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

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

Evidence that perception-based CSA experiences were more strongly associated with adjustment problems than were age-based CSA experiences supports the proposition that the perception-based definition more accurately reflects childhood sexual abuse in gay and bisexual men. Although adjustment difficulties were associated with the age-based criterion, these results were largely a function of the perception-based CSA group's reported difficulties. In contrast, no differences in adjustment were found between participants with CSE histories and participants who did not report an age-based CSA experience. Additionally, the perception-based definition predicted maladjustment in four areas of interpersonal difficulties over and above that predicted by the age-based criterion. Given this pattern of results, the age-based definition may limit our ability to detect maladjustment reported by those with histories of negative and possibly more traumatic experiences (cf. Steever et al., 2001).

The reports of distress from men who experienced negative encounters should not be minimized. Participants with negative sexual experiences reported difficulties with competitiveness, coldness, expressiveness, and general interpersonal problems to a greater degree than participants with nonnegative, noncoercive sexual experiences. Examining the items associated with these scales reveals that participants with perception-based CSA experiences are ambivalent about relationships. Difficulties with expressiveness indicate attention seeking, excessively disclosing personal information, and pursuing knowledge of others' personal information. These behaviors serve to establish contact and a sense of intimacy with others in a maladaptive and possibly enmeshed way. In contrast, reports of competitiveness and coldness indicate difficulties trusting, supporting, and being close to others. These behaviors serve to establish and maintain a protective distance and possibly indicate an avoidance of closeness in relationships. This pattern of interpersonal problems is consistent with the conflicting drives for close relationships and for protective distance from others commonly found among trauma victims (Herman, 1992).

Although perception-based CSA experiences were associated with some adjustment difficulties, the magnitude of the associations was small. For the six outcome measures associated with CSA, only 2% to 5% of the variance in adjustment was accounted for by both age-based and perception-based CSA. These findings are consistent with Rind et al.'s (1998) finding that age-based CSA explained less than 1% of the adjustment variance in college samples. Therefore, neither age-based nor perception-based CSA can be assumed to produce lasting and pervasive negative effects in gay and bisexual men. However, some men in this sample reported lasting negative effects from their childhood sexual encounters, including one man who said "It ruined my whole life." Future qualitative explorations of the stories of gay men reporting such lasting effects could help to shed light on the factors determining when age-discrepant sexual experiences are likely to be associated with harmful outcomes.