Risin and Koss (33) surveyed 2972 male college students and found that 216 (7.3 percent) met one of their three criteria for sexual
abuse (age discrepancy between child and perpetrator, use of coercion, or perpetrator who was a care giver or authority figure).
Their definition was very broad, and included some consensual activities with adolescent females. The abusive behaviors ranged from
exhibition to penetration. They report that there were almost as many female perpetrators (42.7 percent) as male (53.3 percent), with
a small proportion involving both a male and a female together (4.2 percent). Almost half of the female perpetrators were adolescent
babysitters. Almost half of the boys involved with female perpetrators reported that they participated in the incidents voluntarily and
did not feel victimized. The authors note that this suggests qualitatively different experiences were tapped in this study compared to
other surveys.

Fromuth and Burkhart (34) surveyed 582 men from two colleges and found that, depending upon the definition of childhood sexual abuse,
prevalence rates varied from 4 percent to 24 percent being defined as abused. The majority (78 percent and 72 percent in the
(two samples) of the perpetrators of sexual abuse were females. They also found that, compared to women in college survey studies, men
are less likely to perceive childhood sexual experiences as abusive, which is consistent with the Risen and Koss (33) survey. It may be
that women perceive such experiences as sexual violation, while men perceive them as sexual initiation. Male socialization encourages men
to define sexual experiences as desirable as long as there is no homosexual involvement. The authors emphasize the need to consider how
sexual abuse is defined, particularly in studies of male victims.

Finkelhor, on the other hand, found much smaller proportions of female perpetrators in his student samples. Only 6 percent of college women
and 16 percent of college males who reported childhood abuse indicated that the perpetrator was a woman. His survey using
a community sample of residents from Boston yielded similar figures: none of the women and 15 percent of men reporting childhood abuse indicated
that a woman was the perpetrator (6).

A small percentage of female perpetrators was also found by Russell (18) who states that her sample of 930 women only reported ten cases of
incestuous abuse by females. The perpetrators included a biological mother, three sisters, three first cousins and three more distant relatives.
These ten relatives constituted only five percent of all incest perpetrators and affected only one percent of the 930 women interviewed. The
percentage of female perpetrators of extrafamilial child sexual abuse was four percent. Russell's survey provides no information on the frequency
with which females abuse males.

The necessity of considering differences in the type of sample and research method is demonstrated by contrasting the above studies to those reported
by Reinhart (35), who found that only four percent of 189 boy victims were alleged to be abused by females and Farber et al. (36), who reported
that only two percent of 162 children (half boys and half girls) were sexually abused by a female acting alone (six percent were abused by both a male
and a female). Both Reinhart and Farber et al. used clinical as opposed to college samples and their studies were of current cases in a hospital
as opposed to a retrospective survey. Neither study is clear as to how the abuse was substantiated.

A still smaller percentage of female perpetrators was found by Rowan, Rowan and Langelier (37), who report that only nine (1.5 percent) of 600 sex
offenders referred for evaluations were females. This study, however, was on sex offenders rather than on victims. The previous studies
focused on victims.

The necessity of specifying the sample and methodology is also shown by contrasting the Fromuth and Burkhart (34) and the Risen and Koss (33)
retrospective surveys of college males to a report by Johnson and Shrier (38) on eleven cases of molestation in a community based sample of
adolescent male outpatients. Eight of these boys experienced the molestation as intensely traumatic. The female molesters were usually acquaintances
of the victims — most often a neighbor, babysitter, or other trusted older adolescent or young adult. All but one of the female molesters used
persuasion rather than physical force or threats and three-quarters of the female molesters attempted to get their victims to ejaculate, and nearly
half succeeded. Johnson and Shrier therefore conclude that childhood sexual victimization of boys by women as well as men is a high risk and
traumatic experience. In contrast, the two college surveys indicate that many men did not feel victimized by the experience.

Studies using prison samples show high percentages of men reporting childhood sexual experiences with older women. Groth (6) found that 51 percent
of a sample of sex offenders had been molested when they were young and of these, 25 percent had been by a female. Petrovich and Templer (39)
found that 59 percent of 83 convicted rapists reported heterosexual experiences before the age of 16 with a female at least five years older. The
authors stated that they did not know whether this high rate was a function of low socioeconomic status, being rapists, being sex criminals more
generally, or being criminals in general.

Condy, Templer, Brown and Veaco (40) surveyed 359 male college students and 212 male prison inmates concerning childhood heterosexual contact.
Of the male prisoners, 46 percent reported early sexual contact. This differed by offense with 57 percent of the rapists, 37 percent of the child molesters
and 47 percent of the nonsexual offenders reporting such contact. In contrast, only 16 percent of the college students reported childhood sexual contact
with a woman. Both the prisoners and college men reported more good feelings than bad at the time of the incident and, with the exception of the
child molesters, the experience was regarded as having more of a good than a bad effect on their adult sex lives.

In every category for the subjects who reported sexual contact with a female, intercourse was involved in at least half of the sexual encounters. In only
a minority of the cases did the female force the boy. In fact, in a large proportion of the cases, the male reported initiating the activity. The distribution
for the ages at which the boys first became involved was skewed toward the higher ages; the median age was 13 and the mode was 15.
Condy et al. speculate thatthe nature of these contacts could be more characterized by an extension of the lower end of the age distribution for adult
male-female sexual relationships, in contrast to what ordinarily occurs when the molester is a male. Also, although prepubescent vaginal size would make
penile penetrationof a girl by an adult male difficult, the prepubescent penile size would actually be less difficult with a young boy and a woman.

These higher percentages reported in prison populations could be due to many factors, such as lower socioeconomic status and higher sociopathy.
However, it could also be due to a possible tendency, as discussed earlier, for a prisoner to report being sexually abused when this has
actually not happened. At anyrate, data from prison populations cannot be generalized to the population at large.

Bolton, Morris and MacEachron (41) conclude that male perpetrators far exceed female perpetrators of child sexual abuse. They observe, however,
that the interest in studying female offenders has increased markedly in the past few years and note that no matter how the differing rates
found inthe various studies are explained, the fact remains that females are sometimes perpetrators.