SEXUAL CHILD ABUSE AND HOMOSEXUAL MEN
By Dale O'Leary
I. UNDERSTANDING SEXUAL ABUSE OF BOYS
A. Rate of Abuse
While some people believe that any sexual activity involving a child is potentially
abusive, the definition of sexual child abuse is limited to a sexual relationship in which
there was coercion, force or threat of force and/or if the age difference between the
participants is deemed to be such that the child/or adolescent cannot be considered to
have been able to freely consent. Sexual abuse can take place between a child and an
adult, a child and an adolescent, an adolescent and an adult, or peers if coercion is
involved.
David Finkelhor has written extensively on sexual abuse of children. He conducted a
study of 796 college students. Using a broad definition of abuse, he found that of the 266
males in the study, 9.7% had experienced sexual abuse, 4.1% had a sexual experience as a
child with adult, 2.3% as a child with adolescent partner at least 5 years older, and 2.3%
as an adolescent with an adult at least 10 years older. Close to 70% of the experiences
involved force. For the boys, 17% involved a family member, 53% an acquaintance, and 30% a
stranger. About 60% of the experiences were single encounters.
According to George Rekers, editor of Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexual
Problems:
about 6 percent of children of both sexes have endured prolonged and unwanted sexual
relations imposed upon them by an older person. At least half of these individuals (about
3 percent of the population sampled) will suffer long-term impairment of mental health as
a result of these experiences. (Rekers, p.145)
B. Abusers
Fixated child abusers are overwhelmingly male. About a third of those who offend
against children target boys, however non-incestuous offenders against male children have
many more victims than offenders against female children. According to a study by Abel
"the mean number of victims of non-incestuous offenders against female children was
19.8, which that of such offenders against male children was 150.2. (Abel 1988)
Men who abuse boys follow predictable patterns, often seeking out employment or
activity that allows them access to the type of child they finds sexually appealing. In
some cases the abuser also wins the confidence of the parents. The abuser targets
vulnerable boys by offering friendship, attention, financial incentives, or forbidden
activities. He gives the boys the very things that responsible adults deny them and in the
case of the vulnerable boys fulfills the unmet needs for adult affirmation. He may first
seduce the boy into a forbidden non-sexual activity, such as alcohol or drugs, then
introduce the sexual element to their relationship, sometimes telling the boy that he
wants to teach him about sex or that all friends engage in these behaviors. Once the
activity has begun if the boy appears reticent, the abuser threatens him with exposure and
or violence. The abuser may take pictures to use as part of the threat or to satisfy his
need to relive the incident..
C. Victims
While the experience may initially be frightening and unpleasant, the child may also be
sexually aroused and stimulated by the activity which adds to his guilt and confusion. If
the boy is particularly needy, he may identify with the molester and come to believe that
the experiences are normal. The boy may feel a duty to protect his abuser or believe that
he will be punished if he tells. He may be ashamed to admit he is a victim.
The negative effects of sexual abuse are manifold, as Rekers points out:
Much of the psychological injury derived from the exploitation can be linked back to
the manner of entrapment, the length of time of encapsulation, and the nature of the
sexual activity. Children are confused over the use of power and authority, with resulting
disorganizing impact on their thinking. As the abuse continues, their belief about sex
between adults and children shifts from "This is wrong" to "This is
right."(Rekers, p. 167)
The isolation caused by the secrecy is, according to Rekers, particularly harmful:
At some level, the child knows that the sexual activity is wrong because it has to be
kept secret...Social ties are broken. Commitment and social ties to values lose their
color and dominance.. (Rekers, p.168)
The child becomes isolated, cut off from the parents and unable to trust adults in
general or form normal attachments and non-sexual bonding. According to Rekers:
To attach in a social way requires a degree of trust and faith, but this component of
normal development has been shattered and destroyed for abused youth. Rather than
developing a normal trusting social bond with others, the abused child develops a bond to
the perpetrator and their shared sexual activities. Abused children are trapped by the
abusing relationship.(Rekers, p. 167)
The boy may experience "traumatic confusion" and reenact what he has learned
by engaging in masturbation or by molesting younger children: According to Rekers, some of
those who are abused become abusers:
males having been victims of sexual abuse themselves, become, in adolescence and
adulthood, sexual abusers, sometimes with a pedophile fixation on young children. A
variety of factors may explain this reality: trying to gain mastery over the earlier abuse
by repeating it, but in a controlling manner; socially learned behavior, reinforced by
sexual stimuli; and attachment to the abuser, in youth whose own families provided
imperfect emotional attachments.(Rekers, p.158)
Rekers offers a number examples of abuse. In one case, "A 26-year-old single male,
employed by a local YMCA as an accountant and sports coach, became sexually involved with
three boys, ages 8 to 9. His sexual activity continued for over a year, during which he
recruited many other boys" In another case, an 18-year-old single male, employed as a
sports coach "became sexually involved with five boys 8 to 9 - for more than five
years." (Rekers, p.166) According to Rekers:
The boys were programmed by their sports coach to be overly attached to him. The youths
were at the crucial developmental period and thus vulnerable to an adult male who showed
them attention. The coach gave the boys what appeared to them to be love and attention,
meeting the narcissistic wish of a child to be the center of attention. In return, in
exchange for being taught about sex and for being made to feel special, the coach secrecy
about activities.(Rekers, p.167)
In one case the boy was forced into oral and anal sex. After the molestation was
uncovered:
Dan talked about how much he trusted the coach, and noted that the coach was very
important to him after his own father had left the household. The coach would explain to
him that what they were involved in was normal, and he convinced Dan what he wanted to do
with Dan is what friends do to one another. Dan later realized he had been photographed
nude at different times by a hidden video camera.(Rekers, p. 170)
After experiences of sexual abuse a number of the boys began to question their sexual
identity and wonder if they were homosexual. (Rekers, p.169)
Rekers also points out that the vulnerable child is also most likely to be effected
negatively by the experience of sexual molestation:
It is a cruel paradox that those children least able to cope with the burden of sexual
seduction are those most vulnerable to its effects. Children with good self-esteem, a
trusting and confident relationship with an adult, and well-developed ego strengths are
likely to report any attempted or achieved sexual assault immediately. However, a child
whose ego development has been undermined by loss of a parent, problematic attachments to
adults, and depressed self-esteem because of emotional and physical abuse or neglect is
particularly vulnerable, and is rarely able to prevent or report continuing sexual
assault. (Rekers, p. 157)
Unfortunately, boys who have had early childhood experiences which could predispose
them to adult homosexuality -- in particular unmet childhood needs for father affirmation
and deep desire for male companionship -- are most vulnerable to the enticements offered
by a determined abuser - male attention, hugs, and affirmation.
II. SEXUAL ABUSE OF HOMOSEXUAL MEN
A. Rate of abuse
Given the above description of boys who are vulnerable to sexual child abuse, one might
expect that homosexual males would be more likely to have been sexually molested as
children. Several studies confirm this hypothesis.
Shrier and Johnson interviewed 300 intercity boys as part of a general intake health
history at an adolescent outpatient clinic. Forty of the adolescents disclosed an
experience of being sexually assaulted by a male before puberty. These 40 were compared to
an age-matched control group from the same sample of boys who do not report abuse. Shrier
and Johnson found that while 90% of the control group reported they were heterosexual,
only 42.5% of those reporting sexual victimization said they were heterosexual - 47.5%
said they were homosexual, and 10% said they bisexual. Only 6 of the 40 victimized boys
had revealed the molestation to anyone prior to participation in the study
interview.(Johnson 1985)
Shrier and Johnson feel that the 40 cases found may represent only a faction of the
actual incidence, because although nearly half of the clinic patients are under 15, not
one boy under 15 admitted molestation. In addition only 6 of the 40 who admitted being
molested were under age 17. This suggests that younger adolescents may be extremely
unwilling to admit previous molestation and may do only because they are suffering from
some sexually related problem.(Johnson, 1985)
In a study by Remafedi, 239 men aged 13 to 21 who identified themselves as homosexual
or bisexual were queried. Of these 42% had been sexually abused or assaulted. In addition
30% had attempted suicide; 23% used cocaine; 66% used marijuana regularly; 29% had been
arrested; 11% had accepted money for sex.. Based on the number of unprotected sexual acts
and number of sexual partners, the author concluded that 63% of these young men were at
extreme risk for HIV infection.(Remafedi, 1994) It was not clear from the study if the 42%
who had been abused were among those who attempted suicide, used drugs, or engaged in
unsafe sex.
In 1992 Lynda Doll and associates published a study of "self-reported childhood
and adolescent sexual abuse among adult homosexual and bisexual men." They identified
1,001 men who had engaged in sexual activity with another man in the previous five years
and had attended a STD clinic.
In the Doll study any sexual activity of a child under 6 with someone three or more
years older was defined as a abuse. For children under 12 in addition to an age difference
or use of force, any anal penetration was considered abusive. For adolescent males 16 to
18, the relationship was defined as abusive only if the partner was 10 years old or
involved force.
Among the 1,001 participants 360 (37%) reported sexual contact before the age of 19
with a partner whom they perceived as being older or more powerful than themselves (94% of
these the first such contact was with a male). In 53% of the cases the abusers were over
19, in 43% of the cases they were family members. Force was used in 49% of all contacts.
B. Seeing abuse as a positive experience
Besides the 360 who reported abuse, an additional 267 of the 1,001 participants
reported oral or anal sexual contact with a male partner before the age of 16 years, but
"answered negatively to the question about older or more powerful:" However,
according to Doll, 49 of these probably should, on the basis of the age difference between
the partners, be classified as sexual abuse. Adding these 49 to the original 360, one can
calculate that 40.8% of the 1,001 men experienced childhood sexual abuse.
However, only 132 of those who reported abuse regarded the experience negatively both
at the time of contact and at the time of the interview. According to the analysis,
"A positive response at the time of contact was correlated with a greater number of
months of contact between the two partners." The remaining 228 regarded the
experience as neutral or positive either at the time of contact or at the time of the
interview or both. To these should be added the 49 who did not regarded sex with an older
person as abuse. It appears that the more abusive the situation actually was in terms of
duration and acts engaged in, the more likely the victim was to consider the experience
postively. "Clinicians have suggested that these responses may represent a reframing
of the experience in a more positive light in order to deal with a potentially
overwhelming negative experience."(Doll, 1992)
This reframing of problematic child sex by homosexual men can be seen in McWhirter and
Mattison's study of homosexual male behavior. They divide homosexual men into various
categories and the first of these is described as follows:
This man usually had his first sexual experience at around age five or six, most
commonly with a boy, and from then on had a clear awareness of his attraction to males...
He has been to bars and baths and participated in group sex. He is proud to be gay and is
far out of the closet (McWhirter, p.273)
While McWhirter and Mattison treat these early sexual experiences as a positive sign of
gay awareness, it is also possible that some of these men were the victims of prolonged
sexual abuse and may have as children abused other children.
Bell and Weinberg conducted a study of the development of homosexuality and reported
finding "no support for the notion that homosexual males are likely to have been
"seduced" by older men."(Bell, p. 101) However, homosexual writer and AIDS
activist Larry Kramer has a very different take on childhood experiences of homosexual men
with older persons:
In those instances where children do have sex with their homosexual elders, be they
teachers or anyone else, I submit that often, very often, the child desires the activity,
and perhaps even solicits it, either because of a natural curiosity that will or will not
develop along these lines, or because he or she is homosexual and innately knows it. This
is far from "recruitment." Obviously, there are instances in which the child is
unwilling, and is a victim of sexual abuse, homo- or heterosexual. But, as with straight
children anxious for the experience with someone of the opposite sex, these are kids who
seek solicit, and consent willingly to sex with someone of the same sex. And unlike girls
or women forced into rape and traumatized, most gay men have warm memories of their
earliest and early sexual encounters; when we share these stories with each other, they
are invariably positive ones.(Kramer, p.234)
C. Health Consequences
Reviewing various studies on HIV infection it is noteworthy that a number include
evidence of sexual molestation, without comment or follow up. For example a study on HIV
infection among homosexual and bisexual men 18 to 29 done in 1994 reported 68 (17.9%) of
the 380 were HIV- positive. When the 52 men, who did not report engaging in regular sex
with men and all of whom were HIV-negative, were removed from the analysis, the percentage
HIV-positive increased to 20.1%. Although "some subjects reported that they had first
engaged in regular sex with male when they were as few as 4 years old," the
researchers did not investigate the relationship between this behavior and HIV
infection.(Osmond, 1994) It is highly likely that these young men would be among those who
were HIV-positive.
In another study of HIV risk among homosexual and bisexual men, 425 men ages 17 to 22
were surveyed. Data provided in the study reveals that 40.9% had a lifetime history of
forced sex; 28% received payment in return for sex with men, 22% began anal sex with men
when they were age 3-14. Forced sexual experience can have negative health consequences.
At the time of the study, 9.4% of the 425 were HIV positive, and 19.8% were positive for
hepatitis B.(Lemp 1994)
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