Bien au-delà de l’acte sexuel, l’inceste résonne comme « un meurtre d’identité » (Green, 1983), une petite mort : la mort psychique d’un enfant victime, réduit à l’état d’objet, dépourvu de pensée propre et de désir, assujetti au pouvoir et aux désirs de l’agresseur – désirs de possession et de jouissance sexuelle. L’enfant choisi par l’auteur incestueux est enlisé dans une relation d’emprise qui l’enserre progressivement jusqu’à l’étouffer et l’assécher de toute forme d’émotion et de subjectivité. L’inceste anéantit les repères individuels et brouille les repères familiaux, attaquant les liens et les places de chacun dans la filiation. À partir d’une large étude épidémiologique réalisée en 2023 (François, 2025), auprès de 400 victimes d’inceste, nous mettrons en évidence la prédominance des manœuvres de séduction dans les stratégies utilisées par les auteurs incestueux. Loin de la représentation sociale encore largement répandue selon laquelle l’inceste est un acte de violence et de brutalité innommable, il nous faut reconnaître aux auteurs incestueux leur talent de séducteur et de manipulateur. L’inceste n’est pas une erreur, il est l’œuvre d’une stratégie. Et les auteurs incestueux sont les maîtres dans l’art de la séduction. La brutalité est rare, c’est principalement la séduction qui fait violence aux enfants victimes, une violence silencieuse et insidieuse, qui sème la confusion, la désorganisation et la dissociation. L’enfant pris au piège ne peut plus penser la chose, il ne peut pas la qualifier ni la dénoncer, il est prisonnier dans une relation prétendue d’amour, chosifié pour satisfaire les pulsions sexuelles de l’auteur incestueux. Plus largement encore, les manœuvres séductrices de l’incesteur s’étendent au système familial dans son ensemble, semant le doute et la confusion – jusqu’à l’aveuglement – et maintenant ainsi la jeune victime prise en piège, dans la solitude et le silence.

Far beyond the sexual act itself, incest resonates as “a murder of identity” (Green, 1983), a kind of small death: the psychic death of a child victim, reduced to the status of an object, deprived of their own thoughts and desires, subjected to the power and desires of the perpetrator — desires of possession and sexual gratification. The child chosen by the incestuous perpetrator becomes trapped in a coercive relationship that gradually tightens around them, suffocating them and draining them of all forms of emotion and subjectivity. Incest annihilates individual reference points and blurs family boundaries, attacking relationships and each person's place within the lineage. Incest is never an isolated act; it never appears alone within a family — it spreads, repeats, and perpetuates itself across time and generations. Based on a large epidemiological study conducted in 2023 (François, 2025) with 400 victims of incest, we were able to identify three types of strategies used by incest perpetrators: (1) intimidation behaviors (physical violence, verbal abuse, threats); (2) manipulation behaviors (emotional blackmail, games, lies, surprise); and (3) seduction behaviors (flattery, praise, privileges, gifts). It clearly emerges that seduction maneuvers are largely preferred by incest perpetrators. Thus, far from the still widely held social representation that incest is an act of unspeakable violence and brutality, we must acknowledge the perpetrators’ talent as seducers and manipulators. Incest is not a mistake; it is the product of a strategy. And incest perpetrators are masters in the art of seduction. Brutality is rare; it is primarily seduction that does violence to child victims — a silent and insidious violence that sows confusion, disorganization, and dissociation. The trapped child can no longer think about what is happening; they cannot name it or denounce it. They are imprisoned in a purported relationship of love, objectified to satisfy the sexual drives of the incestuous perpetrator. We cannot speak of seduction without referring to the work of Sandor Ferenczi, particularly his famous text “Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child: The Language of Tenderness and of Passion”, first presented at the 12th International Psychoanalytic Congress in Wiesbaden in 1932. Ferenczi reaffirms the factual reality of such events at a time when Freud had abandoned it (“I no longer believe in my neurotica”, he wrote in 1897). Ferenczi describes the traumatic impact as a “psychic intrusion” or “psychic rape” (Parat, 2004). of the child by the adult, resulting from a “confusion of tongues between the child and the adult”, the former speaking the language of tenderness and the latter that of sexuality. One might therefore be led to believe in a misunderstanding on the part of the adult, or an unfortunate misinterpretation — what Green (1983) called an “unfortunate encounter.” It could be seen as an error or an unintentional confusion on the adult's part, mistaking the child's search for love and tenderness for an invitation to sexuality. However, clinical evidence of incest shows quite the opposite. In incest situations, the seducer is someone known to the victim — known, but also previously invested with feelings of trust, since they belong to the same family system — supposed to be protective and benevolent — and contribute to the “primary narcissistic contract” (Aulagnier, 1975). Thus, when the perpetrator acts, the contract is shattered, and the sexual crime is compounded by a wound of betrayal. Seduction maneuvers emotionally engage the child in the relationship, giving them a sense of trust and love. The child is immediately seduced — therefore vulnerable and thus trapped by the underlying desires of the seductive adult. In this way, the adult creates the conditions favorable to the realization of their fantasies: sexual fantasies, fantasies of domination, possession, and incorporation. Seduction strategies have the effect of blurring or even erasing the forbidden and coercive nature of the incestuous sexual act, so that the victim — young, immature, and often unaware — is not able to identify the acts as a transgression of boundaries and of the incest taboo. More broadly, the incest perpetrator's seductive maneuvers extend to the entire family system, sowing doubt and confusion — even leading to blindness — and thereby maintaining the young victim trapped, in solitude and silence.