The study, published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, concludes that sexual abuse of boys happens more often than the medical community previously believed and asks for more recognition and treatment of the problem. The researchers found that eight to 16 percent of the general male population has a history of sexual abuse. Holmes, who teaches at Penn's Medical School, found that studies on male sexual abuse are sparse compared to those on female abuse. He added that while people have become more comfortable dealing with abuse of girls, they still have a hard time coming to grips with the reality that boys are also abused. A number of factors contribute to this disparity, he said.
Physicians generally ask patients if they have been abused only if there is some suspicion of abuse.
Since doctors are more likely to consider the possibility of sexual abuse in females, Holmes said, they often miss the signs on males. Also, Holmes said people are uncomfortable asking boys if they were abused because most cases of male abuse is homosexual behavior, which remains somewhat taboo in our culture. But Holmes said he hopes his study will raise awareness of the issue in the general and medical communities. We must become as vigilant with our boys as we are with our girls. In addition to finding a higher prevalence of abuse than was previo usly known, the researchers also discovered that the boys at the highest risk for abuse are under 13 years old, non-white, of low socioeconomic status and not living with their fathers.