~ VICTIMIZATION AND SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR ~[Page 62] Olson (1990) studied men in private or community mental health settings. All were undergoing psychotherapy and nearly two-thirds said that they had experienced sexual abuse. Where the abuse was incestuous the mother was responsible in over 60% of the cases and the father in over 50%. For non-incestuous abuse, the most likely perpetrators were neighbours. According to a problems checklist, victims and non-victims were most different on rage, compulsive spending and compulsive sexual behaviour. There were other differences, all of which revealed more problems in the abused, including
school sexual behavior and substance abuse. Less reliable differences included violence in a relationship and hiring prostitutes. Sexual "disturbance" is the typical outcome of sexual abuse of boys according to one review of the empirical evidence (Urquiza and Capra, 1990). The effects are described as
Studies such as those by Friedrich and Luecke (1988) and McCauley et at. (1983), implicate the more severe forms of sexual abuse as "disinhibitors" of children's sexual behaviour. Furthermore, sexual crime in youth is common among those sexually abused in childhood (Fehrenbach et at. , 1986; Groth, 1979b; Longo, 1982). Similar effects of sexual abuse on sexual behaviour in adulthood have been claimed; for example, victimization by adult men (but not young males) tends to push boys towards homosexuality FinkelhOr, 1979; Johnson and Shrier, 1985). [Page 63] The general difficulties encountered by men who were sexually abused as children were |