Jane Epstein recalls six years of abuse by her brother and years of silence
“My body craved it, wanted it. It was real — a byproduct of sexual abuse.”
Jane Epstein was six when the abuse began. Her older brother was 12. At first, she did not understand what was happening or know how to name it. She was a child in her own home, and the person crossing her boundaries was a sibling she had been taught to trust.
The abuse continued for six years, she says, until her brother left for college. It did not involve intercourse, but Epstein says he touched her repeatedly and masturbated in the same room. The experience left her confused about her body, about what was normal and about whether she had any right to object.
“My brother, who was supposed to protect me, broke my trust,” she said. “I’d endure his intrusive touch again and again, powerless to say no to him and unable to tell anyone.”
She has also described how early sexual sensations became tangled with the abuse. “My body craved it, wanted it. It was real — a byproduct of sexual abuse.” Her account of a bodily response is not the same as a child choosing what was happening. At 11, she recalls going to her brother’s room and wanting him to do more, while still being too young to understand the boundaries that had already been violated.
“When I was 11, I intentionally went to my brother’s room to seduce him and wished for more,” she said. “I tried to bargain the dread away. If only I hadn’t gone into his room. If only I had told on him after the first time he touched me. It was my fault. Fear and anxiety was followed by disgust. What was wrong with me?”
For years, she carried that blame herself. “My brother’s actions confused and clouded my understanding during my innocent childhood. I didn’t realise what transpired was a grave violation.”
She has said that, as a schoolgirl, she became preoccupied with boys and their attention. Later she left college, worked as a stripper and used drugs, including marijuana, cocaine and mushrooms. At the time, she believed these choices gave her a way to take control and become someone else.
“I thought I could regain control that way. It was empowering but it was temporary,” she said. “You can only use sex, drugs and men to numb the shame for so long.”
She recalled being skilled at seeking attention but not knowing where healthy boundaries lay. “I was boy crazy and knew how to manipulate them to get what I wanted. My body desired sexual touch. Boundaries had been crossed in my home. There was a line, but I did not know where that line was.”
The abuse stopped when her brother left home for college. Years later, he apologised during a visit to the family home. “I’m sorry for what I did to you when you were younger,” he told her. Epstein answered: “It’s okay. I participated.”
She now recognises how she tried to contain what had happened rather than face its effect. “I put it in a box in my soul, sealing it up for good. It wasn’t like he hurt me. And I love my brother. He had apologised.”
Epstein went on to build a life beyond that experience. She married Mark in 1996, returned to college and qualified as a court reporter. Mark died of oesophageal cancer in 2004. In the months after his death, she began meeting men and returned to sexualised clothing and behaviour, later understanding those choices as another attempt to manage grief and shame.
“After Mark’s death, I should have spent more time grieving instead of meeting men just three months after he died. I shortened my skirts, wore sexy stockings, and seduced men. The wrong men.”
She described feeling in control when she performed as a stripper. “When I stepped onto the stage as a stripper, I felt in control, and bold, confident, and motivated. I was in command of my life, and no one could stop me.” The sense of control, she said, did not last.
After a friend introduced her to Steve, an investment banker, the pair married in 2006. They had two sons, born in 2007 and 2008. Epstein later began to understand the link between her childhood and the anger and depression she had carried through much of adulthood. After Mark’s death, she eventually spoke to a marriage counsellor about how she felt.
A conversation about a friend’s teenage son brought the past sharply back. The friend had told a story about finding evidence that her son had been pleasuring himself. Epstein initially laughed, then found herself overwhelmed by memories of her own brother and by the way her parents had once discussed his behaviour.
“Then it hit me,” she said. “There was a heaviness in my chest. I felt hollow. I had repressed so many memories it was hard to wrap my head around them. The funny story was less amusing now. I was horrified and full of shame.”
She remembered hearing her parents talk about her brother’s conduct and her father describing it as normal and natural. “That sent the message that what we were doing was okay. It was okay for a 12-year-old boy to be curious. It was okay for me to be fondled. It was normal.”
The silence around abuse between siblings can leave children without the language to explain what has happened, especially when adults treat it as ordinary curiosity. A 2025 scoping review of 91 empirical studies found that sibling sexual abuse remains under-recognised and under-studied. It also found that children rarely disclose it while it is happening, and that official records are likely to understate both how often it occurs and how long it lasts.
A separate project by Rape Crisis England & Wales examined police records from 21 forces. Between 2017 and 2020, it identified 11,840 recorded incidents of intrafamilial sexual offences and assaults involving victims under 18; 2,869, or 24 per cent, were recorded as involving siblings. Those figures describe incidents recorded by the forces that supplied data, not every case across the country.
A 2024 national review of serious child-safeguarding cases considered 193 children sexually abused by family members. More than three-quarters were under 12. The review reported that children were too often not heard or protected, while cases also showed long-term effects including depression, self-harm and substance misuse. Its findings covered abuse by family members broadly, not only abuse between siblings.
Support is beginning to take more account of the whole family. In November 2024, the NSPCC launched a two-year pilot called Stepping Stones in one London borough. The service brings together social workers, clinicians and family therapists to support children who have experienced harm, children who have caused harm, other siblings, and parents or carers.
Epstein has since spoken publicly about sibling sexual abuse and worked to raise awareness. Her story is not a claim that childhood behaviour made her responsible. It is a record of how a child can be confused by abuse, blame herself for it and spend years trying to silence its effects. “You can only use sex, drugs and men to numb the shame for so long,” she said.