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Prevalence of Pedosexual Contacts

How prevalent are sexual contacts between adults and children? There has been a lot of research in this domain, but, unfortunately, the uncertainty in the definition makes a lot of this research invalid.

Results vary in wide ranges - from 8% to 62% for girls and 3% to 22% for boys. There are some general prevalence studies, but a lot of data can be extracted also from other research.

women/boys: 3%, 16%, 15%, 15%,
men/boys: 8%, 4%, 4%,
boys: 16%, 3.5%, 4%, <3% (forcible), 3%, 14%, 16% 6% 13%
girls: 24%, 11.5%, 20% (2% intercourse), 27%, 13.3% (forced) 49% 13% 32%

from Rind et.al. 1998

The percent of subjects that had experienced CSA ranged from 6% to 36% for males and from 14% to 51% for females. The percents varied so widely because the definitions of CSA in the studies also varied widely. Excluding two studies that had definitions that seemed overly broad (for example, including willing sexual experiences with siblings as CSA), the percents ranged from 6% to 15% for males with an average of 11% and from 14% to 28% for females with an average of 19%. Thus, at the present time the best available estimates for the prevalence of CSA are 11% for males and 19% for females.

Table 1
Attributes of Seven Studies Using National Probability Samples to Examine Psychological Correlates of Child Sexual Abuse

Study	Population of Interference	Data gathering^a	Definition Of CSA^b	Sample Size^c		CSA Prevalence^d		Response Rate
Study	Population of Interference	Data gathering^a	Definition Of CSA^b	Males	Females	Males	Females	Response Rate
Badgley et al. (1984)	Canada Ages 18+	SAQ	Any unwanted sex; C, NC	1002	1006	31%	53%	94%
Baker & Duncan (1985)	Great Britt. Ages 15+	FTF	<16 ("sexually mature"); C,NC	834	923	9%	14%	87%
Bigler (1992)	US: ages 30 to 55	Mail	<18 (5+,family or coerced); C,NC	140	174	36%	51%	33%
Boney-McCoy & Finkelhor (1995)	US: ages 10 to 16	Tele	Any unwanted Sex; C, NC	987	911	6%	15%	72%
Finkelhor et al. (1989)	US: Ages 18+	Tele	<19; any sex now seen as SA; C,NC	1142	1476	15%	28%	76%
Laumann et al. (1994)	US: ages 18 to 59	FTF	<puberty (past puberty); C only	1311	1608	12%	17%	79%
López et al.	Spain Ages 18 to 60	FTF SAQ	< 17 (5+, or coercion); C, NC	462	433	15%	22%	82%

FTF=face to face interviews; SAQ=self-administered questionaires; Mail=mail survey; Tele=telephone survey
Ages qualifying as "child" given first; in parentheses, ages for other person and any other conditions; C=contact sex, NC=noncontact sexual experience
Includes number of respondents used in data analyses in studies assessing adjustment; otherwise, indicates number of actual participants
Based on actual number of respondents who participated.

Prevalence of volitional pedosexual contacts

With the data available here, the optimal way to obtain an estimate for the prevalence of volitional pedosexual contacts seems to be to guess which part of the contacts is volitional. For this purpose, data about reaction may be used.

Other literature

Anderson et al. 1993