Sexual victimization of boys. Experience at an adolescent medicine clinic

Most information pertaining to male child sexual abuse victims is derived from cases presenting to the criminal-justice system, the mental-health system, hospital emergency rooms, and retrospective studies of college populations, all of which may be biased samples. This paper reports a six-year experience in an adolescent medicine clinic in which all medical interviews of adolescent males included questions about sexual molestation. Forty adolescent males reported sexual victimization during their preadolescent years. This study group of 40 was compared with a randomly selected age-matched group whose responses were negative to the same questions. None of the study group had previously been identified by medical or legal systems as having been molested. Twenty-five percent of the victimized males reported sexual dysfunction compared to 5% of the nonvictimized males, and 60% stated that the sexual abuse had a significant impact on their lives. Consequently, we conclude that questions about sexual molestation should be included as part of routine histories in adolescent clinics.