NCJ Number
156134
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 19 Issue: 7 Dated: (July 1995) Pages: 785-792
Date Published
1995
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This study interviewed 202 female university students to determine their early family experiences and childhood sexual abuse in relation to adult sexual disorders.
Abstract
Each student completed three questionnaires on victimization, sexual dysfunction, and early familial experiences. Findings show that victims of multiple sexual abuse as children more often reported sexual-desire disorders and orgasm disorders than did single-incident victims as well as nonvictims. Single-incident victims and nonvictims did not report significantly different rates for any kind of sexual dysfunction. Negative early familial experiences were significantly related to any kind of sexual disorder, and women who reported orgasm disorders more often reported an inadequate sex education than did women with another or no sexual dysfunction. The data suggest that both family dysfunction and sexual victimization contribute to sexual disorders in adulthood and that later sexual disorders are to a significant extent the result of sexual abuse in particular and family dysfunction in general. Further studies should be conducted in larger samples of women with sexual dysfunctions to determine the family dynamics and childhood sexual victimization that have the most destructive consequences for later sexual behavior. On the other hand, some women who grew up in dysfunctional family structures or who experienced sexual victimization did not have any kind of sexual dysfunction. Factors that may have prevented negative long-term sexual consequences in these women should be surveyed. 4 tables and 23 references