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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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.

I wish we’d got help together, you know? I might still be married now if I’d got help. But I’m not,” he says with unmistakeable grief. Our marriage was never the same after I told her about my mother … just telling her wasn’t enough, we needed to get help,” he says. 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. In the context of Lucetta’s research, Ian is unusual because he considers himself mentally healthy.

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.”

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.” 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’.” Society says that males are actually instigators of any sort of sexual relationship, so the child copes with the trauma by telling himself: ‘I must have actually instigated it,’” she says.Throughout adulthood, Ian has been plagued by feelings of isolation, guilt, low self-esteem, depression and anxiety. He’s also battled a “dysfunctional sex life” and attempted suicide a number of times. I AM very sorry I brought you so much pain,” Marcus* wrote in his final letter, “Thank you for caring for me. I know I didn’t deserve it.” This isn’t an easy interview. When I ask what went through his head during that period in his childhood, Hamish struggles to form an answer. Like so many men in his position, the distress lies not in the words but in the silence. I was born illegitimately,” Ian says, “and he [John] knew that because he wasn’t sleeping with my mother.” The PhD she’s currently writing is about sons who were sexually abused by their biological mothers — just as Marcus had been.

She preyed on the fact I was coming into puberty and made me feel important and special,” he tells me. He worked damn hard to do just that. Hamish married in the early 90s and fathered two sons of whom he’s extremely proud. One gentleman, sadly, was completely house bound. He basically just felt that it was completely impossible to trust anybody or to be out in society because he had so little self-regard,” she says. The truth is that Hamish had no one to disclose the abuse to — and even if he did, was terrified of splitting up his family. Marcus died by suicide two years ago and when he did, he left University of Canberra researcher Lucetta Thomas a message.Although Ian is still married to his wife and has been for nearly 50 years, he confesses to having a number of extramarital affairs and visiting escorts for sex.