in this process, and at the same time, its significance for survivors.

The survivors emphasized in their narratives the perception of disclosure as liberating, regardless of the consequences. This finding is interesting especially given that the literature tends to emphasize the fear of consequences of disclosure (e.g., Katz, 2014; Malloy et al., 2013). Perhaps because of the unique dynamic and context of SSA, these survivors understood that disclosure was their only option to overcome the unbearable circumstances of their lives.

Disclosure seems to have served as a turning point in the survivors’ lives, and their narratives focused on four different targets involved in it: the offending siblings, the parents, the nonoffending siblings, and professionals. The findings showed that in relation to these four types of recipients, two main needed to be addressed. One was for them to acknowledge the abuse, to believe the participants, and to demonstrate their understanding of the victimization experience. This need has been reported in the literature on CSA disclosure (e.g., Collin-Vézina et al., 2015; Morrison et al., 2018).

With regard to SSA specifically, however, there is a tendency to look at it as less severe than other forms of sexual abuse, as a form of “natural curiosity” (Rowntree, 2007; Yates, 2017). Of course, the SSA described by the participants in this study was far from being experienced as such. Rather, it was perceived by most participants as painful and harmful, causing severe psychological and physical damage in both childhood and adulthood.

The other basic need expressed by the participants was to feel protected against additional abuse, or against the mere presence of the abusive sibling, during both childhood and adulthood. Indeed, most interventions in cases of SSA focus first on creating a plan for the family that ensures the victim’s safety (Allardyce & Yates, 2013). Yet, such plans are available only in childhood. This lack of safety in the presence of certain family members only intensifies the unique dynamic that SSA poses for its victims, wherein the family continues to function regardless of the catastrophic sibling subsystem (Tener et al., 2018). These findings echo other recent findings on family efforts to present a façade of normality postdisclosure (Tener, 2019).

Several participants described situations in which their abuse was duly acknowledged by significant others and in which these individuals subsequently tried to protect them. For instance, some offending siblings acknowledged their actions, took responsibility for them, and asked for forgiveness. Similarly, some parents believed the participants and acted to stop the abuse immediately. Some nonoffending siblings encouraged the participants to disclose to their parents or did so themselves. Finally, some professionals intervened appropriately and sensitively, proving that they could be trusted not to cause more harm.

Unfortunately, however, in most cases, the survivors did not feel that their needs had been acknowledged and adequate protection had been provided: the offender denied the abuse; the parents minimized it; nonoffending siblings were powerless; and in several cases professionals intervened in a way that was perceived as intrusive and blaming the victim. These experiences generated a profound feeling of loneliness and emptiness among the survivors, and in some cases, they turned these feelings inward and remained unable to resolve the mixed messages they were receiving, in which the abuse was not acknowledged, but conversely seemed quite serious, judging by their parents’ reactions.

Being left to manage this paradoxical situation on their own meant that the survivors had to assume the burden of responsibility for the consequences of disclosure—for the way it affected the well-being of the offending sibling, the parents, and the other siblings. These findings provide a glimpse into a possible self-blaming mechanism that mediates the survivors’ experience, rather than only a linear connection between the experience of abuse and its consequences (Collin-Vézina et al., 2015).

Note that the participants did not (at least initially) seek revenge or punishment for the abusive siblings; they wished only to feel protected from the abuse in childhood and/or from its consequences in adulthood. Hence, they took legal action only when protection and acknowledgment were not forthcoming. They tried to obtain this protection from their family (mainly their parents), but in most cases, when they did so, they were rejected. Their parents tended to normalize the abuse or confront the abusive brother just once, before silencing the entire matter. Sometimes, the immediate abuse was in fact stopped, but the participants did not feel protected from further injury. In adulthood as well, the participants did not experience their families as protective; rather, they perceived them as intent on maintaining the illusion of a normative family. The parental and familial reactions to disclosure that fed into this dynamic attest to the parents’ difficulties in coping with SSA and being available to the victims (e.g., Cyr et al., 2002), as well as adding to the aforementioned vicious cycle of victim self-blame.

Realizing that they had to take action to protect themselves, some survivors turned to professionals, usually social workers. For the most part, participants experienced these professionals as doing their best to acknowledge and protect them, and to address their other needs. Nevertheless, these professionals were sometimes experienced as powerless: even when it was clear for participants that they wanted to help, in reality they were overworked to the point that they had little time to actually meet the survivors and could offer little in terms of other services to which they could refer. In a few cases, their intervention methods were also perceived as intrusive and their questions as suggesting that the victim was to blame.

Limitations

The first limitation of this study is that it was conducted on a small, specific sample in a single country. Consequently, its findings cannot be generalized to every adult who has ever disclosed an SSA experience. The aim of this exploratory study was more limited: presenting the perspectives of survivors so that researchers and practitioners might gain insight into their actual, lived experiences and, as such, be better able to approach this difficult subject for the purpose of both prevention and intervention.

Moreover, contextual factors with potentially deep effects on the experiences described (e.g., participants’ ages at the time of disclosure and interview, religiosity, and other cultural factors) were not examined. It is therefore recommended that future studies provide more nuanced perspectives on SSA by taking such factors into account. Specifically, as mentioned, this study was based on a single population with unique cultural characteristics. It is essential to study adult SSA survivors from a variety of cultural contexts, beyond the Jewish Israeli one, and conduct cross-cultural comparisons (a potential case for comparison is Brattfjell & Flåm, 2019, who studied CSA disclosure in Norway).

The study was also limited in focusing exclusively the retrospective experiences of SSA survivors. To understand the phenomenon more broadly, future studies should also examine the perceptions of others involved, including parents and other family members, professionals, and if possible, perpetrators. It is quite likely, moreover, that the contemporary perceptions of survivors would differ from their past perceptions, and future studies should attend to children’s own narratives as soon as possible after disclosure, despite the difficulties in recruiting this population.

Finally, this study was, by definition, based on survivors who had disclosed their SSA experience. It did not address survivors who had never disclosed to anyone, a group that is probably both larger and in greater need of help (e.g., Oates, 2007; Schönbucher et al., 2012).

Implications

Disclosing early on could, among other things, help put an end to the abuse; prevent repeated victimization; protect other children; enable the provision of psychological intervention; and hold the abuser accountable (e.g., Leclerc et al., 2011; Leclerc & Wortley, 2015; Lev-Wiesel & First, 2018; McElvaney & Culhane, 2017). Conversely, disclosure can affect victims’ future well-being, depending on the recipients’ reactions to it (e.g., Ahrens, 2006; Ullman, 2011).

Our study offers several insights for the offending siblings, parents, and professionals. For the offending siblings, recognizing the harms they have inflicted is invaluable for survivors. The must also acknowledge that the harm done continues into adulthood and that they should help the survivors, including by avoiding any contact with them, including during family events.

As for parents, although in most cases they acknowledged the abuse and taken some action to stop it, this was usually not enough during childhood or adulthood. During childhood, survivors need their parents to recognize not only the fact of the abuse but also its severity: for survivors, the parents’ unwillingness to admit that something terrible has happened means in fact lack of true acknowledgment. Beyond that, the participants received conflicting messages from parents: on one hand, the parents tried to continue a normative routine of life after SSA disclosure, and on the other hand, the survivors felt that the parents themselves were shocked. This incongruity caused confusion and suffering. The findings further indicate the need for families to recognize the abuse and put it at the forefront in adulthood as well, and to be aware of the survivors’ need for ongoing protection.

As for professionals, the following suggestions are based on survivors’ needs, as described in their narratives. Professionals working with survivors of SSA should first acknowledge survivors’ unique stories, without labeling them as “lighter abuse,” or forcing them to fit into “classic” patterns. Second, professionals must establish a relationship of trust and support for the survivors, who often describe lack of familial or other support (Tener, 2019). Finally, survivors describe how the abuse affects their lives well into adulthood. Thus, even in adulthood and after the abuse itself has been stopped, survivors still need support and protection. Professionals can help families understand that SSA is no less severe than other types of abuse, and that it is definitely not part of normative sibling relationships.

To meet SSA survivors’ needs, we—as a society—must invest in informing professionals about the SSA phenomenon, with particular attention to disclosure and its consequences, as well as survivors’ family relations during both childhood and adulthood. We need to invest in interventions that will empower survivors to tell their stories but also help them deal with potential familial and societal consequences of disclosure. We need to target interventions toward the familial rather than individual level (e.g., Bass et al., 2006), as despite the fact that the clinical and empirical literature fail to address post-SSA sibling relationships in adulthood, our findings clearly show that SSA and its disclosure are nothing short of a family earthquake.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Most of the interviews in this study were conducted by graduate social work students as part of their fulfillment of the requirements for a seminar on the topic. We are grateful to the students for the time and effort they invested in conducting the interviews, for their dedication to deal this complex and difficult research topic, and most importantly, for their help in giving voice to adult survivors of SSA.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Dafna Tener

Carmit Katz

Author Biographies

Dafna Tener is a faculty member at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has studied child sexual abuse and conducted research projects focusing on survivors’, families’, and professionals’ perceptions of sexual abuse, and has specialized in qualitative research methods.

Carmit Katz is a faculty member at Tel Aviv University. In her research and practice, she focuses on child maltreatment and deals with issues of children involvement in legal process, and family dynamic in cases of child maltreatment and prevention initiatives.

Yael Kaufmann is an MSW, working for the juvenile probation service. She completed her master’s at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in adolescents and families. During her studies, she conducted her research seminar focusing on sibling sexual abuse.

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