Abstract
Sexual self-efficacy—the belief in one’s ability to engage in desired and to refuse unwanted, sexual activities and behaviors—is an important feature in promoting adolescent sexual health and well-being. One factor that may affect the development of sexual self-efficacy is child sexual abuse. However, little is known about the processes underlying the relation between child sexual abuse and sexual self-efficacy. Using longitudinal data from a sample of 739 adolescent girls and boys aged between 14 and 18 years, we examined the mediational role of two “silencing the self” attitudes and behaviors in romantic relationships—self-silencing, i.e., inhibiting fulfilling one’s own needs, and divided self, i.e., presenting an outer compliant self—in the associations between child sexual abuse severity and two dimensions of sexual self-efficacy: the ability to set clear sexual limits and the ability to use sexual protection. Results of path analysis showed that child sexual abuse severity was associated with more self-silencing and more divided self. In turn, self-silencing was associated with lower protection use self-efficacy, whereas divided self was associated with lower limit-setting and protection use self-efficacy. Thus, self-silencing strategies in romantic relationships mediated the associations between child sexual abuse severity and lower sexual self-efficacy. The overall findings may inform the development of prevention/intervention programs that target the enhancement of an integrated sense of self in intimate relationships to promote assertive strategies in sexual situations.
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The authors would like to thank Manon Robichaud and Catherine Moreau for their assistance with data collection and management of the data bank.
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This research project was supported by a Grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) awarded to Martine Hébert (CIHR # TIR103944), and this study was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) awarded to Marie-Pier Vaillancourt-Morel.
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Vaillancourt-Morel, MP., Bergeron, S., Blais, M. et al. Longitudinal Associations Between Childhood Sexual Abuse, Silencing the Self, and Sexual Self-Efficacy in Adolescents. Arch Sex Behav 48, 2125–2135 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01494-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01494-z