Childhood Sexual Abuse Among Homosexual Men Prevalence and Association with Unsafe Sex

Abstract

Of 327 homosexual and bisexual men participating in an ongoing cohort study pertaining to risk factors for HIV infection who completed a survey regarding history of sexual abuse, 116 (35.5%) reported being sexually abused as children. Those abused were more likely to have more lifetime male partners, to report more childhood stress, to have lied in the past in order to have sex, and to have had unprotected receptive anal intercourse in the past 6 months (odds ratio 2.13; 95% confidence interval 1.15-3.95). Sexual abuse remained a significant predictor of unprotected receptive anal intercourse in a logistic model adjusting for potential confounding variables.

Sexual and Physical Victimization as Predictors of HIV Risk Among Felony Drug Offenders

“…Such links have been found among women (Cohen et al, 2000;El-Bassel et al, 2001;He et al, 1998;Miller and Paone, 1998;Miller et al, 1996;Thompson et al, 1997;DiClemente, 1997a, 1998), men who have sex with men (Bartholow et al, 1994;Carballo-Dieguez and Dolezal, 1995;Kalichman et al, 2001;Lenderking et al, 1997;O'Leary et al, 2003;Paul et al, 2001), people with psychiatric conditions (Brown et al, 2000;Goodman and Fallot, 1998), the homeless (Johnson et al, 1996;Rotheram-Borus et al, 1996), and people infected with HIV (Allers and Benjack, 1991;Cohen et al, 2000;Hein et al, 1995). Wyatt et al (2002), comparing HIV-positive and HIV-negative women, found that a history of trauma predicted seropositivity.…”

“…For example, people who have been sexually abused reported higher rates of prostitution and trading sex (Cohen et al, 2000;Dilorio et al, 2002;Goodman and Fallot, 1998;Miller et al, 1996;Molitor et al, 2000;Widom and Ames, 1994;Zierler et al, 1991), unprotected sex (Brown et al, 2000;Dilorio et al, 2002;Johnson et al, 1996;Kalichman et al, 2001;Lenderking et al, 1997;Molitor et al, 2000;Paul et al, 2001;RotheramBorus et al, 1996;Wingood and DiClemente, 1998), and lower self-efficacy for condom use or other protective practices (Brown et al, 1997(Brown et al, , 2000Johnsen and Harlow, 1996;Thompson et al, 1997). Victims of sexual abuse have also been shown to have elevated rates of insertive or receptive anal intercourse (Carballo-Dieguez and Dolezal, 1995;Kalichman et al, 2001;Molitor et al, 2000;O'Leary et al, 2003;Wingood and DiClemente, 1997a), and sex with high-risk partners (Cohen et al, 2000;Johnson et al, 1996).…”

“…Victims of sexual abuse have also been shown to have elevated rates of insertive or receptive anal intercourse (Carballo-Dieguez and Dolezal, 1995;Kalichman et al, 2001;Molitor et al, 2000;O'Leary et al, 2003;Wingood and DiClemente, 1997a), and sex with high-risk partners (Cohen et al, 2000;Johnson et al, 1996). Sexual abuse history was associated with having more sexual partners overall (Cohen et al, 2000;Dilorio et al, 2002;Johnson et al, 1996;Lenderking et al, 1997;Molitor et al, 2000;Rotheram-Borus et al, 1996;Thompson et al, 1997). Among men enrolled in an HIV prevention trial who reported unwanted sexual activity before they were age 13 (25% of the sample), the abuse was related to engaging in transactional sex, having more sexual partners, and a higher frequency of unprotected sex (Dilorio et al, 2002).…”

Stressful or traumatic life events, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and HIV sexual risk taking among men who have sex with men

“…Studies with MSM have found relationships between specific life stressors and sexual risk taking, including childhood sexual abuse (Boudewyn & Liem, 1995;Doll et al, 1992;Lenderking et al, 1997;Mimiaga et al, in press;Sikkema, Hansen, Meade, Kochman, & Fox, 2008), sexual coercion in adulthood (Kalichman et al, 2001), domestic violence (Houston & McKirnan, 2007), bereavement (Gluhoski, Fishman, & Perry, 1997), and witnessing the death or physical harm of another (Chiasson et al, 2005). These studies, however, have generally focused on the actual occurrence of the stressful event, but not whether or not participants had PTSD symptoms in response to the event.…”

Does Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, or Neglect in Childhood Increase the Likelihood of Same-sex Sexual Relationships and Cohabitation? A Prospective 30-year Follow-up

“…Understanding this relationship would contribute to knowledge about the development of sexual behavior. Findings from clinical samples and case studies (Davis & Petretic-Jackson, 2000;Gartner, 1999;Romano & De Luca, 2001), surveys of men who have sex with men (Carballo-Dieguez & Dolezal, 1995;Doll et al, 1992;Holmes & Slap, 1998;Jinich et al, 1998;Kalichman, Gore-Felton, Benotsch, Cage, & Rompa, 2004;Lenderking et al, 1997;O'Leary, Purcell, Remien, & Gomez, 2003;Paul, Catania, Pollack, & Stall, 2001), and cross-sectional studies comparing self-reports of gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) individuals with those of heterosexual comparison samples (Balsam, Rothblum, & Beauchaine, 2005;Cameron & Cameron, 1995;Corliss, Cochran, & Mays, 2002;Eskin, Kaynak-Demir, & Demir, 2005;Garcia, Adams, Friedman, & East, 2002;Hughes, Haas, Razzando, Cassidy, & Matthews, 2000;Hughes, Johnson, & Wilsnack, 2001;Saewyc, Bearinger, Blum, & Resnick, 1999;Tjaden, Thoennes, & Allison, 1999;Tomeo, Templer, Anderson, & Kotler, 2001) have generally found that adolescents and adults with samesex sexual orientations retrospectively report heightened rates of childhood physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse (see Table 1 for a summary of this literature). However, not all Table 1 Previous studies assessing the relationship between childhood abuse and sexual orientation Prevalence of abuse in individuals with same-sex sexual orientations Bartholow et al (1994) 20.6% Roberts and Sorensen (1999) 1633 F C18 National community sample of lesbian women SA SR Self-identified (L) 26% before age 12 12% ages 12-18 …”