Despite assumptions to the contrary, organized sports is not an oasis where the safety and well-being of children are always assured. The largely unregulated world of children's sport has typically been slow to address the issue of sexual abuse of youth athletes. While sexual abuse of girls in sports has received some attention, the issue of the abuse of boys in sports has largely not appeared on the radar screen of most youth sports organizations.

Sobering statistics

Statistics on child sexual abuse (CSA) are generally viewed as unreliable, primarily because so many cases go unreported. While recent studies suggest a gradual decline in the victimization of children in the United States, including sexual abuse, the authors of a 2006 journal article concluded that "by almost any standard, levels of child victimization, even after the declines, are still disturbingly high."

The statistics are sobering:

• A 1987 study of 153 non-incarcerated paedophiles reported that they each had sexually abused an average of 150 boys;

• According to Sheldon Kennedy, police estimated that Graham James, the former Canadian ice hockey coach convicted in 1997 for sexually abusing him, may have molested between 75 and 150 other boys while he was a coach, manager and scout.

• A 2002 Australian study of athletes at the club and elite level reported that 31% of female and 21% of male athletes had been sexually abused at some time in their lives. Of these, 41% of females, and 29% of males reported sexual abuse within the sports environment. The authors concluded that the chances of an elite athlete being sexually abused were about fifty-fifty; for athletes at the club level, the chances were still one in four.

• While institutional abuse represents only 3% of CSA cases overall, over half of such cases occur in community settings, including sports-related contexts, and individual cases often involve large numbers of children. Of 91 convicted sex offenders interviewed for a 1995 study, more than half (53%) claimed to have recruited children and their families by offering "to play games with the children, or teach them a sport, or how to play a musical instrument."

• A 2000 study found that, where perpetrators were held in high-esteem by the local community, children faced additional difficulties in resisting and disclosing the abuse, a finding of particular significance to the sports context in which high-profile cases of sexual abuse have often involved coaches with enviable coaching records and who were generally held in high regard

• Anecdotal evidence suggests that youth sports organizations sometimes fail to act on disclosures of sexual abuse in order to protect their reputation or cover up for the lack of proper safeguards.

Boys to men

In order to be successful in the hetero-patriarchal culture of sports, boys are expected to be man-like and adopt "manly" qualities such as bravery, aggression, stoicism and risk-taking. As a result, the distinction between adult and child often becomes blurred and subject to negotiation.

Boys are expected to "suck it up," "shrug off" injuries and "take it like a man." Such expressions, ostensibly intended to encourage resolve in the face of adversity or physical discomfort, can and often are utilized instead to coerce many boys into participating in all manner of exploitative practices, such as hazing rituals.

At the same time boys are encouraged to be pseudo-men they are still viewed as children, and, as such, subject to adult control and authority. That they are without a voice makes them particularly vulnerable to abuse.

Locker rooms & the code of silence

The importance of the locker room in male sports borders on the sacred. Unwritten protocol demands that what is seen and heard in a locker room go no further. If a mother complains, for instance, about the physically aggressive manner in which her young son's coach was treating him, she is likely to be told not to mention what goes on in the locker room if she wants her son to succeed in that sport.

The adage "What goes on tour, stays on tour" applies to many sport environments as a general rule, not only to away-game trips or social excursions. Thus, aside from the fact that normal changing room activities include many that appeal to sexual abusers, the locker room environment, indeed the sports club environment in general, facilitates sexual abuse by promoting the silence that an abuser needs in order to engage in abuse without being detected.

Treating children as commodities

The use of punitive measures in the training/coaching of boys is commonplace within many, if not all, sport, which all too often fail to look at what is best for the child. Instead of being child-centered, youth sports is adult-centered with adults treating children as objects or tools in the pursuit of their own ends and with little regard for the long-term well-being of the child.

The treatment of children as commodities is as rampant in organized sport as any other field of social practice. Corporate enterprise shows little sign of reducing its interest in sport in general and in individual athletes touted as the next Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods or Mia Hamm. In the process the tendency is to ignore or trivialize the welfare of children.

A few rotten apples or the entire culture?

The vast majority of prevention and intervention programs focus on sexual abuse by males on females. Given the dominant importance of masculinity in male sport, it is not surprising that many within sport (as well as beyond sport) do not even believe that boys are sexually abused in sports — at least not real (sport-) boys.

While some sport organizations and bodies across the world have accepted that a "few bad apples" may have infiltrated the ranks of sport in order to abuse children, widespread recognition and acceptance of the fact that it is often the very fabric and milieu of organized sport that constitutes part of the problem seems some way off.

Editor's Note: This article is a summary of a recent journal article: Hartill, M., "The sexual abuse of boys in organized male-sports." Men and Masculinities (February 2008). To order a copy of the complete article, go to http://jmm.sagepub.com

_____________________________________
Mike Hartill is a lecturer in the Department of Sport and Physical Activity at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire, England, and has written frequently on sexual abuse of boys in sports. He can be reached at hartillm@edgehill.ac.uk. He is particularly interested in hearing from men who may have experienced sexual abuse in sport.

Author: Mike Hartill
Date created: March 10, 2008
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