Incest revisited: A Mexican Catholic priest and his daughter

Incest revisited: A Mexican Catholic priest and his daughter

This article offers a feminist sociological analysis of Otilia’s incestuous relationship with her father—a Catholic priest. This case study is one in a series of Mexican women’s narratives of incestuous relationships that reveal the sexual objectification of girls and women within the context of the family and its roots in a colonial history shaped by race, class, and gender inequalities. In this case study I also explore the complex origins of double standards of sexual morality within the Catholic Church: the Church desexualizes priests by insisting on celibacy, but perpetrators of incest, who are also priests, may benefit from the historical construction of the family that positions children as vulnerable, dehumanized, and objectified servants of the father.

Gender Studies, Anthropology

Catholic Church, Mexican society, priests and their daughters, Race and class and gender, Incest