It is difficult to determine how common child sexual abuse is. It is often more secret than physical abuse. Also, the way we define sexual abuse can affect the number of people who have experienced this. Surveys of college-aged women show that 20% to 30% have had a negative sexual experience. However, most of these experiences are relatively minor, such as a man exposing his genitals to an unsuspecting woman. These types of experiences are less likely to have a significant psychological impact. The best estimate is that about 10% to 12% of women have been significantly abused. Estimating the rates of significant abuse in males is even more difficult for a few reasons. The secrecy around this issues is usually greater, and males rarely reveal abuse before age 16. The rate of significant abuse of males is about 6% to 8%, somewhat lower than that for females. Abusers are usually males and usually know the child or youth who is abused. This is the case in 80% of youth cases and over 90% in younger children. The abuser violating the trust of the younger person makes sexual abuse even more psychologically devastating. Child sexual abuse occurs in all social and economic classes of people, but it has the same type of risk factors as physical child abuse, including poverty, disordered families and abuse of alcohol and street drugs. Abusers were often physically or sexually abused themselves. A small group of repeated abusers suffer from the psychiatric disorder of pedophilia, in which the preferred sexual contact is with children.
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