ABSTRACT
In a study of 1,310 Finnish adult male twins we found that sexual interest in children aged 12 or younger was reported by 0.2% of the sample. Sexual interest in children aged 15 or younger was reported by 3.3%. Participants reporting sexual interest in children aged 15 or younger were younger, reported stronger sexual desire, and had experienced more childhood sexual and nonsexual abuse. The present study is the first to give a population-based estimate of the incidence of sexual interest in children among adult men. The 12-month incidence of sexual interest in children below the age of 16 years is roughly comparable to the one-year incidence of major depression or the lifetime prevalence of transvestitic fetishism.
Subject(s)
Diseases in Twins/epidemiology , Pedophilia/epidemiology , Adolescent , Adult , Adult Survivors of Child Abuse/psychology , Adult Survivors of Child Abuse/statistics & numerical data , Age Factors , Child , Comorbidity , Depressive Disorder, Major/epidemiology , Depressive Disorder, Major/genetics , Depressive Disorder, Major/psychology , Diseases in Twins/genetics , Diseases in Twins/psychology , Female , Finland , Humans , Incidence , Libido , Male , Pedophilia/genetics , Pedophilia/psychology , Population Surveillance , Statistics as Topic , Transvestism/epidemiology , Transvestism/genetics , Transvestism/psychologyABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: We examined (1) the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) experiences as a function of cohort and gender, (2) the prevalence of factors associated with CSA as a function of cohort and whether the association of these factors with CSA remained the same irrespective of cohort, and (3) whether any cohort differences could be explainable by cohort differences in reporting bias. METHOD: We used the responses of 4,561 men (M=29, SD=7 years) and 8,361 female (M=29, SD=7 years) Finnish participants who responded to the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form as well as questions regarding family structure. RESULTS: The prevalence of CSA experiences varied between 0.7-4.6% for men and 1.8-7.5% for women depending on the item. Younger cohorts reported less CSA as well as less of the risk factors (physical neglect and abuse, emotional neglect and abuse, parental substances abuse, not growing up with both biological parents) that were positively associated with the likelihood of CSA. The effects of these risk factors did not vary as a function of the cohort. Also, the declining trend was not explainable by social desirability being higher in the younger cohorts. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that there is a real decline in the prevalence of CSA and it is associated with a simultaneous decline in factors associated with CSA.
