Is Lesser Severity of Child Sexual Abuse a Reason More Males Report Having Liked It?

The present study tested the possibility that more males than females have positive feelings about child sexual abuse and/or regard the experience as inconsequential because their abuse is less serious (i.e., less invasive) due perhaps to the lesser incidence of incestuous abuse in males. College students who self-reported child sexual abuse on an anonymous sex survey and who described the nature of their abuse were compared on two measures of severity of abuse: (1) the objective severity of what they said happened and (2) the subjective amount of stress they felt at the time it occurred and now. Results affirmed that males were more likely than females to report retrospectively having liked the child sexual abuse (28% vs. 5%), and absolutely more males than females reported having experienced no stress from the abuse in the past or now (21% vs. 7%). As expected, incestuous child sexual abuse was objectively more severe than non-incestuous abuse, and there was a much greater incidence of incestuous abuse of females. Unexpectedly, however, the abuse of males was not significantly less severe than the abuse of females, whether measured objectively or subjectively.

In spite of the greater severity of incestuous child sexual abuse and its greater incidence in females, female victims subjectively rated incestuous abuse as less stressful than non-incestuous abuse, while males rated it more stressful. Because incestuous abuse of females was exclusively heterosexual, and 2 out of 3 cases of incestuous abuse of males was homosexual, females may defensively diminish the impact of incestuous abuse by older male relatives, while males are less able to use this defense, because their incestuous abuse is mostly homosexual.