High-Risk Sex Among Men Linked to Childhood Abuse
By Alan Mozes
Originally published by Reuters Health, February 4, 2002
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — Men who were sexually abused as children are more likely to engage in unsafe sexual practices as adults, putting them at higher risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, a new study has found.
"We often think of childhood sexual abuse as a problem for women and ignore or discount the impact of such abuse for men … (so) I think that the findings highlight the importance of childhood sexual abuse among men," lead author Dr. Colleen Dilorio of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, told Reuters Health.
Dilorio and colleagues analyzed data collected by the National Institute of Mental Health Multisite HIV Prevention Trial, which looked at the effectiveness of various HIV prevention tactics among men and women seeking care at sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics across the US.
The researchers focused on reports of current sexual behavior, drug and alcohol use, and unwanted sexual activity among over 2,600 men, almost three quarters of whom were black. The men, who were between the ages of 18 and 70, all reported having engaged in at least one sexual act in the prior 90 days.
In the February issue of the American Journal of Public Health, journal of the American Public Health Association, Dilorio and her colleagues report that just over one quarter of the men said they had experienced unwanted sexual activity prior to age 13.
The researchers further found that men who had been forced to have sex as children engaged more frequently in unprotected sexual activity as adults. Men who reported a history of childhood sexual abuse had engaged in an average of almost 32 unprotected sexual acts in the prior 90 days, while those without such a history reported participating in 26.5 unsafe sexual acts.
The men who had been abused as children were also almost seven times more likely than others to report unwanted sexual activity after age 13, and reported having more sexual partners—6.4, on average, versus 5 for men who had not been abused.
Men exposed to unwanted childhood sexual activity were also more likely to prostitute themselves for money or food, to solicit prostitutes and to have alcohol and drug abuse problems. All of these factors, the researchers note, can increase the likelihood that a person will have unsafe sex.
"I was surprised that 25% of men reported unwanted or uninvited sexual activity before the age of 13," Dilorio told Reuters Health. "This rate does point out the need for healthcare providers to be aware of the problem for men."
Dilorio and her team suggest that information on childhood sexual abuse should be obtained as part of the routine sexual history interview that is conducted when men seek care at STD clinics, and that counseling for these men should be provided when appropriate.
However, Dilorio cautioned that despite the high percentage of people in the study who reported sexual abuse, it should not be presumed that all adults who experience unwanted childhood sex will go on to engage in risky sexual behavior.
"In the general population," she said, "there are many men who experienced unwanted or uninvited sexual activity before the age of 13 and do not get involved in these types of risky health practices as adults."
