By Tom Golden: Do boys face sexual abuse as children? According to research, the answer is a very powerful yes. A CDC study in 20051 showed that 1 in 6 boys experienced unwanted sexual contact by the time they reached the age of 18. The number for girls was a bit larger, it was 1 in 4. So 25% of girls and 16% of boys were reported to have had unwanted sexual activity prior to the age of 18.
I am sure that some of you are wondering exactly how the question was worded in order to get to those numbers. We live in an age where definitions have become so watered down that statistics really don’t tell the story. So for those of you who are wondering let’s look at the exact wording. This is taken directly from the journal article:
“Four questions from Wyatt36 were adapted to define sexual abuse during childhood and adolescence: “Some people, while they are growing up in their first 18 years of life, had a sexual experience with an adult or someone at least 5 years older than themselves.