THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Tuesday, May 9, 1995

1 out of every 2 girls a victim, study says
By Carol Sowers

Your daughter is fair game in Arizona.

Before she reaches 18, she has more than a 50 percent chance of being molested, according to a new joint study by the Arizona Family Planning Council and Arizona State University.

The average age for a girl to be touched inappropriately, pressured into having sex or raped, is only 14.

A total of 52 percent of the 2,003 young women surveyed said they had experienced some sort of sexual molestation. Twenty-three percent said they had been raped.

Boyfriends, husbands and authority figures were the most common abusers, followed by relatives and strangers.

"This is appalling," said patricia Jo Angelini, "Our young women are extremely vulnerable. We are failing them."

Angelini said society somehow expects teen-agers to "magically protect themselves from these advances, but women 20 and 30 years old can't do it."

The same survey also says that 40 percent of Arizona's teen-age girls agree to sex on a first date and nearly one-quarter voluntarily have sex with strangers. The high numbers suprised researchers, who concluded that campaigns to steer teens from dangerous sexual practices are failing.

The women, surveyed in universities, junior colleges, and health-care sites in rural and urban areas statewide, were ages 18-22, and were asked to recall their prior sexual experiences.

The sample of 2,003 represents 10 percent of the population of that age group and is statisically large enough to fairly represent all ethnic groups, said Mark Roosa, ASU professor of family resource and human development.

--see GIRLS, page A8

He said he was surprised to find that young women of all ethnic groups surveyed--Anglo, Hispanic, Native American, and African-American--reported almost the same amounts of sexual abuse.

"Those numbers show that sexual abuse cuts across all ethnic lines," Roosa said.

Four to 5 percent in each group said they had been coerced into having sex through peer pressure or non-violent threats.

One survey question asked women if they agreed to sex because their boyfriends threatened to break up with them.

Another asked whether the women submitted because their boyfriends told them, "Everyone's doing it," or, "I'll die if you don't."

Such threats amount to "intimidation and emotional threats (to minors), and that is very serious," Angelini said.

Susan Madison of the Center Against Sexual Abuse, said it is unclear whether sexual abuse is becoming more frequent, or whether more cases are being reported.

In any case, the reasons are the standard ones that grow out of a society that teaches its daughters to be passive and its sons to be aggressive, she said.

Add to that the powerful influences of sex and violence on television and in movies, Madison said.

The center tries to combat those messages by holding five-hour workshops for students from seventh-grade through university age, telling them they have the power to resist unwanted sexual advances. The workshops are held for both sexes.

Madison, who heads the center's Powerful Outcomes Within Every Relationship program, said more and more boys are complaining that they are being sexually harassed in school by girls. Some girls are demanding sex, even becoming violent by slamming them into lockers and fondling them.

As a result, they also need to learn to say "no and mean it," Madison said.

Statistics show that one in five young men is sexually abused before age 18.

Madison warns young men and women to avoid drugs and alcohol on dates so they can stay in control and not be lured into unwanted advances.

And she discounts the warning that girls in provocative clothes invite rape, saying that their surveys indicate otherwise.

"More girls are raped wearing jeans than in sexy clothes," she said.