We imagine incest as an action — an assault a perpetrator enacts on a victim. But incest is much more diffuse than that. Incest is the background context, and it structures the entire family system. Incest is a dynamic of power, control, domination, sexualization and eroticization within the family. All the adults are taking part in the incest dynamic unless they are actively and permanently removing the children from the dynamic. All the children are victimized by the incest dynamic whether or not they are the direct target. Sometimes children go on to become perpetrators in the incest dynamic too. Incest denies the victims appropriate differentiation, separateness, and boundaries, and exposes the victims to adult sexuality. Incest denies the possibility of empathy and attunement and completely violates the expectation that home and family should be spaces of safety and protection. If there is a child that is perpetrating incest, that child learned that incest dynamic from somewhere, and somewhere along the line it was learned from an adult. Incest is never an isolated event. Incest is always a family dynamic.