Topic says it all. I’d also like to know how reliable the numbers reported are. Wouldn’t a significant amount of victims lie about this out of shame, denial or plain old fear of awakening dark memories?
I have never had a female friend or female relative who has not been sexually abused 
I’m sure there are many aquaintances who have not been abused, but every female i’ve ever been close too has been.
Can’t recall the %, but I do recall that the majority were abused by family members.
I personally have never believed any of the statistics I have read or heard on the television specials or news. I think it comes down to what you believe to be sexual abuse.
According to Dictionary.com sexual abuse is:
So, would a 12 year old boy grabbing a 12 year olds behind be considered sexual abuse? Or how about the 15 year old male who has consensual sex with an 18 year old girl? I remember when I was really young some boy pulled down my pants (nothing else happened). I have seen news reports stating that there have been arrests for situations like that, but I never considered myself to be a victim of sexual abuse. So personally, I really think all numbers are biased or exxagerated to some extent. Granted, there are legitimate examples and I am not taking away from them (true abusers, rapists, molesters should be put away forever, castrated, etc.).
If you just want statistics, I am sure you can get a hundred different percentages and statistics if you want them, and all of them will be debated here.
:dubious: And I’ve only had one who was.
Or one who said that they were. Still think it is a hard question to answer.
I’ve had one who wasn’t.
We could go on like this for days, but it won’t really tell us anything. Perhaps **towlie **and I live in an area where child abuse is more likely. Perhaps we attract people who feel we’re “safe” and can be confided in. Perhaps we hang out in social circles where being a “victim” is attractive, and people exaggerate or lie, or those who aren’t victims leave the social group (honestly, I think this last is true of my social group.) Perhaps it’s just a statistical anomoly.
And I agree that there is no way to get clean numbers for this question. For the reasons already stated - some kids won’t tell, others make shit up, the definitions aren’t clear, some families may know, but never tell a census taker or doctor.
The only anwer to the OP is “too high a percentage, that’s how many.”
The reason that I know about all of my relatives is because my own sexual abuse came out. I was abused by two male relatives. One was just molestation, the other was actual intercourse. When mine came out, all of my female relatives started telling me about there own abuse, including my grandma who had never talked about it before.
As for my friends, I told a “friend” what was going on and she proceeded to tell a bunch of other people, so lots of people at my school knew. It was then that my friends started telling me about what was happening to them. We were still pretty young and didnt know what to do, so we just stopped talking about it and the years went by.
One of my aunts was abused by her mother, yuck. And one male relative was also abused by his mother.
So I have also never believed the statistics of how many are abused, i think its significantly higher.
According to that site:
It goes on to say that out of the 11.9 per 1000 that were abused, 10% of those were abused sexually (sorry, I could not cut and paste for some reason).
So according to this cite, around 12 out of every 1000 people are victims of abuse, and 10% of them are sexual abuse, so around 1.19 out of every 1000 people are victims of sexual abuse?
This is what I was saying about statistics. There is no way this can be right, at least IMO. I guarantee there is a statistic out there that could show much higher numbers.
• The most extensive study of child sexual abuse in Canada was conducted by the Committee on Sexual Offences Against Children and Youths. Its report indicates that, among adult Canadians, 53 percent of women and 31 percent of men were sexually abused when they were children.
This is what I found on there. I could see this being true.
53% of women were sexually abused as children? This is very hard to believe. Maybe the definitions were inflated by including girls in the 14-18 age range who had sex with men in the 18-25 range?
FormerMarineGuy, those statistics are for a given year. So the implication is that 1.19 in 1000 are victims in that year. Further statistical analysis would need to be done to see how many were victims at some time in their childhood. If there were no repeats (highly unlikely, but it gives a possible upper bound) 1.19 x 18 = 21.4.
Sorry, I did not think about that. I guess I am too quick just to dismiss statistics on sexual abuse in general. So, I am wrong when it comes to the numbers/percentages.
Even so (and not trying to defend my error), I still think it is something that is so hard to pinpoint a number on. You have false accusations, people that would never admit they were wrong, and what is classified as sexual abuse.
Once again, sorry for my error everybody! :wally
Another thing to consider is that many people now define a spanking to be abuse – even sexual abuse. More people define a spanking in which the bottom is bared to be sexual abuse. By that standard the vast majority (or at least a goodly number depending on which definition one uses) of kids I knew growing up were (sexually) abused. I don’t think anyone thought of it as that back then though. This would be in the 50s.