Covert incest
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The term covert incest (also known as emotional incest or psychic incest) is used by some writers to describe a relationship between parents and children that is sexualized, without actual incest. Proponents of the concept describe the relationships as harmful and one-sided, and similar to a relationship between adult sexual partners but without the type of physical contact that would be considered as child sexual abuse, and describe its effects as similar to, though less severe than that of actual incest. The concept has been criticized as an overly broad set of criteria that excessively expands the definition of child sexual abuse. Aspects of the concept have also been criticized for contradicting experimental data.