Ask Dr. Helen: Should Men Be Kicked Out of the Church Nursery?
Marco wrote,
…though I do question the sanity of any adult woman who is sexually attracted to an adolescent boy.
A good point and one rarely explored as abusers are often previous victims.
From my understanding the predominant dynamic in child sex abuse is power/control over a weaker person.
A secondary abuse motivator is learned sexual experience, i.e. one’s first sexual experience, given it was not traumatic, often remains the most stimulating and the one subconsciously entertained.
In other words, child abuse victims first learn that a sexual encounter is not a meeting of equals, but one based on a power imbalance between adult and child.
Thus child sex abusers are seeking to recreate a learned experience characterised by power and desire.
As I understand it, as adults this is the only sexual experience they are comfortable with and desire, as they can control the object of their conditioned lust.
Given all this, there’s something which has always intrigued me, regarding the statistics…
From memory, some 20% of child abuse victims will, in turn, become abusers themselves as adults, due to the phenomena outlined above.
Therefore, if 17% of boys and 25% of girls are sexually abused, why then are adult abusers predominately male..?
