Sexual developmental histories of adolescents who engaged in harmful sexual behaviour

ABSTRACT

Researchers have demonstrated a range of factors that are associated with adolescents who engage in problematic or harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) including adverse childhood experiences, disruptive family organisation, poor attachment or attachment style deficits, social isolation, and substance abuse. There is, however, a paucity of research examining sexual development histories in adolescent males who have engaged in HSB. This study describes the sexual developmental histories that precede such behaviour, of 277 adolescent males who were referred for assessment of HSB in New Zealand (NZ). It informs the realities of practice and directs us to the need for research examining the patterns of early sexual development so as to identify possible risk factors and pathways for concerning sexual behaviour.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescent
• harmful sexual behaviour
• problematic sexual behaviour
• sexual development
• sexual developmental histories

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the STOP organisation of New Zealand for allowing access to their file information. This research was funded by a James Hume Bequest Fund, Dunedin School of Medicine and by a Marsden Grant (15-UOO-061) from the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See Seto and Lalumiere (2010, p. 554) for limitations of their study. Specifically, that it is not clear whether the studies included in their meta-analysis counted experiences of CSA in their descriptions of first sexual intercourse.

2. Formally known as Child, Youth and Family, Ministry of Social Development, NZ.

3. a number of clients identified as more than one ethnicity.

4. In NZ the legal age for consent to sexual intercourse for females is 16, therefore it is deemed an offense for a male over 16 to have sexual intercourse with a female under the age of 16 (Crimes Act 1961 (NZ) s128(2)). For the purposes of this descriptive study all consensual sexual intercourse experiences both under and over the age of 16 were included as ‘consensual’ if they were peer to peer experiences (i.e. similar age) and were described as consensual.

5. Age at first CSA was missing for 4 clients. Seven clients were reported to have experienced CSA “before” the age of 5 yrs therefore the purposes of calculation of mean age of these were included as 5-year-olds.

6. Age at first exposure was missing for 9 clients. 15 clients were reported to have been first exposed to other’s sexual behaviours “before” the age of 5 yrs therefore for purposes of calculation of mean age these were included as 5-year-olds.

7. 7 clients were described as having viewed their first pornography at some time “before” the age of 5 yrs. For purposes of calculation of mean age these were included as 5-year-olds.