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

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

Based on men's descriptions, we placed their experiences into the categories of perception-based CSA (CSA-P) or childhood sexual experience (CSE). Sexual encounters that (a) were perceived as negative, and/or (b) involved coercion, and/or (c) were perceived as abusive from a childhood or adult perspective were labeled as perception-based CSA (CSA-P). Sexual encounters that the men experienced as (a) positive or neutral, (b) nonabusive, and (c) noncoercive were placed into the CSE category. We did not include one man's age-discrepant sexual experience (he performed oral sex on his father while his father was passed out) in either perception-based CSA or CSE. This man perceived the experience as negative and therefore it could not be categorized as CSE. However, it was not categorized as CSA-P because under the circumstances the older adult could not be considered abusive; in fact, the participant is more accurately considered the abusive partner.

Twenty-four of the 49 men (49%) described age-based CSA experiences that were also rated as a perception-based CSA experiences. Twenty-five men (51%) related that their age-based CSA experiences were neither abusive, negative, nor coercive and thus we coded the experiences as CSE. Notably, 9 of the 10 men who originally did not define their experience as abusive but eventually came to perceive it as abusive reported coercion (4 men) and/or a negative perception (7 men) and thus would have been included in the perception-based CSA category regardless of their current perceptions of abuse.

We compared the nature of the sexual experiences considered perception-based CSA and CSE. We found men in the CSE category to be older at the time of sexual contact (M = 11.64 years, SD = 3.74) than men whose experiences were coded as perception-based CSA (M = 8.17 years, SD = 4.44), t(46) = 2.93, p < .01. Men in the CSE category also reported a smaller age difference between them and the older persons (M = 11.88 years, SD = 4.28) than did men in the perception-based CSA category (M = 16.68 years, SD = 9.88), t(45) = 2.11, p < .05. In addition, a trend suggested that the relationships between the youth and older persons were different for the perception-based CSA group than for the CSE group (see Table 1), [chi square](6) = 11.81, p < .07. Unfortunately, the ns in the relationship categories were too small to allow for statistical comparisons and thus these differences can only be commented on. Notably, only in the CSE category was the older person a stranger (n = 7). We found no differences between the groups in the age of older person, t(46) = -0.71, ns, or the duration of sexual contact, 1(42) = -0.70, ns. Given that the vast majority of older persons were men, comparisons were not conducted on the gender of the older person.

Current Adjustment

Table 3 presents the means of the adjustment variables for the CSA and non-CSA groups. First, we compared the age-based CSA group (the CSE and CSA-P groups combined) and the non-CSA group on adult adjustment. Three of 11 planned comparisons on measures of current adjustment were significant: Participants with age-based CSA histories reported lower self-esteem, t(190) = -1.87, p < .05, more problems with expressiveness, t(190) = 2.60, p < .01, and more problems with nurturance, t(190) = 2.60, p < .01, than those without CSA histories. The effect sizes for the RSE (self-esteem) and the IIP subscales of expressiveness and nurturance were small to medium (d = .35, .42, .42).