Today, researchers Ron Stall and Ron Valdiserri released a statement regarding use of their book, Unequal Opportunities: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States by Focus on the Family writer Jeff Johnston.
The report they question was released recently by Focus and is titled: “Childhood Sexual Abuse and Male Homosexuality: Is there a link?” In that report, Johnston cites statistics from the book, along with quotes from other studies and an interview with Narth past-president Dean Byrd. Here are the relevant portions of the book edited by Stall, Valdiserri and colleague Richard Wolitski (all footnotes in this section are to the Unequal Opportunities book).
Many pro-gay researchers, activists and theorists deny that there could be a connection between child sexual abuse and adult homosexuality. Some possible reasons for denying this link are the stigma that surrounds sexual abuse; the fear of associating homosexuality with “recruitment” or pedophilia; and because so many gays continue to believe that homosexuality is inborn and immutable. In 2008, however, a group of researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a book that documented the high rates of sexual abuse among “men who have sex with men (MSM).”[6]
In a chapter titled, “Childhood Sexual Abuse Experienced by Gay and Bisexual Men: Understanding the Disparities and Interventions to Help Eliminate Them,” from the book Unequal Opportunity, researchers analyze and report on data from 17 different studies from the past 15 years.[7] They find the rates of childhood sexual abuse (which they abbreviate as CSA) for men who have sex with men range from 11.8% to 37.0%, and note that “the best-designed studies tend to converge on CSA prevalence of 15% to 25%.”[8]
While most of those who perpetrate sexual abuse are men, abusers are not necessarily homosexual or gay-identified,[9] and the authors note that “in studies focusing on MSM, the perpetrators are always at least 90% male.”[10] The range of abuse varies in the different studies depending on the definition of abuse and the sample method.[11]
The researchers report that the rates of child sexual abuse for gay- or bisexual-identified men are significantly higher than those found among heterosexually-identified men. They write that the rates for heterosexual men are usually “less than 10%,” and state that in five studies that compared the two groups, the men who have sex with men are “at least three times more likely to report CSA, however defined, than heterosexual men.”[12] This finding is reiterated in their conclusion: “Rates for MSM are 15% to 25% in the best designed studies, which is at least triple the rates reported among heterosexual men.”[13]
Consequences of Sexual abuse
Children are not equipped emotionally, physically, spiritually or psychologically to handle adult sexuality. Individual boys will handle sexual abuse in different ways: what leads to shame and guilt in one child might lead to self-questioning and gender confusion in another or to anger and acting out in a third. Each child is unique, grows up in a unique environment and will respond in an individual way to sexual abuse or early sexual encounters with the same sex.
There are, however, common themes and outcomes that consistently emerge in studies of men who were sexually abused as children. Two common outcomes of sexual abuse – out of the many possible – are that boys may question their identity and be confused about their sexuality.
The followin quotes may have generated the most concern by Stall and Valdiserri:
The authors in Unequal Opportunity are reluctant to say that childhood sexual abuse is one of the factors that leads to or contributes to the development of homosexuality, but they do speculate,
The fact that most childhood abusers of MSM were males suggests either an etiological link between CSA and adult sexual orientation, or the existence of childhood characteristics that are related to adult sexual orientation in men that increase vulnerability, or both.”[23]
And later, they say that these early sexual experiences “can be considered a form of sexual learning, even if that learning is involuntary and the results dysfunctional.”[24] They continue, “Sexual orientation and gender identity can be particularly confusing for men who experienced arousal during the abuse, and MSM who experienced abuse may continue to be aroused by circumstances that mirror the abusive situation.[25]
Drs. Stall and Valdeserri’s statement is as follows:
We want to respond to a recent Focus on the Family characterization of scientific findings reported in our book, Unequal Opportunities: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States (Oxford University Press) that misrepresented findings in the book to suggest that childhood sexual abuse causes male homosexuality. The Focus on the Family description of the findings reported in Unequal Opportunities is inaccurate and, in our opinion, a distortion of the scientific literature.
Most basically, the Focus on the Family characterization of the literature on childhood sexual abuse among gay men represents a misunderstanding of scientific approaches to distinguishing between correlation and causation. The book chapter in question reports that gay men are more likely to report childhood sexual abuse by men than are heterosexual men. This correlation does not mean that the reported abuse caused the adult sexual orientation. If that were the case, then the fact that some heterosexual men report sexual abuse by women means that sexual abuse by women “causes” heterosexuality in men. It is also worth noting that the argument that childhood sexual abuse causes homosexuality in gay men is undermined by the fact that the vast majority of gay men are not sexually abused as children.
One potential partial explanation for this correlation, and one that makes the most sense when you consider people of all orientations, is that some youth, particularly post-pubertal youth (who still cannot legally consent to sexual activity) have sexual experiences with males or females, depending on their pre-existing orientation. Let’s be very clear that this does not mean that these experiences are appropriate or healthy. However, it also does not mean that these experiences
caused the sexual orientation of the youth. The development of a person’s sexual orientation is a complex and multifaceted process. The research into these processes has barely begun, and the development of sexuality is very difficult to study. Mischaracterizations of the scientific literature on the development of sexual orientation is not helpful to science.Rather than mischaracterize these findings, we would like to point out the harm to health that can be caused by childhood sexual abuse among boys and girls of all sexual orientations. Childhood sexual abuse occurs to far too many young Americans and a large and growing literature supports that this abuse can cause lifelong damage to the physical and mental health and wellbeing of men and women of all sexual orientations. We suggest that Focus on the Family and
other concerned organizations focus on how to work to ensure that all of our children remain safe from unwanted sexual experiences– whether heterosexual or homosexual.That said, we want to state clearly that the published research does not support the claim that the development of a homosexual orientation is caused by childhood sexual abuse. Furthermore, adult homosexual orientation is no longer considered a pathology or a maladjustment. We urge those who are interested in trying to better understand some of these complex issues from a scientific perspective to read the discussions in our book, as well as the scientific literature on childhood sexual abuse, and not rely on second-hand interpretations.
Ron Stall
Ron Valdiserri
Related post:
A major study of child abuse and homosexuality revisited
Jayhuck,
In my experience, that type of bisexuality is rare — even among women, though many would say otherwise.
While it seems to me the case that more women than men experience that type of bisexuality, there are also many “bisexual” women who seem to be bisexual in more typically “male” ways. And there are very few “bisexual” men who move from loving relationships with women — to men — to women….
In my experience, “bisexuality” is often better called by another name: Maybe “trisexualtiy”, because many (don’t know that stats) “need” threesomes, or triangular relationships, more than that they happen to experience both men and women as cute.
On the various groups I’ve been on for either “mixed orientation couples” or “bisexual” support groups, this is more the norm than sexual fluidity defined as the ability to bond sexually with either males or females within the bounds of a diadic relationship.
Men tend to focus on body parts: Breasts vs. penises. Many of the women focus on “hard” and “soft” bodily attributes. And both experience men and women as “Completely Different” in their essence, such that both are “needed” in different ways, and if one is absent, then the “bisexual” feels “incomplete”. And having sex with only one of the sexes is considered a form of abstenance. Many express inner feelings of having “two compartments” — one that belongs to women, one that belongs to men. It’s not that EITHER men and women can fill the bill — it’s that NEITHER can.
The type of bisexuality which you mean seems rare, though perhaps more common in women than men. And I would imagine that serial bisexuality is less relationally problematic, so that fewer people who experience fluidity show up in support groups for either mixed orientation couples or bisexuals.
Still, I have little doubt that the assumption that women are more fluid than men is skewing just how both men and women experience their “bisexuality”. Tied to this, is the assumption that only men have fetishes, or create part objects.
I’ve had long discussions with several psychologists about the whole issue of whether women have fetishes. No conclussion
But, it seems to me that women do, though it might look a bit different than men. The image I get is that men create fetishes in a “slice and dice” way, while women do so in a way that looks more like those see-through books on the human body — where you lift off layers to reveal less and less of the total body.
While men might create part-objects in a way that women don’t, they can still be pretty darn concrete — like the focus on the “hard” and “soft”, focus on difference at the expense of commonality and over-lap, etc…
Anyway, sure there’s the type of bisexuality of which you speak.
But I’m not sure how common it is, if it’s really more common in women than men, etc….
And a lot of what’s being brought into the realm of bisexuality probably should be called by other things.
Maybe there’s bisexuality and bisexual splitting — and because both involve having sex with both sexes, they look a lot alike on the surface.
Katie
Debbie,
Yeah, I wish Melissa would drop that claim. It’s very cruel to the parents sitting there thinking that their kid must have been molested and wondering who it was and why they didn’t know. But the last I heard it was still part of her presentation.
On a side note, you inspired me to order After the Ball from a used book store. It’s been well over a decade since I read the book and have no idea where my copy went to but I found one online – five bucks for the original hardback – what a bargain.
So far I’ve only read through the introduction and found myself surprised at how much has changed.
Some of it was spot on. It was very difficult in the late 80′s with preachers calling AIDS a sign or God’s judgment and politicians running campaigns to legalize and encourage discrimination. I remember that I left a job in the aerospace industry in 1989 because I couldn’t advance without a security clearance.
Other bits were terribly outdated. For example, it seems that Marshall and Kirk really did believe the 10% figure. I don’t recall when we realized that Kinsey’s estimate was probably exagerated, but I guess the community was still using 10% in the late 80′s.
I’m sure that I’ll find the rest of the book a trip to another time.
Katie,
I would probably agree with you
Katie,
That may well be why sex researchers don’t define “homosexual” as having had sex with a man. Orientation, as we discussed, is more closely tied to attraction. I think researchers on orientation issues try to eliminate predominantly straight men from thier “gay” sample.
Epidemiologists and health researchers tend to steer away from orientation (and the related identity issues) and go with “men who have sex with men”. This recognizes that not all sexual behavior is strictly tied to orientation and for their purposes is preferable. They don’t care what your orientation is, they care about what parts you’re putting where.
So research from a sexually transmitted disease point of view would include all of those reasons you listed while research from the point of view of orientation would not.
What’s the general thinking now – if not 10% ?
K.
Timothy,
So you think these studies are doing a good job of controlling for such factors?
I haven’t read nearly the number of studies you have, but the ones I have read, it wasn’t at all clear to me that they are.
K.
Oh Debbie,
You walk a fine line by saying the things you do. You words have been used as amunition by many a man to molest his daughter or other female children. Or in the words of Carter Heyward “Is that we all know that what a lesbian needs is a good fuck.”
I would take Katie’s advice and read a little more on the subject before making some of the outrageous and harmful statments you make.
And I did take it in the whole context you wrote it.
Katie,
My understanding is that the number is somewhere between 4-7%.
Mary–
I haven’t been part of this conversation so forgive me if I’m out of line here. It appears to me that you didn’t take Debbie’s statement in context. “It does not follow” is an idiom…it speaks to an automatic cause and effect. A woman who experiences sexual arousal while being sexually abused by a male does not automatically become a lesbian. She certainly might but ‘it does not follow’ that she will. If the woman was sexually abused and also experienced no arousal, it would more likely follow that she would become a lesbian.(‘All men are worthless and selfish pigs.’) The woman who experiences arousal might better be able to determine that heterosexual sexual abuse is bad but heterosexual sex can be good. (‘Some men are pigs but not all.’)
Mary – Please watch your tone. Also, to all commenters, profanity is not necessary to make the points.
This can be a good discussion to learn from a variety of experiences if the tone remains respectful.
You will, no doubt, Timothy. But I’m betting you’ll also silently cheer the times they projected correctly.
As for the errant 10 percent figure, Frank Kameny (remember him from the old homophile movement?) claims to have made it up, based on Kinsey’s work. That’s what he told The Blade a few years ago, anyway. Lawrence v. Texas attorneys held the figure was between 1.5 and 2.5 percent, or something like that.
Also interesting in is a Time magazine review of “After the Ball’ back in 1989 that said many gays were not taking it seriously because they eschewed the blending in as normal recommendation and wanted to be accepted for their differences instead. It’s here, if you’re interested:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,958116-2,00.html
It’s interesting that I dealt more with sexual abuse when I was working with people suffering from depression and anxiety than I do now in working with SSA women. In my current group, which is still fairly small, only one other woman and I (2 out of’ 5) are survivors of CSA. She was forcefully molested by a group of older boys as a child — definitely not pleasurable — and I was molested by an older male cousin.
This woman in my group dreams about having sex with men and would like to marry one day, but has had deep emotional and physical attachments with women only. My experience definitely messed with my head. Mary, listen to this: I wouldn’t call it pleasurable — he hurt me physically at one point — but I’d had a childish crush on him, and he seduced me through my curiosity. I truly did feel guilt over what I saw as my role in it. And I was awakened sexually at far too early an age.
This discussion has been most interesting, and I think it will help with some of the group issues I will deal with in the future. Thanks, Katie.
Hey Debbie,
It might be of interest to you —
Rob’s experience is that he immediately began what some call “acting out”. His recollection (for what it’s worth) is that the first time his mother did anything to him was when he was about 6 years old. The next day he got a neighbor girl to do the same thing.
In Rob’s house, it was assumed that homosexuality was a sin, but much more was said about how sinful sex between men and women was a sin.
His father used to announce that it was time to “beat that dirty horse” — and off to the bedroom his parents would go.
His mother repeatedly questioned Rob and his brother about whether they were “doing things to each other”. The main memories Rob has is of the times his mother involved Rob and his sister at the same time. Not surprisingly, Rob and his sister hated each other, though played sexualized peeka-boo games.
It seems to me that when people begin talking about how sexual abuse does or doesn’t affect sexual development, they focus too much on the actual sexual abuse. But in families where there’s incest, so much more is going on as well.
Weird, distorted, sexual vibes 24/7.
I don’t know. Just seems to me that children need an environment in which their own personal idiom has at least a crack or two in which to take hold. I don’t think Rob, and lots of others, had the chance to establish a personal idiom — too much intrusion and control from all sides — in a way that permeated the air, rather than specific, time-bound, acts.
Take care,
Katie
Oh, absolutely. The sordid secrets family members feel compelled to keep do a lot of damage in their own right. And trust is nowhere to be found, as well as healthy boundaries. The stories are heart-wrenching. A very serious impact is the development of dissociative identity disorders.
I meant to add, Katie, that acting out sexually was also a part of my childhood journey.
This probably isn’t the place for it, but I was scanning old threads (if that’s what they’re called in a blog), and came across stuff about how brain scans show that men gay men’s brains are more different than straight men’s brains — but not so in women.
I think I read recently that scientists now know that both white and grey matter has it’s communication system, and that what was once considered scaffolding is more than that? Has anyone else read this?
Rob’s experience is that when he’s feeling competent, good, etc…. he feels heterosexual, including spontaneous erections when fantasizing about women.
But when he doesn’t feel so positive, then he begins to feel anxiety, and part of the way the anxiety expresses itself is through anal sensations. When this happens, he obsesses about sex with men.
If he spontaneously eroticises his penis, then his thoughts and fantasies are about women. When it comes to actually having sex though, he’s historically frozen inwardly.
Like many sexually abused men, he feels his penis is numb, or goes numb. He’s actually sometimes convinced that he broke it when he was young, like you can break a leg.
And he’s no dummy. It’s funny how even smart people can be convinced that fears are true, even when they’re stupid.
Anyway, I’d imagine his brain scans would look different than your typical hetero male, though in what way I have no idea.
And while I think the penile bloodflow studies wouldn’t capture Rob if done only once — if given a chance, I’d still hook him up
If for no other reason than to have something else to obsess about.
Katie
Hey Debbie,
Have you been able to feel how the acting out feels different than other stuff?
I mean, can you clearly distinguish acting out impulses with ones that have more to do with the here and now?
Katie
@Katie
The scaffolding is made of glial cells/glia, they support neurons. What’s the connection with sexual abuse?
Beth Steven from NIH did a study in 2003 on CNS development and plasticity, where she talks about glia-neurons and glia-glia communication.
==========
The studies that used brainscans showed some differences between lesbian and straight women too, besides those found in men. The Savic study is a landmark in the field, in my opinion, you should check it out. There is another one published by PloSONE, in which another team found lesbian women had less grey matter than straight women in a zone from the medial temporal lobe involved in visual memory (the perirhinal cortex). Ivanka Savic found straight male-typical connectivity in lesbians’ brains in the amygdala and a similar asymmetry in some hemispheric areas (not all). So there really are cross-sex shifts in both sexes of the same orientation. We’ll see how inborn or nurtured they are at some point. Or if they mean people on extreme sides are unable of feelings for the opposite-sex.
It’s interesting what you wrote about Rob’s case. Anxiety could have the effect that you mentioned. I wrote a message on one of THrockmorton’s topics where I speculated that hyperreactivity in a component of the stress system may be responsible with anal sensitivity in men. It’s been already proven in rats, with corticosterone-induced anxiety. Last time I’ve heard there was a team from the USA who studied this on veterans with or w/o PTSD. So it might be a valid connection, that stress could contribute to atypical function in a man’s sexual organs too (the fixation on the prostate that you mentioned). Or it could be a normal variation that goes largely unrecognised, because of cultural pressures. Anyway, your approach shows how necessary some qualitative studies are to bring some less known facts to the surface.
Debbie
I will be greatful for the positive changes that have occurred since that time.
Kameny was quite the pioneer. He was at the President’s signing of itsy-bitsy changes in federal benefits (mostly relocation costs) as a symbol of change from the days in which he was fired from his mapping job.
Yep. Attitudes certainly were different then. At that time radicals, having given up hope for assimilation, were taking pride in difference. I think it shows maturity that over time the organizations and leaders who found support from gays were those who sought inclusion and assimilation based on rights and equality.
That would be an underestimate, I believe. The CDC survey shows that whether you define orientation by desire, by identity, or by behavior, at least 4% of men and women are gay or bisexual.
Studies range from as low as 1 or 2 percent to as high as 17 percent, but most fluctuate right in that 4-7% range that Jayhuck mentioned.
Debbie,
I do not doubt nor find it “highly questionable” that you and other girls who were molested felt physical and emotional pain. The stories, while they are difficult to hear or read, come in all forms. Children endure a lot and the stories of CSA should be taken seriously and never dismissed. They are very personal stories of individuals who found ways of learning to cope with bad circumstances.
To be clear, that was a very long time ago, in my childhood. So, the “here and now” was the “there and then.” It occurred mostly with my brothers, one in particular. I am not aware of any such impulses in my life today. There may have been some acting out impulses in my earlier adult life.
Evan,
Thanks for the response.
I wasn’t attempting a connection with child sex abuse — sorry, my thoughts wander sometimes.
Except to this extent: It seems that trauma also has an impact on the brain that can be researched through scans, and I was wondering if the areas of the brain affected by trauma has any overlap in with the brain areas you mentioned?
Anyway, is glia to glia communication as well understood as the other? Is it picked up through scans or EEG’s? etc.?
That’s interesting what you said about anxiety and anal sensations. I’ve always just assumed that it was bodily traumatic memories — which it probably is as well.
Or at least gets hooked up to those memories. He finds the sensations extraordinarily pronounced, more pronounced than I would imagine the sphincter muscles are actually capable of producing. I asked him once what happens if he just goes with it and observes what happens over time. The thought had never even occurred to him, those addictive reactions have been immediate, without ever stepping back and observing. He experiences it as having a strong vacuum deep inside his bowels, so not sure it’s all that connected to the prostrate.
It’s been hugely beneficial for him to talk about this stuff after so many years. An interesting side-effect has been that, whereas he’s picked the skin on his arms for years, he spontaneously stopped when all this came out 3 1/2 years ago. By “came out” I mean that he began talking — not that he recovered memories. The memories, in his case, have always been there, just never talked about.
Off to check out the link.
Thanks for the info.
Katie
Mary and Debbie,
Do both of you feel that your sexual abuse histories are implicated in your SSA?
Katie
Debbie,
Ah, I haven’t communicated with a woman who still feels like she acts out. I’m sure there are women who continue well into their adult-hood, just haven’t communicated with any.
Men…. different story.
Katie
I do. I just don’t know to what extent. Other factors had a bearing, too.
Katie,
Mine is a series of events and circumstances. The CSA has made healing from SSA difficult – it has been an impediment. While I am not attracted to women per se anymore, and I have ample opportunity to date men, I find myself seeing men through the childs lense. I would attribute other factors in my FOO also to the SSA as well as biological attributes in my temperment.
Mary,
FOO ? Sorry, don’t know all the shorthands…
Rob also has a tendency to see women through a child’s lense — the “She who must be Obeyed”….
Same with men. I found his profiles on the hookup sites. So very peculiar, a naive child with freckles asking for pretty outrageous sexual acts.
He’s a very successful attorney, but even at 55 tends to collect mentors and other father figures.
He’s a cutey though. It’s funny I can write and talk about all this stuff about him while at the same time having just a warm feeling in my heart about him. I’ve gotten over the shock and pain, and now see most of the stuff that goes on with him as sort of goofy.
I still have my moments of worrying I’m marrying a gay man who will eventually leave the closet, or that he’ll begin having sex with men again, gay or not, but mostly I trust my instincts.
On the male support groups, what seems the most helpful tactic some are able to take is to not worry about their sexual orientation, but to nurture the ability to relate intimately with others — the rest seems to fall into place more or less.
My father was physically abusive. I clearly remember times in my life where I asked myself if men was really what I wanted. At those times, women felt more open to me as a possibility. But then it feels like I just sort of made up my mind, and foreclosed lesbian possibilities, so that today the idea is pretty icky. Though I do still envy aspects of lesbianism, like the break from all things phallic.
Of course with Rob, I wouldn’t mind a little more phallic focus
Back to the lense of the child: More than anything, I think I was angry at Rob when I first found out about the sex with men because I put my hopes in him as the good father I never had. I wanted to break his neck for not being that.
I’ve slowly allowed him to father me again, little by little.
BTW, his sex with men was before I met him, but while he was married to his ex. Once he got into AA, it pretty much stopped, except for twice without alcohol. He quit drinking 5 years before I met him.
Still, I was furious with him for not being more perfect.
Take care,
Katie
Katie
Katie
Yes, they can be shaped by trauma. The amygdala regions can be shaped by many factors and trauma is one of them. Last year I saw a large database that some people from the Harvard keep with these size differences in the Amy based on sex, age and other variables like health status (If I remember well..). They show very clear differences due to each of these factors, which proves that it’s not a static structure and it can be impacted by a combination of factors, even during one’s lifetime. Women and men use it differently to encode emotional memory and to experience it (women on the left, men on the right). Bilateral lesions are known to lead to abnormal, indiscriminate sexual behaviour. Obviously, they play a mediating role in sexual arousal sparked by what people see. A study done in the Reber lab by a team headed by MJ Bailey found that gay men have a stronger reaction in those areas than straight men when viewing the sexual images they like. So it seems that all these findings are starting to converge on at least one area of interest. I think it all started to emerge more clearly from Stephen Hamann’s research in the area of sex differences in emotional cognition (men and women come from different planets, in terms of emotional living, according to him).
On asymmetry, which is not directly involved in sex stuff, you might be interested in this comment I wrote on another topic.
No idea how well understood is glia-glia communication. I mostly studied brain research inasmuch as it had a practical conclusion, didn’t go to cell or molecular level, though there is some practical stuff out of that area too (for people who take medications or drugs). It pays to be superficial out of profundity.
Evan,
Forgive me for picking just this one sentence out of an earlier post, but you said:
I’m curious what you mean by “anal sensitivity” and what, if anything, it has to do with gay men.
My bad Evan – you spoke of anal sensitivity in men – you didn’t say “gay” men. I still wonder though if that was implied.
Evan,
Do you know if bilateral lesians are associated with trauma?
Rob has two siblings with sever Autism — no language development at all. Of course, while they’d probably still be Autistic to a degree, growing up with his parents didn’t help matters a lot.
But I’ve wondered if Rob might not also be somewhat affected by Autism.
K.
Jayhuck,
It does seem to me that among men who have sex with men (so not necessarily gay) that there’s an imbalance between those who either are the doer or will go either way, and the guys who definitely want only to be the done.
I’m going on things like the AOL hookup sites, Craigslist, etc…. so a promiscuous, and probably not completely gay group.
And on the support sites for bisexual men, it’s a huge surprise to learn a man wants to be the doer when he’s with men.
Rob has said that one of the things about sex with men is that he “doesn’t have to do anything” — I’m pretty sure he means sexually, but also socially, just punch a key, and free sex. No dating, no talking, no doing.
My gay friends, on the other hand, seem to like to date
K.
Katie,
FOO = Family Of Origin.
@Katie
None that I’ve heard of. It’s usually about serious injury, disease – sclerosis, tumors, Alzheimer’s, stroke, etc. Some causes are unknown.
Also you might want to ask:
How is it that child sexual abuse perpetrated by a male on a girl can maker her turn out to be a lesbian (that is try to avoid intimacy with men) but cause a boy to turn out gay?
Wouldn’t he reasonably try to avoid men also?
Because many who hold this view also hold that a mother who is too intimate with her son can drive him into the arms of men (I have heard the term “emotional incest”).
As an aside, we have not figured out yet what to do with lesbians. They don’t show nearly the same patterns as men with SSA do (fraternal birth order etc.).