{"id":11656,"date":"2010-11-11T19:12:15","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T02:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=11656"},"modified":"2010-11-11T19:12:15","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T02:12:15","slug":"longest-running-study-of-same-sex-parented-families-in-this-case-planned-lesbian-families-yields-very-interesting-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=11656","title":{"rendered":"Longest-Running Study of Same-Sex Parented Families–in This Case, Planned Lesbian Families–Yields Very Interesting Results"},"content":{"rendered":"

The study<\/a>, which was published in the\u00a0\ufeffArchives of Sexual Behavior<\/a><\/em>, appears\u00a0to 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.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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:<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\ufefflesbian-headed households may protect children and adolescents from these types of assault.<\/em> (My emphasis)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted on <\/em>The Poetry in the Politics and The Politics in The Poetry<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The study, which was published in the\u00a0\ufeffArchives of Sexual Behavior, appears\u00a0to 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,96,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lesbian-gay-bi-trans-and-queer-issues","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}