It must be always clarified that this isn’t a claim that every person who develops homosexual inclinations was sexually abused, but a disproportionate of them were, according to a vast amount of data. This article is also not about whether or not adults caught up in homosexual practice go after children more, but deals primarily with the effects of molestation and sexual abuse in general on the development of same sex attraction.
(We know that there are many people who endure abuse and don’t develop same sex attraction, but believe that the reason why comes down to the issue of temperament. See here & here.)
In addition to the information posted in the thread, there is even more independent data found within the link posted at the end…
“Information extracted from 13,000 face-to-face interviews clearly showed those with same-sexual or bisexual orientation were more likely to have experienced negative events in childhood, Associate Prof Elisabeth Wells said yesterday. People who had experienced sexual abuse as children were three times more likely to identity themselves as homosexual or bisexual than those who had not experienced abuse, she said. Also, the more adverse events someone experienced in childhood, the more likely they were to belong to one of the “non-exclusively heterosexual” groups. Associations between adverse events and sexuality group were found for sexual assault, rape, violence to the child and for witnessing violence in the home. Other adverse events, such as the sudden death of a loved one, serious childhood illness or accident, were only slightly associated with non-heterosexual identity or behavior.”
http://www.odt.co.nz/campus/university-otago/117336/sexual-orientation-link-past-study
Several studies have demonstrated that lesbian and bisexual women are more likely than heterosexual women to report childhood abuse and adult sexual assault. It is unknown, however, which sexual minority women are most likely to experience such abuse. We recruited adult sexual minority women living in the US through electronic fliers sent to listservs and website groups inviting them to complete an online survey (N=1,243). We examined differences in both childhood abuse and adult sexual assault by women’s current gender identity (i.e., butch, femme, androgynous, or other) and a continuous measure of gender expression (from butch/masculine to femme/feminine), adjusting for sexual orientation identity, age, education, and income. Results indicated that a more butch/masculine current self-assessment of gender expression, but not gender identity, was associated with more overall reported childhood trauma. Although one aspect of gender expression, a more butch/masculine gender role, was associated with adult sexual assault, feminine appearance and a femme gender identity also significantly predicted adult sexual assault. These findings highlight the significance of gender identity and expression in identifying women at greater risk for various abuse experiences.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3758810/
43 percent of males with same sex attraction reported sexual activity with another male during the ages of 10-12, versus 9 percent of males with opposite sex attraction.
Source: Manosevitz, “Early sexual behavior in adult homosexual and heterosexual males,” Journal of abnormal psychology, 76 (1970), 396-402.
A large national survey of almost 35,000 Americans showed that more than three times as many men and women who had been sexually abused as children became same sex attracted, versus opposite sex attracted.
Source: Bell, Weinberg, Hammersmith, Sexual preference: Its development in men and women (1981). 7.4 percent or homosexual men and 3.1 percent of females, versus 2.0 percent of heterosexual men and 0.8 percent women.
Another study reported that 58 percent of male adolescents who later became same sex attracted suffered sexual abuse as children, while 90 percent who did not suffer sexual abuse did not.
Source: Sheir and Johnson, Sexual victimization of boys:… (1988) pp. 1189-93
“This report describes the high prevalence and context of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) among men who have sex with men (MSM) across 3 independent qualitative studies.” ‘Childhood sexual abuse in men who have sex with men: results from three qualitative studies.’
University of Rochester, Rochester, NY…2008 Oct;14(4):385-90.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18954175
One 1992 study found that 37% of homosexual and bisexual men attending sexually transmitted disease clinics had been encouraged or forced to have sexual contact before age 19 with an older or more powerful partner. They are only 2-3% of the entire population. And the median age of first contact was as young as 10 years old!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1486514
The Archives of Sexual Behavior: “One of the most salient findings was that 46% of the homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual molestation. 22% of lesbian women in contrast to 1% of heterosexual women reported homosexual molestation.”
(Marie, E. Tomeo “Comparative Data of Childhood and Adolescent Molestation in Heterosexual and Homosexual Persons.” Source:Archives of Sexual Behavior 30 (2001): 539)
..homosexual attraction was greater in pedophiles than in other adults involved with sexual crimes with nearly a 2:1 difference.”
‘Review of 554 Medical Reports on Pedophilia’
Dr. John Hughes D.M.,M.D.,PhD., Medline Clinical Pediatrics
https://www.uni-due.de/imperia/md/content/rke-forensik/material/hughes2007reviewofmedicalreportsonpedophilia.pdf
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CCQQFjAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uni-due.de%2Fimperia%2Fmd%2Fcontent%2Frke-forensik%2Fmaterial%2Fhughes2007reviewofmedicalreportsonpedophilia.pdf&rct=j&q=Review+of+554+Medical+Reports+on+Pedophilia%27+Dr.+John+Hughes+D.M.%2CM.D.%2CPhD.%2C Medline+Clinical+Pediatrics++&ei=0MBvVPGYFeeIsQTCrIGgBw&usg=AFQjCNGyKWl89ku4TmO_J3Dc02l57PFRxw&bvm=bv.80185997%2Cd.cWc
A study of 279 homosexual/bisexual men with AIDS and control patients discussed in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported: “More than half of both case and control patients reported a sexual act with a male by age 16 years, approximately 20 percent by age 10 years.”
Source: Harry W. Haverkos, et al., “The Initiation of Male Homosexual Behavior,” The Journal of the American Medical Association 262 (July 28, 1989): 501.
Noted child sex abuse expert David Finkelhor found that “boys victimized by older men were over four times more likely to be currently engaged in homosexual activity than were non-victims. The finding applied to nearly half the boys who had had such an experience. Further, the adolescents themselves often linked their homosexuality to their sexual victimization experiences.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1737828/
A study in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology found:”In the case of childhood sexual experiences prior to the age of fourteen, 40 percent (of the pedophile sample) reported that they had engaged ‘very often’ in sexual activity with an adult, with 28 percent stating that this type of activity had occurred ‘sometimes.'”
Source: Gary A. Sawle, Jon Kear-Colwell, “Adult Attachment Style and Pedophilia: A Developmental Perspective,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 45 (February 2001):6.
A National Institute of Justice report states that “the odds that a childhood sexual abuse victim will be arrested as an adult for any sex crime is 4.7 times higher than for people who experienced no victimization as children.”
Source: Cathy Spatz Widom, “Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse – Later Criminal Consequences,” Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse Series: NIJ Research in Brief, (March 1995): 6.
A Child Abuse and Neglect study found that 59 percent of male child sex offenders had been “victim of contact sexual abuse as a child.”
Source: Michele Elliott, “Child Sexual Abuse Prevention: What Offenders Tell Us,” Child Abuse and Neglect 19 (1995): pg. 582.
The Journal of Child Psychiatry noted that “there is a tendency among boy victims to recapitulate their own victimization, only this time with themselves in the role of perpetrator and someone else the victim.”
Source: Bill Watkins and Arnon Bentovim, “The Sexual Abuse of Male Children and Adolescents: A Review of Current Research,” Journal of Child Psychiatry 33 (1992); in Byrgen Finkelman, Sexual Abuse (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995). p. 319. Watkins mentions several studies confirming that between 19 percent and 61 percent of male sex abusers had previously been sexually abused themselves.
Some homosexual activists have argued that sexual abuse shows no causal effects for lesbianism. Feel free to dig around on this point. You will find that is probable that self-identified lesbians have been participants in the samples of these studies, but they rarely have been studied separately from their heterosexual counterparts ( Source: Baker, 2003. Lesbian survivors of childhood sexual abuse: Community, identity, and resilience. Canadian Journal of Community, 22, 31-45).
So the deal is that there hasn’t really been a big effort on studying a link between child sex abuse and lesbianism, but it looks like some have more recently…
“Using survey data from 63,028 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study II, we investigated sexual orientation group differences in emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence. Results showed strong evidence of elevated frequency, severity, and persistence of abuse experienced by lesbian and bisexual women. Comparing physical abuse victimization occurring in both childhood and adolescence, lesbian (30%, prevalence ratio [PR] 1.61, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.40, 1.84) and bisexual (24%, PR 1.26, 95% CI 1.00, 1.60) women were more likely to report victimization than were heterosexual women (19%). Similarly, comparing sexual abuse victimization occurring in both age periods, lesbian (19%, PR 2.16, 95% CI 1.80, 2.60) and bisexual (20%, PR 2.29, 95% CI 1.76, 2.98) women were more likely to report victimization than were heterosexual women (9%).” (2008 May;17)
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18447763/
“…lesbians reported a greater incidence than their sisters of childhood physical and sexual abuse, as well as adult sexual abuse.” ‘Sexual and physical abuse: a comparison between lesbians and their heterosexual sisters'”
University of California, Davis, Davis, California, 2009;56(4):407-20
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19418332
“Roberts, Glymour, and Koenen (2013) presented evidence that childhood maltreatment is related to adult homosexuality, using an instrumental variables regression analysis. Briefly, several instrumental variables—presence of a stepparent, poverty, parental alcohol abuse, and parental mental illness—were related to adult homosexuality, but these relations were statistically mediated by childhood maltreatment. Roberts et al. concluded that childhood maltreatment causes adult homosexuality.”
Source: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-014-0269-3
And more independent data found within this link:
http://www.citizenlink.com/2010/06/17/childhood-sexual-abuse-and-male-homosexuality/
So what is a reasonable explanation for causes of same sex attraction? Not limited to, but I believe Dr. Joseph Davis provides us with a very informative and insightful summary here.
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