Sibling Sexual Behavior is Different

Three sibling sexual abuse advocates walk into a bar… Not a likely start for an academic journal article, but that’s how it happened.

In May 2024, all five 5WAVES cofounders traveled to Birmingham, England to present at the NOTA International Conference. Maria, Jane, and Brandy were still there for the final social event, at a local drinking establishment. In attending the conference, we had been eager to meet leaders and researchers whose names we knew only from reading reports and articles–and NOTA International did not disappoint. However, as the conference ended, there was one person we had yet to meet: Simon Hackett, PhD. Just as we were ready to head back to our rooms and get ready to travel back to the US, one of our new UK contacts pointed him out to us. And the rest, as they say, is history. 

We were particularly keen to meet Simon, because of his role as the creator of the “Hackett continuum,” a graphic portraying the range of children’s sexual behavior that has been widely used in practice guidance on responding to all types of children's sexual behavior, including sibling sexual abuse. Brandy, a parent of sibling sexual trauma, had been relieved to find that it validated a truth she had sensed but that her state’s laws did not recognize: that not all children’s harmful sexual behavior should elicit the same response as adult sexual abuse of children should. But to Maria, a survivor, the continuum did not sit well–especially when her brother’s behavior, which had caused her decades of pain and trauma, would not be labeled as "abuse" under the Hackett continuum, and thus could be easily dismissed or minimized. So, from the day we arrived in Birmingham, she had been looking for an opportunity to meet the creator of this continuum, to hear what he had to say about her concerns. 

To our pleasant surprise, when we finally did introduce ourselves to Dr. Hackett, we found him to be a delightful, gracious, compassionate man–who agreed with Maria that the illustration he had created was being mis-used. He explained that it was created for the purpose that Brandy appreciated, but was never meant to be a continuum of harmful sexual behavior, nor to be used in the context of evaluating the needs of children who had been harmed, nor to be used in the specific context of sibling sexual behavior. 

Thus, a dialogue began, joining with two more leading voices in SSTA research and practice: Stuart Allardyce and Peter Yates. Over the course of many months of Zooms and emails, we all discussed and debated. Then for many more months we drafted, submitted, and revised an article that would share our collective clarifications and advice with the world. Now that article has been published, appropriately, in NOTA’s own Journal of Sexual Aggression. The summary below outlines the main points of the article. 

When it comes to evaluating and responding to sibling sexual behavior, context is everything. Sibling sexual behavior is different than other types of children's sexual behavior, in the following ways that practitioners and parents must not ignore.

1. Behavior that is normal between peers is not necessarily normal between siblings. (An example of this would be mutual experimentation between teens who are past puberty.) Therefore, responders should not use tools designed for evaluating peer-to-peer behavior, when siblings are involved.

   
   

2. Any behavior that does not meet all the criteria for normal body curiosity between siblings (see list below) should be evaluated as potentially harmful, for all siblings involved

   

3. Resist the tendency to assume that sexual behavior between siblings is consensual.

   1. Children cannot give consent.

   2. Sibling power dynamics can be subtle or hidden to adults, yet real.

   3. This can subtly add to children’s false beliefs that they are at fault, which adds to ongoing trauma.

      
      

4. Harmful sibling sexual behavior exists within a specific family and sibling relationship, and cannot be understood or navigated apart from that family. 

   1. Family dynamics and sibling relational difficulties may have played a role in the pathway leading to the harmful behavior.

   2. Betrayal trauma adds to the harmful effects of the behavior, even when previous relationships were positive.

   3. Parents are responsible, in the midst of their own traumatic experience, for supporting and caring for all children involved, which brings significant practical and emotional challenges. 

   4. Family relationships last a lifetime and therefore must be navigated in the long term.

   5. The stigma associated with incest tends to limit support from outside the family.

      
      

5. Each child’s needs must be assessed separately. (see graphic below) Yet adults need to be aware that decisions made on behalf of one child are likely to affect the other(s). The impacts, needs, and ongoing welfare of at least two children must always be kept in view. 

   1. The severity of behavior does not determine the severity of the harm. Each child’s need for intervention must be assessed separately.

   2. The age or intent of the person displaying the behavior does not determine the level of impact on the other child involved. 

   3. The impact of the behavior and the level of trauma present in all children may not be immediately apparent. 

   4. Each child’s need for physical and emotional safety must be held in ongoing balance with the benefit of living in a supportive family environment. 

To read the full article: Full citation: Socolof, M., Hackett, S., Allardyce, S., Yates, P., Black, B., & Epstein, J. (2026). Sibling sexual behaviour is different: towards a conceptual framework of harmful sexual behaviour among siblings. Journal of Sexual Aggression, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2026.2704741

For those without institutional access to the journal, the accepted manuscript is also available at: https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/ws/files/114975418/114725799.pdf

Of Water and Wings

Kim's note: My daughter disclosed her abuse at her brother's (my son's) hands when she was 35 years old. It was not easy for her to tell me, and I applaud her courage to risk such vulnerability and unmask such deep trauma. This was perhaps the most devastating news I have ever heard. As a survivor of

childhood sexual assault by my father, it was the one thing I prayed would never happen to her. As

someone who worked at my local rape crisis center, I had missed it in my own home. For as much

shock, shame, sadness, regret and guilt as there was as a mother, hearing the truth also made many

dynamics regarding our relationship and pieces of our family history more understandable.

Everything was seen through a different lens.

As a mother and a daughter, we moved forward in our individual healing, and we began the process

of adjusting to a relationship whose underpinnings had shifted. We are still unearthing the effects. A

creative response to the pain, to sharing how it felt for each of us, began to unfold, and it felt right.

We are both writers, and rather organically we began to write poems about what had happened.

We came up with a title or a topic—the disclosure, the aftermath of the disclosure, forgiveness, what

we carry, our bodies, etc.— and we each wrote on our own. We only shared our work with each

other when we had finished our poems on a specific topic. They arrived as if invited. Within the

span of six to eight weeks, we each had a pile of 50 poems.

The poems shared here speak to the time following her disclosure. We share them with all blessings

for peace in your heart and with the hope that they resonate with you, whether as a survivor, family

member, friend or a parent of a child who has experienced SSA.

art by Stephanie Schilling

Aftershock

by Stephanie Schilling, daughter

Morning came hollow,

the ground still humming beneath my ribs.

Confession had been an earthquake—

now dust hung in the air like judgment,

light cutting through it in trembling lines.

Silence was everywhere,

but it wasn’t peace—

it was the stunned quiet of fallen things.

Tables tilted on their legs,

family portraits stared sideways,

and my mother’s voice

picked through debris, searching for him,

not me.

She lifted the wreckage carefully—

his childhood, his wounds, his reasons—

as if empathy were mortar

to patch the ruin he’d made.

And I, still shaking,

stood amid the fault lines,

wanting only to be seen,

not studied.

I felt the divide opening—

love shifting on its axis,

a chasm widening beneath the word daughter.

The air reeked of plaster and grief.

Everything breakable was already broken.

I did not want his history.

But she was already sifting through the rubble,

asking the earth what shaped the monster,

while I bled dust and memory into the light.

Now, even when the shaking stops,

my bones remember.

They hum beneath the calm,

a soft seismic warning

that nothing rebuilt

is ever the same.

Yesterday's Midnight

by Kim Birdsong, mother

absorbed yesterday's news and folded

it all into herself, like time, until she spit it out,

shards ripping crimson into dawn

where the words hang like meat,

raw, grotesque, bloody

on the butcher's hook

unbearable to look at

impossible not to see

this story that will never be

the headline, though its ink

leaves the darkest marks:

her daughter's abuse

her son's predation

their mother's blindness,

thicker than the thousands

of shadows stacked in corners

of silent generations.

Nerve endings scream NO!

as damning truth insists

Look! Listen! and loudest of all,

Feel!

Their hearts, raw as they will ever be,

seek seeds of direction

only the birds can see, searching for a map

leading God only knows where.

How far must we carry a burden

before it becomes something else?

The full set of Stephanie's and Kim's poems is published in Of Water and Wings: poems of truth and healing between mother and daughter

The Impossible Choice

It's an incredibly difficult question, one that comes most often from a parent of a young adult survivor of sibling sexual abuse. It goes something like this [1]: “My daughter recently told me that her older brother sexually abused her when they were children. We knew the relationship had been difficult, but we had no idea anything that egregious was going on. We have supported her healing by paying for her therapy, respected her decision to cut contact with her brother and her wishes that we not mention him in her presence. Yet, she still feels betrayed that we are still keeping our own contact with her brother and his two small children. She says we need to choose between the two of them; that if we continue even minimal contact with him, she will go no contact with us. We want to support her, but it seems unfair not only to us but to our little grandchildren to go along with her request. What do we do?”

As a moderator in the 5WAVES Facebook group for parents of SSTA, I have witnessed parents’ anguished struggles with this heartbreaking quandary. But I lacked insight from the survivor’s perspective. So I posed the scenario above to a small group of women survivors, middle-aged and older, at a Blue Borage Conversation Cafe last fall. I wondered, is there any limit to parents prioritizing a survivor’s needs, especially when the sibling who harmed during their own childhood has matured, attempted to make amends, and is no longer displaying abusive attitudes or behavior?

I didn’t expect easy answers, and I didn’t get any. Below is a summary of the discussion that followed, offering some possible perspectives for parents to consider. Please note, this conversation did not include any viewpoints of survivors in younger adult generations, nor does it offer a prescription that can be applied to all circumstances.

All agreed that survivors’ choices about relationship, contact, or communication between themselves and their sibling should be respected and followed, full stop. This includes requests that the parent not share news or images of that sibling in the survivor’s presence, as well as requesting that their sibling not be present when the survivor is celebrating holidays and milestones. 

There was also agreement, within this small group, that parents should be allowed to make independent decisions about contact with their own children (including the child who caused harm) and any grandchildren they have by that child. Yet, they also acknowledged that navigating that path in the midst of long-carried trauma and righteous anger is rarely straightforward.

Some wondered, what was the context of the demand to cut contact with the brother? Was it a one-time exclamation in a heated moment, or presented as a carefully considered decision? Did the brother’s attitude and response (or lack of it) play any role? 

Some survivors recalled a stage in their own healing journey where their anger was raw and paramount, and their ability to reason or empathize with others was limited. Looking back, they could see that season of anger as necessary, but not permanent. 

For awhile, we pondered the question, what might be the unmet need underlying the younger daughter’s ultimatum? Might she be needing validation of the devastating extent of the trauma and betrayal her brother inflicted? Might she be yearning to trust that her parents value her own well-being above all else? Survivors, who have lived for years or decades in bodies that were not adequately protected during childhood, desperately need to be assured of support and protection. This requires more than a single acknowledgment or apology. It must come in the form of actions that are consistent with promises of support. Things like following up to check in on their welfare, or an attitude of curiosity and repeated invitations to talk about it more (but only if they wish to).  

Based on research with incest survivors, Judith Herman observed a that a craving for “relational justice," carried out by other family members, often outweighs the need for legal justice. Components of relational justice include having the whole truth told and believed, unequivocal condemnation of the behavior, and consequences delivered from within the family–particularly from parents, who are the natural arbiters of justice between siblings. [2] Survivors in the group mentioned these types of needs, and observed that the actions or words that might satisfy these needs for one person will not necessarily work for another.

It is possible that their adult daughter has needs that even she cannot identify, and until those needs are met, she will perceive her parents as unsupportive–even if they are doing everything in their power and imagination to provide not only emotional but practical support. It is also possible their daughter is carrying another level of undisclosed harm.

Given how trauma neurologically affects the ability to socially engage [3], becoming defensive or trying to gain sympathy for the parent’s plight is unlikely to help. The survivors participating in this discussion had lived long enough to recognize that feelings can change, healing is a journey, and what your child is demanding today may not reflect what they will need or want, years down the road. Yet, there is no way to look into the future and know with any certainty what the outcome of a given choice will be. These types of situations are extremely painful, for all involved.

In addition to what I have shared above from that particular discussion, I would like to add a few parting words, for those parents who have sincerely tried everything and are still faced with this impossible choice. 

1. This decision is yours alone. No one else has stood exactly where you are now, and no one else will have to live with the consequences in the same way you will.

2. Consider, which choice will allow you to move forward with the most self-respect still intact? 

3. If you end up ceasing contact or being told your child will cease contact, how you go about it can make a difference. If you decide to initiate, offer a clear explanation of the reason for ceasing contact. Try to settle on an avenue for communication to take place in an emergency, or to be re-started if circumstances change. This could be a mutually trusted third person (and alternate) or a designated mode of communication, to be used only in those circumstances. 

4. Your grief is real. 

5. You do not have to walk this journey alone. 5WAVES and our collaborators offer a variety of peer support options for parents of sibling sexual trauma and abuse. 

6. If you are having thoughts of suicide, there is help. You can start with 988 (US/Canada), 111 (UK), 13 11 14 (AU)

A word to therapists, advocates, and researchers:

The expectation for parents, siblings, or partners to cut contact with a family member who has sexually abused someone is not new or unusual. However, sibling sexual trauma and abuse includes unique nuances that must be recognized and navigated. There is a dire need for research to better understand long-term outcomes of family estrangement decisions, both overall and in the specific context of SSTA. Parents in our 5WAVES Facebook SSTA parent support group have noted needs for a) therapists serving parents of SSTA to educate them on childhood sexual trauma and how it still influences their adult child’s nervous system and relationship skills; b) therapists supporting survivors to better understand the processing and challenges facing parents of SSTA, and provide anticipatory guidance for their clients, and c) finding ways to offer integrated services for multiple family members. Despite the challenges, we hope these might improve outcomes for everyone when disclosure happens during adulthood–which is by far the most common scenario. [4]

The consequences of going no-contact with any family member are major and long-term, for all involved. Empirical research on the welfare of those who have chosen to estrange from a family member is limited, but effects that have been documented so far include social isolation, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and low self-esteem. [5] There are moments in the therapeutic journey, individual or family, where the therapist is the only one in the room with a functioning prefrontal cortex, able to rationally consider options and consequences and guide their clients to a place where they can do so. The costs, options, risks and benefits of estrangement deserve to be carefully examined, before choosing to take any irreversible action. 

[1] hypothetical example, based on actual inquiries; brother and sister were chosen for the example to make discussions in the blog more clear through use of “she” and “he” pronouns, but we remind the reader that SSTA can take place with any gender combination of siblings

[2] Judith Herman, Truth and Repair

[3] Stephen Porges, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation

[4] 5waves.org/whatdoweknow 

[5] Cornell Family Estrangement and Reconciliation Project