Girls' sexual development in the inner city: from compelled childhood sexual contact to sex-for-things exchanges.

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) has been linked to a wide variety of adverse psychological and behavioral outcomes. This paper describes girls' sexual development in the inner city based on qualitative material from a long-term ethnographic (observational) study. For many inner-city girls, early and then continued experiences of being compelled to have sex were found to be part of a pathway leading to independent sexuality that often involved prostitution, teen pregnancy, early motherhood, school dropout, limited involvement with jobs, drug abuse, multiple children by different fathers and single-parent families. Quotes from respondents illustrate the mechanics of this process and how it is sustained by the deprivations of structural disadvantage, prevailing subcultural norms, violence and illicit drug use.