"How Do you Even Speak About it?": Understanding Harmful Sexual Behavior Towards Parents

Purpose Despite the huge growth in research over the past decade on physical, psychological and financial abuse towards parents, harmful sexual behavior (HSB) remains largely unrecognized in policy, research and public discourse. To address this knowledge gap, this article represents the first known study to explore the problem of HSB towards parents. Methods Using a mixed methods design, this article combines two unique datasets. First, it draws on referral data ( n = 2083) from a UK-based support organization for parents experiencing abuse from their children to examine key differences between children who use HSB towards parents and children who do not. Second, it draws on interview data ( n = 8) from mothers and practitioners to explore how this challenging experience is navigated. Results The referral data highlights how HSB can constitute an important component of child to parent abuse (CPA). It demonstrates how exposure to domestic abuse and childhood trauma is associated with HSB towards parents and highlights the myriad ways that HSB towards parents manifests. The interviews highlight how fear of disclosure, trauma-insensitive professional responses, and an absent knowledge base is implicated in parental experiences of help-seeking and help-receiving for HSB. Conclusions This article significantly develops scholarship across three key fields of enquiry: child to parent abuse, children displaying HSB, and elder sexual abuse, and makes a series of urgent recommendations for policy and practice to help address the problem of HSB towards parents, which includes being mindful of the taboo context that shapes disclosure, adopting a trauma-sensitive approach, and addressing current policy gaps. On a more profound level, the changes we need are contingent on finding a way to help parents, researchers and practitioners/policymakers to articulate a problem that is currently unthinkable.