I was just watching a video/reading the comments on a particular real-life story, and it reminds me of how much I absolutely hate the way society perceives/treats cases of mother-son incest.

I've noticed that in cases of father-daughter incest, almost everyone recognizes that it's abuse, that the daughter is a victim, that the father is abusing the daughter, that she was probably groomed by the father from a young age, etc.

But in cases of mother-son incest, the son is not generally perceived as being a victim of the mother. The vast majority of the comments I read on this case (and on other similar cases) treat the mother and the son as if they're equally culpable. They say things like "What's wrong with that guy to sleep with his own mother?" "Both of them are so gross." "Run away from mama's boys." "He's going to have a hard time in prison once the other inmates learn he's been banging his own mother for decades."

In cases of father-daughter incest, I've personally never seen people say of the daughter "Why would she bang her own father for decades?" because people understand that she was the victim of abuse by the father. Conversely, people often don't recognize that, in cases of mother-son incest, the son is a victim of the mother. Especially if he's an adult by the time the case comes to light. People ignore the fact that--he may be an adult now--but almost certainly the sexual abuse by the mother began when he was a child. The effects of that kind of grooming don't magically disappear when he becomes a legal adult. He's still very much under her control, due to the grooming that began during his formative years. There's a cultural blindness to the reality of female-on-male sexual abuse in general, and the way society perceives mother-son incest is a glaring example of this.

This is why, in popular culture, when mother-son incest is depicted, it's usually not depicted where the mother is a villain and the son is a victim. Instead, in such media, the son is usually depicted as being equally as terrible as the mother. E.g. "Psycho" and "Bates Motel", where the son is a "bad guy" just like the mother. The most unfortunate thing is that, in real life, the sons of sexually abusive mothers often do indeed end up severely mentally disturbed. But this is not a character flaw on their part, nor due to them just being "bad, creepy people". This is due to the fact that they likely have had absolutely no psychological support to help them overcome the effects of the abuse. They were groomed from childhood by their mothers, and are now living in a society where--if the truth ever came out--they would be treated as disgusting monsters rather than supported as victims.

I was sexually abused by my mother for years, and the only reason it ended was because she died when I was 12-years-old, at which point I was then sent to live with my dad. I don't know how I would have turned out if the things my mother did had gone on until I was an adult, or if I didn't have the support of my father after my mother died. But I have a lot of sympathy for the other sons who don't manage to escape from their situation, and I really hate the way society treats and perceives them.