Characteristics of a clinical sample of sexually abused children: How boy and girl victims differ

Abstract

The article describes a clinical sample of 87 boy victims of child sexual abuse and compares them to 226 girl victims. Boys were on average 6.3 years of age at onset of the sexual abuse; girls were 5.5 years. Boys were more likely to be victimized by someone outside the family than girls, but about two-thirds of the boys were abused by someone within the family. Male victims were more often abused by someone who sexually abused other children than were female victims. The majority of perpetrators were men; however girls were more likely than boys to be abused by men, and boys by both men and women. Only a small percentage of the offenders were women acting alone, but boys were more likely to be abused by women than girls. In addition, data on the role relationship between victim and offender and how these relationships differ for boy and girl victims are presented.