Know the Facts: Busting the Myths About Sexual Abuse
Few people know all of the facts about sexual abuse—including me! As I researched for this blog post, I discovered facts that surprised me. Childhood sexual abuse can be an uncomfortable topic. Please don’t allow that discomfort to keep you from arming yourself with the facts. It’s difficult to prevent something you know little about.
Myth 1: Childhood sexual abuse is rare, and victims are always female.
Fact: Current statistics show one in three girls and one in six boys being sexually abused before age 18. There are approximately 40,000,000 adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse in the United States today. Approximately 400,000 babies born this year will become victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Myth 2: Childhood sexual abusers are most often strangers. If I teach my children about “stranger danger,” they’ll be safe from predators.
Fact: This might be the most dangerous myth about sexual abuse. Children are most often abused by someone they know and trust. More than 90% of sexually abused children know their abuser. Almost 40% of abusers are family members, and just over 50% are acquaintances. Less than 10% of perpetrators are strangers.
Myth 3: Incest (sexual abuse by a family member) is usually a one-time occurrence.
Fact: Incest is likely to be ongoing and develop over a period of time. Oftentimes it occurs repeatedly and continues for years.
Myth 4: In a family where incest occurs, the non-offending parent always knows what is happening.
Fact: The abuser may be so adept at hiding his secret that the non-offending parent is unaware of the abuse. Other times, the non-offending parent may have suspicions but is unsure what to do or is afraid to confront the perpetrator and have her fears confirmed.
Myth 5: People who have a normal appearance don’t molest children.
Fact: There is no way to identify a child predator by physical appearance. Child molesters are often aware of the misconception about normal physical appearance and may use it to gain an adult’s confidence and possible access to a child.
Myth 6: Most abusers are “dirty old men.”
Fact: The average age of sex abusers is 32, and although women commit sexual offenses against children less frequently than men, women do sexually abuse children.
Myth 7: Child molesters are most often homosexuals.
Fact: Sexual offenders are usually heterosexual men. This is true even when the victim is a boy.
Myth 8: Childhood sexual abuse happens only in poor and uneducated socioeconomic groups.
Fact: Sexual abuse does not discriminate by educational level, socioeconomic standing, race, gender, or geographic area. Anyone anywhere can be affected by childhood sexual abuse.
Myth 9: The majority of sexual abusers were themselves sexually abused as children.
Fact: While this is a popular myth (and sometimes defense), evidence doesn’t support it. Only 20-30% of abusers ever disclose a history of sexual abuse during their own childhood.
Myth 10: A child molester will target any nearby child, often frequenting playgrounds and schoolyards.
Fact: Sex offenders tend to carefully select and “groom” their victims. Grooming involves manipulating the child into participating. There’s usually a skillful process of befriending the child and oftentimes the child’s family to establish trust.
Myth 11: Someone who molests his own child isn’t a danger to someone else’s child.
Fact: This myth may seem a direct contradiction to Myth 10, but it’s not. While a child molester won’t usually target any nearby, indiscriminate child, sexual abuse is seldom a single offense. If someone abuses his own child, he is capable of grooming and abusing her friends or other children.
Myth 12: Men sexually abuse children primarily for sexual gratification.
Fact: Oftentimes sexual abusers are married or in consenting relationships. Some offenders do seek sexual gratification, but other likely motivators are control and anger.
Myth 13: A child who has been sexually abused will most often tell a parent or trusted adult.
Fact: It’s estimated that only one in ten children who have been sexually abused will disclose the abuse while still a child. Most sexually abused children experience fear, shame, and guilt. These intense feelings often prevent a child from disclosing abuse. The perpetrator may have threatened physical harm to the child or a family member or pet. He may have convinced her she would be the cause of ruining her family if she tells.
Myth 14: If a child has been sexually abused, there will be physical signs that a parent or doctor will likely notice.
Fact: Most sexually abused children show no physical signs of the abuse. There are more likely to be behavioral signs, such as developmental regression, bedwetting, problems in school, etc. Sometimes there are no signs at all.
Myth 15: Children are only harmed by sexual abuse if violence or force is used. Nonviolent sexual behavior isn’t damaging to the child.
Fact: Childhood sexual abuse—violent or nonviolent—causes damage to a child. Nearly all victims experience shame, guilt, anger, hurt, confusion, damaged self-image, and later, relationship problems. Many of these outcomes are long-term and carry on into adulthood.
Myth 16: Sexual abuse victims are damaged beyond healing and their lives are forever ruined.
Fact: Sexual abuse survivors are in no way “damaged goods.” While recovery and healing can be a lengthy process, it is possible and even likely with the right help and programs. Abuse is traumatic, but it doesn’t have to damage a child for the rest of her life. Abuse victims can and do become fully functioning, healthy adults.
Myth 17: Children, especially young children, will be frightened needlessly by any discussion about sexual abuse.
Fact: Children need to know about sexual abuse for their own protection. The message can be tailored to the age of the child to make it easy to understand and not frightening. There are many resources available for parents of even very young children that teach body safety lessons and the difference between touches that are okay and not okay.
Myth 18: I’ve taught my kids about “stranger danger.” I talk to them about their bodies and inappropriate touch, and I emphasize to them that they can talk to me or tell me anything. There’s not much else I can do to protect them.
Fact: There’s a lot we can all do to protect our kids by creating safer environments. For example, we can avoid allowing our children to be in one-on-one situations with older kids or adults, even when we know them. We can insist that organizations that serve children have sexual abuse prevention policies in place and enforce them. These organizations should not allow children to be in one-on-one situations that are not observable. We can think about how we will respond if a child discloses sexual abuse. Thinking through our response will allow us to be better prepared in the moment when a child needs our help. We can be willing to talk about childhood sexual abuse in our communities. Allowing sexual abuse to become part of mainstream conversation is one step we can take toward prevention.
While this list is not all-inclusive, I hope it shines truth on many of the common myths about sexual abuse. Remember, knowledge is power when it comes to prevention. The more we know about childhood sexual abuse, the more we can protect our children.
Sources
- Darkness to Light, www.d2l.org.
- East Carolina Brody School of Medicine.
- The Rape and Sexual Assault Center, Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Program, 1222 W. 31st Street, Minneapolis, MN.
- Bass, Ellen and Davis, Laura, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, 1988.
- Vanderbilt, H., “Incest: A Chilling Report,” Lear’s, February 1992.
- The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, www.NCTSN.org.
- “Facts about Sex Offenders,” California Megan’s Law, www.meganslaw.ca.gov.
- Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network: www.rainn.org.
- American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, www.aacap.org.
- Medline Plus, www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/childsexualabuse.html.
- American Psychological Association, www.apa.org.
- The Leadership Council, www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/csa_myths.html.
I would add to Myth #4 (or as another myth of its own) that incest isn’t exclusive to parents and children. In fact, research suggests sibling incest is far more common than adult-child incest (because access is so easy), but also the most hidden (because it’s also the easiest to hide). By extension, it is also the least researched, not least because exposing a perpetrator who may also be a trusted confidante and playmate is an extremely dicey matter in childhood, and as the years go by the shame for both parties deepens to the point that, even when there’s some acknowledgement, spoken or unspoken, that it was wrong and hurtful, there’s an overpowering wish to protect both the offender and the offender’s family from the pain that would inevitably be caused for them if they were to be exposed. Sibling incest is an extremely complicated dynamic, and one parents should be more alert to than they are.
On Myth #9, I’d add that while there may not always have been outright sexual abuse, there has sometimes been positioning by the opposite sex parent of the child who becomes an abuser as a sort of intimate confidante, which is in itself a type of sexual abuse, though it may not always be taken into account in the research. What is true in the bulk of sibling-incest cases is that the children usually come from highly dysfunctional families, and where parental discord may not only be distracting parenting attention from the children’s needs but where the opposite-sex parent is using one of the children as an intimate confidante, thus blurring the child’s sense of appropriate boundaries. Sibling incest is hard to deal with because, very often, the perpetrator is a child, too.
Good points all, Lynne. I think in the case of sibling incest, or abuse by any child, it’s often difficult for the victim to even admit to themselves that what happened was abuse. On the other side of that same coin, oftentimes the minor abuser doesn’t believe what happened was abuse when the victim does. It’s easily rationalized as kids’ play. It is a complicated issue for sure.