Chapter 1

Prevalence: A Many Sided Story

How extensive is the abuse and victimization of males? The numbers tell many different stories depending upon where you look, what theoretical framework you use for analysis, what your definition of abuse and victimization is, and what sources you consult. On this basis, there are several different ways to answer the question.

If we use only the commonly reported categories of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or psychological maltreatment and neglect, then we obtain one picture. However, if we add corporal punishment, suicide, community and school-based violence, and violence in sports and entertainment, the story becomes more complicated. Still other areas could be added if we unpacked the term "family violence" and explored in more clinical depth commonly used descriptors such as "hard to manage children and youth", "parent-child conflict", "difficult children", "dysfunctional families", "problem teen behaviour", "conduct disorder", "oppositional-defiant disorder", or "attention deficit disorder", to name a few. In general population health surveys, when we use terms such as "sexual contact" or "sexual touching" instead of "sexual assault" or "sexual abuse", the prevalence numbers increase substantially. This is because males often do not see their sexual experiences in strict clinical and legal terms such as "abuse".

Other categories could be added if we more closely examined the concept of "at-risk". For example, boys in the U.S. are more likely than girls to be diagnosed with behavioural and mental disorders, more likely to be admitted to psychiatric hospitals, twice as likely to suffer from autism, eight times more likely to be diagnosed with hyperactivity, more likely to become addicted to drugs and alcohol, and more likely to drop out of high school (Kimbrell, 1995).

The picture becomes complicated further when we add the everyday lived experiences of male children and youth in care of the state, living in foster homes, group homes, with legal guardians, or in young offender custodial facilities. We could also add male senior abuse, male victimization in sibling-on-sibling violence, abuse of male spouses or other intimate male partners, abuse of same sex male partners, and violence toward males with disabilities including children, teens, and adults. Finally, we would need to add the stories of homeless young people, street kids, and male adolescents using prostitution as a means to survive.

It quickly becomes apparent that the stories of many types of male victims have yet to be told. Though the field of child abuse has gained much credibility in public and professional discourse, it is easy to forget that it is still a new area of study. Definitions of abuse, prevalence data, theories of victimization and offending, and models for assessment and treatment continue to evolve. We are still far from possessing an exhaustive or comprehensive knowledge of the subject. We simply have not had enough time to test many of our ideas empirically, nor do we even know all the questions that need to be asked.

Though the abuse field in general has gained credibility, we must never forget that it is an emotionally and politically charged area of interest, a point victims and advocates forget at their peril. Reasoned discussion can be difficult, research evidence is frequently dismissed or ignored in the interest of politics, and many people in the public and professions alike still don't believe that something like child sexual abuse is a widespread and serious social problem. For example, as recently as the mid 1970's, the predominant view of incest in the psychiatry profession was that it was extraordinarily rare (Freedman, Kaplan, and Sadock, 1975).

For male victims, the situation is even more precarious. Many cultural and other barriers must be crossed by boys, teen males, the professional community, and the public even to be able to acknowledge male victimization experiences as abuse. For example, gay males have to "come out" to disclose their abuse, and so typically remain silent. Stated simply, if we do not go looking for male victims we will not find them. If we do not explore issues of abuse with males they will not tell us their stories. Consequently, and all too typically, the first time a teen or adult male offender obtains any help with his victimization is when he has come to the attention of the legal system because of his offences (Sepler, 1990).

Sexual Abuse of Boys and Teen Males

Virtually all of the discussion about the prevalence of male victimization in Canada and elsewhere is based on "official" statistics, that is, numbers derived from case reports to some public authority such as hospitals, police, or child welfare agencies. However, it is evident from an examination of general population health surveys that male victimization is greatly underreported - far more than it is for females.

In the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect, girls were the subject of 54% of investigations (25,016) and boys 46% (21,426) (Trocme, 1994). Teenage males accounted for 14% of parental and 18% of non-parental sexual abuse allegations. However, when cases involving minor aged children (8-11 years) were examined, it was found that boys accounted for 42% - 44% of sexual abuse allegations.

In 1984, the Federal Government published the now widely known two volume study, Sexual Offences Against Children, also known as the "Badgley Report". Many aspects of male victimization detailed in this large scale national study, still have not made it to public or even professional awareness. A look at some of the prevalence data in this study reveals an astonishing fact about the prevalence of male sexual abuse.

If we take as a starting point the findings of the study pertaining to prevalence, we discover that 1 in 3 males (33%) and 1 in 2 females (50%) reported being the victims of unwanted sexual touching in their lifetimes. About 4 in 5 of these incidents happened while the person was a child or youth. Assuming we have a population of 29 million people, divided equally by gender, these percentages yield the following prevalence rates.

Table 1: Child Abuse Prevalence Rates in Canada by Gender

From these simple arithmetic calculations we can see there are close to five million male victims of some form of unwanted sexual touching in Canada. Given that male victimization is more under-reported than it is for females these numbers should be viewed as a minimum estimate.

For the category of sexual assault, about 3 in 4 victims in the study were female, 1 in 4 was a boy. The study also found that the proportion of sexually assaulted males increased with age, while the reporting dropped, dramatically so after puberty. In the National Population Health Survey, 90% of males and 75% of females did not report their abuse experience. Overall, female victims were twice as likely to report their sexual abuse experiences.

The study also reported findings about female perpetrators that have received absolutely no public or professional attention, specifically, "exposure" to males and use of juveniles working in prostitution. Both of these findings are ignored in discussions about prevalence rates pertaining to males. In the sub-study of National Police Force Survey findings (Badgley, 1984), the report reveals that males account for 99.4% of charges laid for exposure, women .06%. However, in the National Population Health Survey (Badgley, 1984), 77.6% of victims of both sexes reported being exposed to by males, while 22.4% of victims reported being exposed to by females. In these incidents, 33% of males reported unwanted exposure of a female's genitalia. One in thirteen exposures to females were by females, 1 in 20 involved exposure of a female's genitalia. Inspite of the reported levels of female exposure in the National Population Health Survey, only a small fraction of female exposers end up being reported or charged.

In the National Juvenile Prostitution Survey, 50% of the 229 juveniles involved in prostitution reported that they were approached for sexual services by an adult female, 62% of the males and 43.4% of the female juveniles. In 75% of these incidents, the services were for the woman herself, the remainder were for a male acquaintance. Twenty-two per cent of the male juveniles and 20% of the female juveniles had been approached by women 3 times or more. However, in this and other studies, males still represent over 95% of the consumers of sexual services provided by juvenile and adult males and females working in prostitution.

In the U.S., child victims of violent sex crimes were more likely to be male (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995). Evidence suggests that boys are more likely than girls to be physically and sexually abused at the same time (Finkelhor, 1984). Research exploring differences in severity of sexual abuse experienced by male versus female victims suggests that males experience more invasive types of abuse, more types of sexual acts, and abuse at the hands of more perpetrators than females (Baker and Duncan, 1985; Bentovim, 1987; DeJong, 1982; Dube, 1988; Ellerstein, 1980; Finkelhor et al., 1990; Gordon, 1990; Kaufman, 1980; Reinhart, 1987). However, it is likely that these findings fail to consider the fact that it is the seriousness of the abuse that brought the incident involving a male victim to the attention of official agencies in the first place. Male victims tend not to report less severe types of sexual abuse, especially those involving female perpetrators.

Table 2 provides a picture of the sexual abuse prevalence rates for different populations of males. The samples and the rates range widely. It is interesting to note the high abuse rates in the background of male sex offenders.

Table 2. Prevalence Rates For Sexual Abuse Among Males

Prevalence rates for male victims as a total of the whole sexual abuse victim population can be found in Table 3.

Table 3. Male Victims as a Percentage of All Sexual Abuse Victims

Sibling-on-Sibling Sexual Abuse

Sibling incest is another area that has only started to enter the discourse and has been impeded by the fact that many persons fail to label it as abuse. Obtaining a full picture of the prevalence of sexual abuse at the hands of siblings is made difficult by the fact that many children, teens, and adults see the behaviour as "sexual curiosity" or "experimentation". Some victims may view it as "mutual exploration".

In strict legal and clinical terms it is sometimes difficult to label these sexual acts as "offending" behaviour unless we look at the age of the children, age differences between victim and perpetrator, power related to age, intellectual functioning, size and strength, victim impact, or consider if the older sibling was in a position of authority, i.e., baby-sitting. In other cases the "offending" child may be "abuse reactive", acting out against a smaller or weaker sibling, because they themselves are being abused. Much sibling on sibling sexual abuse does not show up in official statistics on crime or prevalence because the perpetrators are under 12 years of age.

Some put the figure of sexual abuse of males by siblings at 6% (Pierce and Pierce, 1985a), 13% (Finkelhor, 1980), and 33% (Thomas and Rogers, 1983). Longo and Groth (1983) found that among the family victims of juvenile offenders, 20% were either sisters, stepsisters, or adopted sisters, 16% were foster brothers, and 5% were brothers.

Sexual Harassment

Women have struggled for years to bring their experiences, concerns, and fears with respect to sexual harassment to public discussions about violence and victimization. Their advocacy efforts have succeeded in raising our consciousness about the subtleties and impact of harassment on girls, teen females, and women in many working and learning environments. Though more work still needs to be done, sexual harassment is now recognized as a serious issue for women. It is also an issue for males. However, as with any issue pertaining to victimization, males struggle against biased stereotypes and a double standard. Even raising the issue of sexual harassment of males raises eyebrows and draws stares or looks of disbelief.

Unfortunately, when trying to determine the prevalence of sexual harassment toward males, we are faced with the same problem of Canada lagging behind other western democracies. The European Community has produced a 93 page report on sexual harassment entitled, The Guide to Implementing the European Code of Practice on the Dignity of Women and Men at Work. In this report, 19% of German males and 21% of young Frenchmen reported suffering unsolicited sexual advances (Globe & Mail, 1993). Though females are more likely to experience sexual harassment, virtually no research has been undertaken in Canada that documents the prevalence of sexual harassment of males. The issue of sexual harassment among gay males has not even surfaced in the discourse.

One exception is a recently published study concerning high school student to student sexual harassment. However, it quickly falls into the trap of biased reporting and interpretation. A brochure promoting the study contains the following paragraph:

"In a recent survey done in Ontario high schools, over 80 per cent of girls said they had been sexually harassed. Boys said their harassment was often complimentary or teasing: few of them said they felt unsafe or that the harassment interfered with their lives, unless their harasser was another male." (OSSTF, 1994)

Most would read this and not give it a second thought. However, what makes this kind of statement worrisome is that it supports biased and harmful stereotypes about males and reinforces a double standard. And, there are other problems.

First, the overall percentage of males reporting being sexually harassed is not given, so it is difficult to compare anything to the 80% figure reported for girls. Second, when asked, "Are you ever afraid of being sexually harassed?", approximately 70% of the girls and 30% of the male students said "Yes". Between one-quarter and one-third of the males said "Yes" they were afraid of being sexually harassed. This is hardly a small number. But perhaps more importantly, it gives the authors no defensible position to diminish the seriousness of the issue for boys simply because prevalence of harassment toward girls' may be higher.

Third, the authors also make qualitative judgments about the impact on boys without recognizing that male students are less likely to report harassment, more likely to diminish any negative impact, more likely to withhold expressions of fear, and more likely to normalize the experience since males are socialized to value, and view as being positive, "sexual overtures" from females. We need to ask ourselves if we would accept at face value comments of the young women in the study saying that they took their harassment as a compliment or teasing.

The above critique does not diminish the important contribution of the work or the hard efforts of those who are trying to protect students from harassment. It is also not a diminishment of the fact that girls typically experience more fear, discomfort, and emotional consequences from being harassed. The problem is that the authors, in their comments and interpretation of the findings, reinforce harmful stereotypes that will only perpetuate the problem of student to student sexual harassment, especially when it involves a male.

Because public awareness of sexual harassment is only just beginning to emerge, it is not uncommon to encounter people who believe that boys cannot be sexually harassed because, as males, they have "power". While it is true that sexual harassment is about power, a definition of "power" using only political or economic terms is too narrow to apply to the lives of children and teens. It is also too limited if we assume that only males have power by virtue of their gender. Physical attractiveness, age, popularity, and even "personality" can be forms of "social power". For example, how serious is a school administrator or a youth's peers likely to take the complaint of a pimply, skinny, or "nerdy" type male who is "rated" or sexually teased and taunted by an attractive and popular female? What if the male in the above example was younger or a visible minority student whose first language was not English and the female student was Caucasian? What if the male student was from a strict religious background that viewed any form of "sexual" talk or contact as inappropriate and offensive? From this perspective, sexual harassment can also be an issue of basic human dignity. It can also be about violation of another person's religious beliefs or cultural norms and values.

Male Prison Rape and Sexual Assault

The most overlooked form of sexual assault in our society happens to males in the form of prison rape. Studies concerning the prevalence of sexual assault never mention this form of sexual violence. In fact, there is no research available that documents the sexual assault of teen and adult males in prisons or closed custody facilities, though it is thought to be a common occurrence. It is easy to dismiss the plight of these males because of their diminished status as "offenders". It is all too easy to be without compassion for these males until you consider the fact that many are victims and survivors of all forms of childhood abuse and maltreatment.

Physical Abuse, Neglect, and Emotional Maltreatment

The sexual abuse of children and youth has dominated much of the research activity, advocacy, and many of the media stories about child abuse published in the past 10 years, despite the fact that it accounts for only about 14% of all forms of indicated or substantiated maltreatment (NCCAN, 1994). In the U.S., neglect accounts for 49% of maltreatment cases, physical abuse 23%, and emotional maltreatment 5%. Medical neglect 3%, other 9%, and unknown 3% constitute the rest. This is particularly significant when one realizes that boys, especially in the younger age categories, tend to be the majority of victims of physical abuse and emotional maltreatment.

In the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect, boys were found to be over-represented in the area of physical abuse. Boys accounted for 59% of investigated cases in the 0-3 years of age category, 56% in the 4-7 years category, 55% in the 8-11 years category, and 44% in the 12-15 years category. In the area of emotional maltreatment, boys accounted for 54% of all investigations. The incidence rates were highest for boys 4-7 years of age (69%) and lowest for those 8-11 (33%). In the area of neglect the numbers are roughly equal, except for children 8-11 where boys represent 55% of cases. This study does not report substantiation rates for males vs females, which have been found to be much lower for males, especially for cases involving sexual abuse (Powers and Eckenrode, 1988). Rosenthal (1988) found that boys in all age categories received significantly more serious physical injuries than girls, with the most severe occurring in male children under 12.

The Ontario study reports that physical abuse rates were slightly higher for girls in the 12-15 years age group (56%) and makes the claim that girls in this age category are generally at higher risk of physical abuse than boys. Similar findings have been reported elsewhere (Johnson and Showers, 1985; Russell and Trainor, 1984; and Walker, et al., 1988). However, what this interpretation fails to consider is boys are less likely to report, their abuse is less likely to come to the attention of authorities, and boys are more likely to fight back owing to their average greater physical size at this age (Gelles, 1978; Russell and Trainor, 1984). However, there is evidence to suggest that physical abuse of adolescents of both sexes is underreported (Garbarino, Schellenbech, and Sebes, 1986; Powers and Eckenrode, 1988; Farber and Joseph, 1985; Pelcovitz, et al., 1984; and Libbey and Bybee, 1979).

Sibling-on-Sibling Physical Abuse

As in the case of sexual abuse, sibling-on-sibling violence is a serious problem that is greatly underreported (Steinmetz, 1977). This type of violence is overlooked by parents and rendered invisible by expressions such as "rough-housing", "sibling rivalry", or "squabbling". Boys are sometimes even encouraged to fight to "toughen them up" and get them ready for the "real world".

Almost all American children are violent toward their brothers and sisters (Straus et al., 1980). In this research 83% of boys and 74% of girls attacked a brother or sister. Fifty-nine per cent of boys and 46% of girls attacked a brother or sister severely.

Though the most overlooked and ignored form of "family violence", sibling-on-sibling violence is of significant consequence to boys and young men. According to Straus, sibling violence occurs more frequently than parent-child or husband-wife violence, boys in every age group are more violent toward their siblings than are sisters, and the highest level of violence occurs when a boy has only brothers.

Corporal Punishment

The issue of corporal punishment has just begun to emerge in the child abuse discourse and we are beginning to witness challenges to the appropriateness of certain sections of the Criminal Code that sanction the use of physical force in the discipline or correction of children. The concern is that corporal punishment is part of a continuum with spanking at one end and physical abuse and homicide at the other. It can sometimes be very difficult to assess when a parent or caregiver has crossed the line. However, regardless of whether the force was intended as abuse or discipline or correction, the effect on children is harmful (Yodanis, 1992; Vissing, et al., 1991).

Corporal punishment is of particular concern to males. In Canada, 70% of the victims of non-sexual assault under the age of 12 are boys (Statistics Canada, 1991). It is evident that boys are physically hit more often than girls (Bryan and Freed, 1982; Gilmartin, 1979; Knutson and Selner, 1994; Maccoby and Jacklin, 1974; Newson and Newson, 1989; and Wauchope and Straus, 1992).

Studies published in the U.S. show that between 93% - 95% of young adults report being corporally punished during their childhood or teen years (Bryan and Freed, 1982; Graziano and Namaste, 1990). Parent surveys report that approximately 90% of adults use corporal punishment to discipline and correct the behaviour of their children (Wauchope and Straus, 1990; Straus, 1983).

Community, School, and Institution-Based Violence

Community and school-based violence among children and adolescents is a topic that has gained prominence in the media and education circles. A recent newspaper story reported that researchers at the University of New Hampshire using a random sample of children 10 to 16 years of age, found that 1 in 10 boys (10%) in the U.S. suffered a non-sexual genital assault, usually a kick by someone their own age (Globe & Mail, 1995). The rate for girls was 2%. The researchers in this study also reported that 40% of the perpetrators were girls. Boys who wore glasses or had other physical limitations were three times more likely to be kicked. One year after the kicking, one in four boys still suffered depression from the incident.

In 1990, Statistics Canada conducted a study of patterns of criminal victimization. They found that the risk of personal victimization was highest for persons who are male, young, single, and residents of urban areas. In a study of approximately 1,000 middle level students in Ontario, 29% of grade 6 boys reported being beaten up and 22% robbed while at school compared to 19% and 10% for grade 6 girls. In this same study, overall, boys and girls were found equally likely to be victims or perpetrators of violent acts (Ryan, Mathews, and Banner, 1993). This is not surprising considering that boys and girls up to the age of puberty are roughly the same size. In a Calgary study involving 962 middle and high school students, 47.5% of the males and 26.6% of the females reported being slapped, punched, or kicked while in school during the past year (Smith et al., 1995). In Canada, violence toward young males in the form of gay-bashing at school or in the community, is another rarely discussed problem.

In the U.S., 72% of juvenile homicide victims were male. Forty per cent of juvenile homicide victims were killed by family members, mostly parents. Fifty-three per cent of boys were killed by their fathers and slightly more than half (51%) of the girls were murdered by their mothers (OJJDP, 1995). Also reported in this study was the fact that Caucasian males comprised 83% of suicides of persons under the age of 20, and that for every two youth aged 0-19 who was murdered in the U.S. in 1991, one youth committed suicide.

Suicide

Canada has one of the highest suicide rates in the western world. A little under 2% of all deaths in Canada are caused by suicide, and almost four times as many males as females commit suicide annually. Suicide rates for young people have increased remarkably since the 1950's, especially for young males in their late teens and early twenties (Health Canada, 1994). Gay male teens and Native youth are at especially high risk.

Street Youth

In various developing countries, the number of street children is estimated to range between 10 and 100 million, the vast majority are boys (World Health Organization, 1995). In Canada, males and females on the street appear to be equally at risk for physical violence, with most perpetrators being someone the youth considered a friend or someone else they knew on the street (Janus, et al., 1995). In this study, physical abuse was the most frequently given reason why these youth left home. The physical abuse was most often perpetrated by a biological parent, and most often by the mother. In other studies of runaway youth, Powers and Eckenrode (1987) found that 42.3% of males (57.7% of females) were the victims of physical abuse, 37.9% of emotional abuse (62.1% for females), and 47.7% of neglect (52.3% for females). McCormack et al., (1986) found that 73% of female and 38% of male runaways were physically abused.

Prostitution

Sexual abuse is also high among teens involved in prostitution (Mathews, 1989). Thirty per cent of juvenile females and 27.4% of juvenile males involved in prostitution reported an incestuous sexual experience. By the age of 13, 62.8% of the females and 77% of the males reported being sexually experienced, compared to general population samples of 1.7% and 5.4% respectively (Badgley, 1984). Of course, these numbers do not reflect the fact that 100% of males and females under the age of 16 who sell sex to adults are being sexually abused by their customers.

Children With Disabilities

Sixty-one per cent of children and teens with developmental disabilities, including pervasive developmental disorders and mental retardation, experience harsh forms of physical discipline (Ammerman, 1994). Graham (1993) found that handicapped boys and girls are equally at risk for sexual abuse. Handicapped male and female adults in institutions are also physically abused in large numbers (Roeher Institute, 1995; Sobsey and Varnhagen, 1988).

Professional Response to Male Victims
as a Factor in Determining Prevalence

One problem with trying to understand the true prevalence rate of male victimization is how the present picture has been affected by factors pertaining to professional practice. Here we have to look at the low substantiation rates of all forms of maltreatment, especially in younger children. Substantiation rates are always higher for adolescent populations, typically because teens are easier to interview and are better able to articulate to investigators what happened to them.

This is even more of an issue for male victims. When boys are victimized, they tend to be seen as less in need of care and support (Watkins and Bentovim, 1992). They are also blamed more for their abuse (Burgess, 1985; Broussard, et al., 1988; Whatley and Riggio, 1993) and their offenders are held less accountable (Burgess, 1985). In one of the most troubling studies, Pierce and Pierce (1985) found that male victims, despite being subjected to more invasive types of abuse and more types of sexual acts than female victims, were 5 times less likely to be removed from their homes.

Media Images of Violence Toward Boys and Young Men

Looking past the more conventional forms of research and other types of information about violence and abuse, it is easy to find media images supporting male victimization. Women have long argued for greater accountability on the part of the media to refrain from using harmful, sexist, and objectifying images of females in advertising and entertainment. Males are also now beginning to raise their own concerns.

Violence toward males is so normalized in our society that it has become invisible to the average person as have the images reinforcing harmful stereotypes about males and masculinity. For example, we expect males to be physically strong and capable or "rough and tumble", thus we ridicule in comics and comedy films the short, skinny, or sensitive male. Unfortunately, young men who try to live up to the impossible standards set by bodybuilders are starting to kill themselves through the use of steroids.

Our insensitivity to male victims can be viewed in the depiction of male abuse in popular media images, commercials, comedy films and television programs, and the "funnies" or comic sections in any Canadian newspaper (Mathews, 1994). Watch America's Funniest Home Videos for a few weeks and you will inevitably see some male being injured in the testicles through a sports activity, boisterous animal, energetic child, or some other mishap. A commercial for an American fast food company, shows one of the characters from the sitcom, Seinfeld, being hit in the testicles with a hockey puck.

Widely syndicated comic strips like Fox Trot, For Better or Worse, and Nancy, portray girls or teen siblings punching, hitting with an object, or breaking the glasses of male siblings or classmates. Other comic strips such as Beetle Bailey and Andy Capp, routinely feature violent acts toward adult males. A recently released children's film, Tom and Huck, portrays one of the boys being punched in the face by the female character Becky, a scene played without violence in the original movie and book. Another recent film, the Beverly Hillbillies, features a young woman named Elly-Mae wrestling with a high school male peer and stomping on his testicles. Prison rape, injury to a man's testicles, sexual abuse of boys by women under the guise of "initiation", and other behaviours, easily identifiable as physical or sexual abuse and assault when they happen to girls or women, are exploited for "humour" so regularly that they have basically become a norm in comedy films and entertainment (Mathews, 1994).