NCJ Number
102277
Journal
American Journal of Psychiatry Volume: 141 Issue: 5 Dated: (May 1984) Pages: 656-662
Date Published
1984
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Approximately three-fourths of a sample of 66 children and adolescents exploited by adults in sex rings and pornography manifested negative psychological and social adjustment after the rings were exposed.
Abstract
Subjects were involved with 14 adults in 11 rings exposed by criminal justice authorities between 1978 and 1981. Children and their parents who agreed to participate in the study 2 years after the rings' exposure were administered semistructured interviews that permitted clinical assessments of the impact of the sexual abuse on the subjects' psychological and social adjustment. Response patterns included event integration, which consisted of mastery of the anxiety about the abuse; event avoidance, which involved sealing off anxiety about the event; symptom repetition, which consisted of acute posttraumatic stress disorder; and identification with the exploiter, which involved assimilation of the anxiety by impersonating the aggressor. Subjects who integrated the abuse had spent the least time in the ring and were least likely to have been involved in pornography. More than 61 percent of the subjects had been ring members for more than 1 year, and just over one-half had been used in pornographic photographs. Clinicians should be alert to the possibility of sex ring or pornography involvement among children who manifest sexual anxiety, gender confusion, avoidance behaviors, acting-out behaviors, or antisocial behaviors such as drug and alcohol abuse. 1 table and 12 references.