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Does sexual abuse in childhood cause pedophilia: An exploratory study
Abstract
The reliability of the notion that pedophilia is caused by sexual abuse in childhood was explored by examining retrospective self-reports of 344 males. Included in the study were 77 heterosexual pedophiles, 54 homosexual pedophiles, 51 nonpedophilic sex offenders against children, 36 sex offenders against physically mature females, 75 heterosexual paid volunteers who erotically preferred mature females, and 51 homosexual clients who preferred mature males. For each sex offender the differential diagnosis of an erotic preference for minors vs. a preference for physically mature partners was made by means of the phallometric test of erotic gender and age preferences. The analysis of self-reports confirmed that the proportion of pedophiles who report having been sexually abused in childhood by mature persons is larger than that of men who were not charged for or accused of a sex offense against a child though the difference is relatively small (28.6 vs. 13.9 and 10.7% for the heterosexual pedophiles and the two groups of gynephiles, respectively, and 25.9 vs. 11.8% for the homosexual pedophiles and androphiles, respectively). Further analysis demonstrated, however, that pedophiles who admitted having an erotic interest in children significantly more often claimed that they had been sexually abused as children than pedophiles who did not admit having such feelings. This interdependence renders the reliability of these self-reports questionable.
... Emotional trauma and familial dysfunction was a common factor amongst paedophiles and rapists, whilst childhood sexual abuse was a unique factor with paedophiles. This is consistent with what was previously reported by Freund, Watson and Dickey (1990), who reported that paedophiles were more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse. Simons, Wurtele, and Durham (2008) noted that child sexual abusers experienced more frequent exposure to sexual abuse as a child and pornography, and that rapists were less likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse. ...
... While it is difficult to generalise the results to adult offenders, the study does support a developmental aspect to sexual offending. Given that the previous studies identified a link between the type of early trauma and nature of sexual offending (Freund et al., 1990;Lee et al., 2002;Simons et al., 2008), it is possible that the heterogeneity of sexual offending is the result of a variety of early traumatic or negative experiences. However, it is important to note that although young females are most often the victims of sexual abuse, they are the least likely to commit a similar offence (Arata, 2002). ...
... Empirical evidence for the abused-abuser hypothesis comes from multiple studies that found higher rates of own sexually abusive experiences during childhood among individuals who have committed sexual offenses against children compared to persons who have not committed sexually motivated offenses or persons who have sexually offended against adults (Jespersen et al., 2009;Seto & Lalumière, 2010;Whitaker et al., 2008). Furthermore, there seems to be a specific link in participants who are categorized as being pedophilic: persons who reported being sexually abused in childhood show more indicators of pedosexual interests compared to participants who did not report having been abused as a child (Becker et al., 1992;Craissati et al., 2002;Fedoroff & Pinkus, 1996;Freund et al., 1990;Hunter & Becker, 1994;Lee et al., 2002). For example, Nunes et al. (2013) showed that in a sample of 462 male persons convicted of CSA those who had been sexually abused before the age of 16 showed more indicators of pedosexual interests than those who had not been abused. ...
In the literature concerning the etiology of pedosexual interests, the potential role of early sexual experiences in childhood and adolescence has been discussed. Several studies demonstrated a link between own sexually abusive experiences in childhood and sexual offending later in life which tends to be even stronger for pedosexual offenders. Furthermore, some findings indicate associations between other developmental factors and deviant sexual interests in adulthood. For the present study, sexual biographical data of N = 223 imprisoned men convicted of sexual offenses against children from Austria was analyzed to retrospectively examine whether own sexually abusive experiences and non-abusive forms of early sexual experiences and behaviors are linked to subsequent pedosexual interests and to sexual recidivism. Previous findings concerning the link between own sexually abusive experiences during childhood and subsequent pedosexual interests could partly be replicated. Furthermore, early masturbation behavior characteristics as well as non-abusive prepubescent sexual experiences were linked to indicators of pedosexual interests and also to sexual recidivism. Exclusively pedophilic men showed the strongest accumulation of early sexual experiences and behaviors. Implications of the findings for theory and risk assessment are discussed.
... A study by Lang and Langevin (1991) did not find higher rates of sexual victimisation among sex offenders with a phallometrically-diagnosed attraction towards children than those who had a sexual preference for adults. The results of a series of studies by Freund (Freund & Kuban, 1994;Freund, Watson, & Dickey, 1990) are also equivocal. Even if the findings were in keeping with the prediction, this would not offer strong corroboration of the theory, because other theories (e.g. ...
Male children who are sexually abused may be at heightened risk of sexually abusing others. However, by no means every victim becomes a perpetrator, which suggests that other risk factors must be involved. The first aim of the study was to identify the additional risk factors that may be causally related to subsequent abusive behaviour. A second aim was to establish whether these risk factors could be used to predict which sexually victimised males were at increased risk of perpetration before the onset of this behaviour. The sample consisted of sexually victimised males referred to Great Ormond Street Hospital (N = 104). Participants were divided into those who had gone on to sexually perpetrate (N = 21) and those who had not done so (N = 83). The study used a catch-up longitudinal design. Each participant’s experience of the key risk factors was assessed using contemporaneous case material. Evidence of subsequent sexual perpetration was gathered from the case material and police records. Three risk factors differentiated between the two groups: sexual victimisation by a female, neglect (failure to provide) and neglect (lack of supervision). Witnessing intrafamilial physical abuse fell just short of significance. A logistic regression examined the independent contribution of these risk factors to sexual perpetration. In this regression, only neglect (failure to provide) remained a significant predictor of sexual perpetration (Adjusted OR = 3.73; 95% Cl 1.12 to 12.42). Four risk indexes were generated to assess the predictive capacity of the risk factors. The area under the curve in a series of ROC-curve analyses indicated that all of the indexes successfully discriminated between sexually victimised males who had gone on to perpetrate and those who had not done so. The methodological, theoretical, and policy and practice implications of these findings are discussed.
... Authors assume that the experience of sexual abuse in one's own childhood may cause sexual attraction to children. 36 A related hypothesis has proposed that the experience of childhood sexual abuse normalizes child-adult sex, leading to a decrease in inhibitions against it. 21 We extended previous research by focusing not only on sexual abuse but also on emotional, physical, and sexual abuse instead as emotional and physical neglect. ...
Background:
Adverse childhood events have a lasting impact on mental health. Studies on patients with pedophilia focus on traumatic events as sexual abuse in their childhood, in which further childhood maltreatment is rarely described.
Aim:
In addition to previous studies on patients with pedophilia that focus on traumatic events as sexual abuse, we further investigate different types of childhood maltreatment.
Methods:
We compared 3 samples using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire: patients with pedophilia, psychotherapy outpatients, and general population (GP). Descriptive analyses were conducted for prevalence rates. To assess statistical differences between the samples concerning retrospective childhood trauma, we conducted t-tests and a multivariate analysis of variance. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify predictors of childhood maltreatment.
Outcomes:
Emotional and sexual abuse was associated with pedophilic sexual preference.
Results:
Significant differences of experienced childhood maltreatment were found between the samples with the patients with pedophilia reporting the highest rates. Psychotherapy outpatients reported more childhood maltreatment than the GP except for sexual abuse.
Clinical implications:
Our results speak to a burdened and stressful childhood of patients with pedophilia; a fantasized, sexualized world in an abusive and neglecting childhood may function as a refuge and lead to "psychic withdrawal."
Strengths & limitations:
This is the first study comparing a small sample of patients with pedophilia with psychotherapy outpatients and a representative sample of the GP. The use of an established and standardized questionnaire of childhood maltreatment represents a strength. However, the questionnaire's exclusive focus on abuse and neglect represents a limitation as it fails to examine other sources of adverse childhood experiences (eg, intrafamily relationships or loss of a parent).
Conclusion:
A better understanding can help establish more effective treatment and prevention programs for patients with pedophilia. Marx CM, Tibubos AN, Brähler E, et al. Experienced Childhood Maltreatment in a Sample of Pedophiles: Comparisons With Patients of a Psychosomatic Outpatient Clinic and the General Population. J Sex Med 2020;XX:XXX-XXX.
... H. C. Kruger et al., 2019), stressful life events (Jespersen, Lalumiere, & Seto, 2009), testosterone exposure, neurochemical impairment (mainly serotoninergic disturbances) (Gilbert & Focquaert, 2015) as well as subtle brain alterations, may generate this specific phenotype of sexual preference (Cantor et al., 2008;Schiffer et al., 2007;Schiltz et al., 2007;Tenbergen et al., 2015). Early theories also considered the influence of psychological mechanisms such as the "abused-abuser" theory (Freund & Kuban, 1994;Freund, Watson, & Dickey, 1990;Hall & Hall, 2007) on the pedophile's sexual preference. Indeed, the numbers reported for pedophiles who were abused as children range from 28% to 93% vs 15% for non pedophiles controls (Cohen & Galynker, 2002;Greenberg, Bradford, & Curry, 1993) (Hall & Hall, 2007). ...
Neurological disorders can be mis-diagnosed as psychiatric ones. This might happen to pedophilia emerging as a symptom of brain insult (i.e. acquired pedophilic behavior). This paper aims to delineate a behavioral profile that might help to identify defendants whose pedophilic behavior is likely to be the consequence of a neurological disorder. Through a systematic review of the literature, seventeen clinical and behavioral variables of the modus operandi and victimology that can distinguish between acquired and developmental pedophilic behavior have been collected. Seven of these were found to be consistent behavioral indicators (i.e. red flags) for acquired pedophilia. Cluster hierarchical analysis on the seventeen variables collected through the systematic review of the literature on cases of acquired pedophilic behavior was applied to a new dataset including 66 Italian closed cases of pedophilia. Stepwise regression and correlation analyses were carried out to further examine the differences between the clusters identified in the cluster analysis. Results revealed that the new sample was partitioned into two clusters. Individuals with ascertained acquired pedophilia were grouped together. The clusters widely differed for the prevalence of red flags (mean number of red flags in each cluster: 2.14 ± 0.79 vs 4.96 ± 0.93, p < 0.001), while no between cluster difference emerged for the other clinical and behavioral variables. Regression analysis provided a robust model that included the three most significant red flags that explain over 64.5% of the variance (absence of masking, spontaneous confession and offenders older age). An organic origin of pedophilic behavior should be suspected if red flags are present in a defendant charged with pedophilia. In those cases, an in depth trans-disciplinary neuroscientific investigation is advocated. The behavioral profile identified might help to provide a proper assessment of defendants.
... Various hypotheses about the causes of paedophilia exist, but none seems to refer to the fault of the agent. A popular abused-abuser theory (Freund, Watson, & Dickey, 1990) posits that paedophiles and sex offenders were previously victims of CSA. Further research found that sex offences are generally related not to CSA but to paedophilia among sex offenders (Freund & Kuban, 1994). ...
Child sexual abuse and paedophilia are ethically loaded public health issues. This paper looks at whether there are any specific moral duties related to paedophilia. I argue that the moral duty not to commit child sex abuse is universal and that the duty to reduce the individual risk of child sex abuse is specific to paedophiles. A paedophile is a person who is sexually attracted to children. Some paedophiles commit child sex abuse offences, but others are able to refrain from doing so and have the rational capacity to take adequate preventive measures. The risk of committing child sex abuse and the ability to reduce that risk are a moral duty pertaining specifically to paedophiles. I further argue that society has a moral duty to help paedophiles to fulfil that duty. Unfortunately, societies rarely provide such opportunities and hence fail in their moral duty towards paedophiles and children.
... This differentiation indicates that a history of childhood sexual abuse may increase the propensity to engage in CSO, but not the likelihood of developing paedophilia. It thereby adds to former studies testing the 'sexually abusedsexual abuser' hypothesis in paedophilic men (e.g., [20,51,53]), which, to our knowledge, have so far only included offenders, but at least partly propagate a link between own child sexual abuse and paedophilia, thereby mixing up the factors sexual preference and offence status [6,21]. ...
Contrary to public perception, child sex offending (CSO) and paedophilia are not the same. Only half of all cases of CSO are motivated by paedophilic preference, and a paedophilic preference does not necessarily lead to CSO. However, studies that investigated clinical factors accompanying and contributing to paedophilia so far mainly relied on paedophiles with a history of CSO. The aim of this study was to distinguish between factors associated with sexual preference (paedophile versus non-paedophile) and offender status (with versus without CSO). Accordingly, a 2 (sexual preference) × 2 (offender status) factorial design was used for a comprehensive clinical assessment of paedophiles with and without a history of CSO (n = 83, n = 79 respectively), child sex offenders without paedophilia (n = 32) and healthy controls (n = 148). Results indicated that psychiatric comorbidities, sexual dysfunctions and adverse childhood experiences were more common among paedophiles and child sex offenders than controls. Offenders and non-offenders differed in age, intelligence, educational level and experience of childhood sexual abuse, whereas paedophiles and non-paedophiles mainly differed in sexual characteristics (e.g., additional paraphilias, onset and current level of sexual activity). Regression analyses were more powerful in segregating offender status than sexual preference (mean classification accuracy: 76% versus 68%). In differentiating between offence- and preference-related factors this study improves clinical understanding of both phenomena and may be used to develop scientifically grounded CSO prevention and treatment programmes. It also highlights that some deviations are not traceable to just one of these two factors, thus raising the issue of the mechanism underlying both phenomena.
... Within the offender population, those who perpetrate sexual offenses have been shown to have particularly extensive ACEs (Abbiati et al., 2014;DeCou et al., 2015;Dhawan and Marshall, 1996;Forsman et al., 2015;Freund et al., 1990;Graham, 1996;Jung and Carlson, 2011;McCuish et al., 2015McCuish et al., , 2016Seghorn et al., 1987;Widom and Ames, 1994;Widom and Massey, 2015). For instance, found that 53 percent of 670 adult male sex offenders had been verbally abused, 42 percent had been physically abused, and 38 percent had been sexually abused as children. ...
Purpose: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are a broad conceptual framework in the social sciences that have only recently been studied within criminology. The purpose of this paper is to utilize this framework by applying it to one of the most potentially dangerous forensic populations. Design/methodology/approach: Archival data from 225 federal sex offenders was used to perform descriptive, correlational, and negative binomial regression models. Findings: There was substantial evidence of ACEs including father abandonment/neglect (36 percent), physical abuse (nearly 28 percent), verbal/emotional abuse (more than 24 percent), and sexual abuse (approximately 27 percent). The mean age of sexual victimization was 7.6 years with the youngest age of victimization occurring at the age of 3. Offenders averaged nearly five paraphilias, the most common were pedophilia (57 percent), pornography addiction (43 percent), paraphilia not otherwise specified (35 percent), exhibitionism (26 percent), and voyeurism (21 percent). The offenders averaged 4.7 paraphilias and the range was substantial (0 to 19). Negative binomial regression models indicated that sexual sadism was positively and pornography addiction was negatively associated with serious criminal violence. Offenders with early age of arrest onset and more total arrest charges were more likely to perpetrate kidnaping, rape, and murder. Originality/value: ACEs are common in the life history of federal sex offenders, but have differential associations with the most serious forms of crime.
In the era of Internet of Thing (IoT) which a lot of devices are connected to the internet, children are spending more hours online interacting in cyber space that increase exposure to cyber security including pedophile activity. Increase of time spend online could increase the potential of online sexual grooming behaviours of child molesters. Since that the behaviour are not easily identified prior to the abuse, this study gathers and collect information about child sexual abuse by pedophile and propose a comprehensive decision support system to educate children base on knowledge-driven method about online grooming by molesters. An interactive system is built to provide knowledge to children regarding child sexual abuse and pedophile in terms of definition and each characteristics of it. The main purpose of the system is compiling database about child sexual abuse and pedophiles in order to determine the level of child’s exposure to pedophile in term of five attributes which is selection of victims, gaining access, grooming, trust and approach.
The present paper reviews the empirical literature on the proportion of child sexual abusers who were themselves sexually victimized as children. While findings in individual studies ranged between 0% and 67%, on average about 28% of the offenders reported being sexually victimized as children. This rate is higher than the base rate for community samples of non-offending males (about 10%), but is similar to the rates found in other sexual or non-sexual offender populations. The relationship between childhood sexual victimization and sexually abusing children as an adult does not appear to be specific; rather, it is probable that many forms of childhood maltreatment can lead to many forms of behavioral and psychological problems in adulthood.
Six human male subjects developed moderate to high sexual arousal, as measured by a penile transducer, to an erotic film and, in the absence of overt erotic stimulation, to erotic fantasy. When instructed to enhance their arousal to the film without employing any physical stimulation, four of the six subjects were able to significantly increase their erections above the levels that were produced by either the film or the fantasy alone. The remaining two subjects, however, responded in an opposite manner in that the instructions to enhance arousal resulted in a decrease of their erections to a level below that produced by either the film or the fantasy alone. These data indicate that although attempts to voluntarily control sexual arousal may be distracting to some men, they are effective for others.
This study analyzes 74 preadult victims' accounts of sexual assault and 137 convicted child offenders' accounts of sexual assault. Two types of child assault were identified: sex-pressure, which was achieved by offender enticement and/or entrapment of the child into sexual activity; and sex-force, where the victim was forced to submit to the assault through exploitation, intimidation, and/or aggression. Life issues of dominance, power, authority, control, aggression, and sadism were present in varying degrees of intensity in the assault.
The first part of the study tested the validity of the conjecture that three particular patterns, occurring in phallometric results, are signs of feigning. In all three cases the outcome supported this conjecture. Part Two showed that feigning a spurious preference for sex (gender) of partner is more difficult than feigning a spurious preference in respect to partner age, and that the degree of difficulty of the latter depends on whether or not the S was already familiar with the phallometric test, and on the version of the phallometric test for age preference and sex preference used.
The sexual age preferences of incestuous and nonincestuous child molesters were examined using a circumferential measure of their penile responses to slides of persons varying in age and sex. Each incestuous child molester was matched with a nonincestuous child molester according to his age at testing and victim ages. Child molesters with daughter or stepdaughter victims (N=9) showed more appropriate age preferences than control subjects with unrelated child victims. Child molesters with other female relatives as victims (N=7) exhibited a nonsignificant trend toward more appropriate age preferences than their controls. Inappropriate sexual age preferences appear to be less important among men who choose daughter victims than men who choose unrelated victims.
The phallometric method of assessing erotic value of presented stimuli has two main tasks, one is in the breaking down of complex (potentially) sexual stimuli into components, the other is in diagnosing anomalous erotic preferences in ‘Nonadmitters’, i.e. in persons whose behaviour would imply there is such an anomaly, but who deny its presence. Differentiation between Admitters and Nonadmitters was attained by two verbal Admitter scales. Comparison of the scores on these scales with results of phallometric assessment showed (by mutual validation) that the phallometric method diagnoses Admitters more accurately than Nonadmitters. After that, the validity was tested of a new mode of the phallometric method, designed for diagnosing pedo- or hebephilia in Nonadmitters. In cases of homosexual pedophilia or hebephilia (but not in the heterosexual cases) the new Nonadmitter mode was superior to the Standard procedure.
A sexual sadist was treated by an olfactory aversion procedure for eight weeks. Pre-treatment assessment of sexual arousal showed high levels of response to sadistic stimuli as well as high arousal to non-sadistic heterosexual stimuli. In treatment the inhalation of the gas of an odoriferous chemical agent, valeric acid, was paired with slide presentations of sadistic materials while penile erection was monitored. The aversive stimulus immediately and permanently suppressed the response for the duration of treatment. In separate measurement sessions, with valeric acid absent, deviant response remained suppressed and nondeviant response was unaffected. Post-treatment reassessment revealed very low levels of response to sadistic stimuli. Follow-up sessions showed that the deviant response was absent eight months following the conclusion of treatment.