The study, which was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, appears to debunk the myth so often promulgated by opponents of marriage equality that lesbian and gay parents are more likely to abuse their children sexually. Not a single child in the study reported being physically or sexually abused by one or both of their lesbian parents or, for that matter, any other caregiver.
The review of the literature that the authors conduct in the introduction to the article is fascinating and, for me at least, being as unfamiliar as I am with this field, a little overwhelming. Here, though, is the abstract:
This study assessed Kinsey self-ratings and life- time sexual experiences of 17-year-olds whose lesbian mothers enrolled before these offspring were born in the longest-running, prospective study of same-sex parented families, with a 93% retention rate to date. Data for the current report were gathered through online questionnaires completed by 78 adolescent offspring (39 girls and 39 boys). The adolescents were asked if they had ever been abused and, if so, to specify by whom and the type of abuse (verbal, emotional, physical, or sexual). They were also asked to specify their sexual identity on the Kinsey scale, between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual. Lifetime sexual behavior was assessed through questions about heterosexual and same-sex contact, age of first sexual experience, contraception use, and pregnancy. The results revealed that there were no reports of physical or sexual victimization by a parent or other caregiver. Regarding sexual orientation, 18.9% of the adolescent girls and 2.7% of the adolescent boys self-rated in the bisexual spectrum, and 0% of girls and 5.4% of boys self-rated as predominantly-to-exclusively homosexual. When compared with age-and gender-matched adolescents of the National Survey of Family Growth, the study off-spring were significantly older at the time of their first heterosexual contact, and the daughters of lesbian mothers were significantly more likely to have had same-sex contact. These findings suggest that adolescents reared in lesbian families are less likely than their peers to be victimized by a parent or other caregiver, and that daughters of lesbian mothers are more likely to engage in same-sex behavior and to identify as bisexual.
That summary of the findings in the last sentence is deceptive in its straightforwardness, not because the findings are not straightforward, but because any discussion that takes place about them is likely to be very complex. Here, for example, is one of the possible explanations the authors offered for the findings related to sexual abuse:
One possible explanation…might be that most of the adolescents [in this study] grew up in households in which no adult males resided. Since the sexual abuse of children that occurs within the home is largely perpetrated by adult heterosexual males…growing up in lesbian-headed households may protect children and adolescents from these types of assault. (My emphasis)
The authors follow this, of course, with the entirely necessary caveat that theirs is the first study to attempt to measure such things and so “it will be interesting to see whether future studies of same-sex parented families yield similar results.” Still, these results do throw into stark relief the fact that male heterosexuality is implicated in most cases of the child sexual abuse that takes place in a child’s home. The questions that arise from that fact are difficult to ask and perhaps even more difficult to answer–and, I will add, should not be used to obscure the fact that children are also sexually abused by women–but they are questions that need to be explored and perhaps the results of studies like this one, assuming they are corroborated over time, will provide the kind of contrasting perspective that will bring greater clarity, if not greater ease, to that exploration.
Cross-posted on The Poetry in the Politics and The Politics in The Poetry.
I predict the family values crowd will pick up and run with this:
Also, about this:
Lesbians that I know (not representative, of course . . . ) tend to not only have no adult male hets in the house, but also do not hang out with adult male hets as much as straight women do. So less chance for acquaintance abuse. I wonder if this type of pattern (i.e., low sexual abuse) would also show up for kids raised by gay men?
Since the sexual abuse of children that occurs within the home is largely perpetrated by adult heterosexual males…
The natural interpretation of this, to me, is that heterosexual men, given equal access to children, are more likely than homosexual men to engage in sexual abuse of children. Marmalade, above, seems to have read it the same way.
Is this known to be the case, or is this just an badly-phrased reference to the obvious fact that the 95+% of men who are heterosexual commit more sexual abuse of children than the < 5% who are homosexual?
Brandon:
I am not sure what your question is. If you look at the article itself, the sentence I quoted includes citations. I don’t have time to copy them here right now.
That’s odd; I don’t usually see ‘natural’ used as a synonym for ‘rhetorically useful’.
I greatly apologize if my post implied this. The research on this (which is, necessarily imperfect due to the problems with identifying those who have been abused and identifying who is gay) . . . the research sketchily suggests that people who self-identify as gay are maybe about as likely to molest children as people who identify as heterosexual. See this terrific analysis by Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin http://tinyurl.com/2dapvdf.
Particularly, this from Burroway’s analysis:
(Other studies quted by Burroway and others reveal similar patterns)
It is true, however, that women are much less likely to be child abusers (at least, they are less likely to be reported as child abusers as we currently define child abuse), and a very high percentage of reported abuse (in the study I quoted, 74% of cases) is perpetrated by a het man involved with the child’s relatives. Children raised by lesbians and gay men are less likely to have these het men in thier lives with opportunity to abuse. I suppose that if the likelihood that a gay man will abuse children is the same as the likelihood that a straight man will, then being raised by two gay men doesn’t afford a kid any protection. But we don’t have any data – that I know of – that looks at the safety of kids being raised in households headed by gay men.
Importantly, though, the kind of study quoted by RJN in the OP helps to debunk the verrrrry commonly-asserted claim that a tiny proportion of adults (i.e., queer people) are responsible for a disproportionate amount of child molestation, and therefore gay people deserve no rights and should be kept away from children.
My ow n curiosity w/r/t the increased lesbian/bi % girls:
Are those % the same people who would otherwise declare as lesbian/bi later in life? I suppose we can’t know unless this study follows them for another couple of decades. But I’m curious to know whether this is best described as “earlier identification of fixed tendencies,” “effect of lesbian parenting on malleable tendencies,” or somewhere in the middle.
because given where hings stand now it seems like that question is going to be pretty relevant, for good or bad, in the gay rights debate. A lot of stuff supporting gay rights has emphasized that “education” and “promotion” are different things, while anti-gay folk take the opposite side.
Obviously there’s no particular reason to care whether “promotion” and “education” are similar unless you also care whether someone ends up straight, gay, or bi. But no matter whether it makes sense, that’s how the debate has been framed for a while and I’m not sure this study will help.
Actually, I didn’t see that the study found an increase in daugters IDing as lesbians, just an increase in daughers IDing as bisexual and engaging in same-gender sex.
Personally (without any citations whatsoever to back this up), I think our heteronormative society takes a lot of people who are *truely* bisexual in orientation and makes them act/identify as if they were much farther to the straight ends of the kinsey spectrum. If you’re bi, society makes it a lot harder for you to act on homo attraction than het attraction, and a lot easier to identify (even to yourself) as straight. I think that’s actually one of the societal purposes of all the heterosexuality-is-natural-and-beautiful messaging we get as kids.
I also think there’s a certain percentage of people who are so far to the “queer” ends of the spectrum that no amount of social engineering could change them enough to allow them to pass as straight.
I suspect that lesbian parents raise a proportional number of kids on the far ends of the spectrum (i.e., strongly queer or straight), but that some of their kids in the middle feel more comfortable with exploring that middle ground because they are more familiar with same-gender romantic relations. It’d be interesting to compare these families (if you could) with straight but queer-affirmative families. I expect this’d be a trend that would persist their entire lives . . . these kids will be more comfortable than others with claiming and acting on their middle-ground sexuality for ever.
Whether you see this as OK or really, really terrible will depend on your value set, of course . . . and whether you see homosexual behavior as a reflection of a true internal sexual orientation or not.
On the other hand, isn’t it correct that the increased chance of abuse is for a male unrelated to the child (i.e., Mom’s boyfriend) who has not been in a parental role with the child from a very early age? I could swear that I had read that stepdads who were ‘daddy’ from a child’s birth (or close to it) had almost no increased likelihood of abuse over a biological dad; it’s the people who are only part of the child’s life later on because of the relationship with their mother that are at increased risk.
marmalade, you seem to be conflating “child abuse” with “the sexual abuse of children” in this sentence. The figures you refer to are specifically discussing sexual abuse. A British study indicated that children are more likely to have been physically abused by their mothers than any other relative. This of course includes all kinds of physical abuse, and not just sexual abuse. And, when you consider that mothers spend a great deal more time around their children than anyone else, it’s not exactly shocking. (Mothers may even abuse children at a lower ‘rate’ once you take the time factor into account.) However, assuming this British study is valid and has been accurately presented, it does call into question the ‘women are safe parents, men are risky parents’ impression that some people convey (perhaps unwittingly).
Thanks, Ballgame. I was wondering about whether I’d misremembered the stat you’re quoting. It’s good to have it here.
ballgame – you’re absolutely right. Thank you for the catch.