Gay and bisexual men's age-discrepant childhood sexual experiences

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 2004 by Jessica L. Stanley, Kim Bartholomew, Doug Oram

Participants

The sample consisted of 192 gay and bisexual men who participated in the second phase of the WERP study. Canadian census data do not include sexual orientation and thus we cannot assess the representativeness of this sample. However, there were no notable differences between the current sample and the Phase 1 sample of randomly selected men on standard demographic variables, including age, ethnicity, income, and education. Participants ranged in age from 20 to 71 years with a mean of 39 years (SD = 9.37). Sexual orientation was identified on a 7-point continuum ranging from 1 = exclusively gay to 7 = exclusively heterosexual. Eighty-one percent identified as exclusively gay, 15% identified as predominately gay, 3% identified as somewhat more gay than heterosexual, 1% identified as bisexual, and one participant identified as somewhat more heterosexual than gay. Participants' self-reported ethnicity was British Commonwealth (46%), other European (28%), other Canadian (13%), French Canadian (5%), and other (9%). The distribution of personal income in Canadian dollars was as follows: less than $20,000 (17%), $20,000 to $29,999 (18%), $30,000 to $39,999 (24%), $40,000 to $49,999 (16%), and over $50,000 (24%).

Measures

CSA Measures

History of Attachments Interview (Henderson, 1998). The questions relevant to this study were embedded in the History of Attachments Interview. This semistructured interview consists of two sections, the first focusing on family relationships and the second focusing on close friendships and romantic partnerships. Interviews took 2 to 2 1/2 hours to complete and were conducted at the WERP office in Vancouver's West End. Within the family section, we asked participants, "As a child or adolescent, did you have any sexual contact with an adult or older person?" Participants who responded affirmatively were asked to describe their experiences. Further probing concerned the participant's age at time of the sexual encounter, the relationship with and age of the older person, and the participant's perceptions of the experience.

Coding. Two trained coders listened to the family section of the taped interviews and independently coded the 50 interviews that included descriptions of sexual experiences occurring before the age of 17 with someone at least 5 years older (an age-based CSA experience). We assessed reliability of ratings on 31 of the 50 interviews (62%) containing descriptions of age-based CSA. However. due to variability in the degree of detail provided by participants, the ns fluctuate across variables. Interrater agreement was assessed using percent agreement and Cohen's kappa for categorical variables, and Pearson's correlation coefficient for continuous variables.

Childhood sexual encounters with older persons were the focus of the coding. If a participant reported more than one CSA experience, we coded the earliest experience because of its possible influence on later sexual encounters. If a participant described more than one incident within the focal relationship, we coded the most extreme sexual act because we assumed it had the strongest impact on the participant's experience. We considered contact sexual encounters (e.g., fondling or intercourse) and non-contact sexual encounters (e.g., exposure to pornography or exhibitionism). However, all men described contact sexual experiences and all but one man reported experiences involving genital contact.