Description: This word often will be used to describe as unwanted, as volitional pedosexual contacts. Thus, to use this notion can lead to misunderstanding. The notion unwanted sexual contact seems to be more accurate, because it avoids this misunderstanding. But sexual abuse is much more common, and if it will be used to describe coerced, forced, unwanted sexual contacts, it seems correct.
To describe as volitional, as unwanted contacts, the neutral notion pedosexual contact is used here.
Some details about sexual abuse questionaires and statements from scientists show that this definition is at least not uncommon in the scientific community:
But there is also a lot of research which uses a definition of sexual abuse which includes volitional sexual contacts.
Intra- and extrafamilar sexual abuse history was assessed with the Sexual Abuse Exposure Questionaire. This self-report measure inquires about 10 unwanted sexual experiences, ranging from genital exposure to intercourse, that the subject may have experienced before the age of 16 with a person 5 or more years older. In response to each item, subjects endorse "yes," "no," or "not sure".
[...] Good trauma-related construct validity has been demonstrated (see Ryan S.W., Rodriguez N., Rowan A., Foy D.W.: Psychometric analysis of the Sexual Abuse Exposure Questionaire (SAEQ), in Proceedings of the 100th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC, APA, 1992) (Rorty 1994)
As discussed in Pope and Hudson's review, the definitions used for sexual abuse have varied among studies. In some, the definitions have included experiences that did not involve physical contact with the subject. The definition used for this study was any sexual experience involving physical contact that was against the subject's will; it therefore included the subject being touched or being made to touch the abuser in any sexual way, including oral sex and rape.
(Welch & Fairburn 1994, p.404)
The term sexual abuse is commonly used to describe a wide range of sexual experiences. The same term is used to describe certain kinds of consensual experiences in addition to non-consensual experiences of greater or lesser severity.
We must conclude, therefore, that the term "sexual abuse" as currently used is not very useful. In research, social work, and the legal system, it would be better to use a descriptive terminology which more reflects the nature of the relationship and the sexual acts occuring within it. Such usage would also do better justice to those involved.
See also