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Sexual Assault of Children and Adolescents

By Ann Wolbert Burgess, Nicholas Groth & Suzanne M. Sgroi

Release : 1998-06-03

Genre : Family & Relationships, Books, Nonfiction, Social Science, True Crime

Kind : ebook

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A. Nicholas Groth

A sexual offender against young people (commonly referred to as a child molester ) is a significantly older individual whose conscious sexual desires and responses are directed, either partially or exclusively, toward prepubertal children (pedophilia) and/or pubescent children (hebephilia) to whom he or she may be directly related (incest) or not. It is a widely held assumption that such contacts constitute a risk to the sexually immature child, whether that risk be ethical (the misrepresentation of the moral standards of the community), psychological (the development of emotional disturbance and distorted ideas and attitudes toward human sexuality), and/or physical (the jeopardizing of the child’s safety). The exposure and introduction of a child to adult sexuality is regarded in the American culture as especially serious and something from which children should be safeguarded. Unlike other aspects of adult-child interactions, it is regarded as inappropriate and potentially traumatic for an adult to instruct a child in human sexuality experientially. There is the legitimate assumption that the adult’s motive is self-serving in such situations rather than an expression of a genuine investment in the child’s needs and welfare. Given such strong social and legal sanctions against such behavior, why would any adult turn to a child in search of sexual gratification rather than other, more acceptable outlets? Such behavior seems unreasonable

In order to answer such a puzzling question and to explain such behavior, a number of myths and misconceptions have developed about the child offender both on the part of the general public and by professionals as well. The layperson imagines the child offender to be a stranger, an old man, insane or retarded, alcohol or drug addicted, sexually frustrated and impotent or sexually jaded, and looking for new “kicks.” He is “gay” and recruiting little boys into homosexuality or he is “straight” and responding to the advances of a sexually provocative little girl. Perhaps the most insidious myth is that the offender himself is the victim of a provocative and seductive child, for here the victim is blamed for being victimized, and the actual offender is not held fully responsible for his behavior. He is sometimes regarded as a brutal sex fiend or as a shy, passive, sexually inexperienced person. He is oversexed or he is undersexed, and so on. These are popular notions, appealing in their simplicity–even if they are self-contradicting-and they offer the advantage of making the child offender as different and unlike the ordinary person—ourselves, our parents, our children, our relatives, friends, and teachers—as possible. These same basic views are offered by many professionals—psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, physicians, social workers, sociologists, police, lawyers, and judges–who may view the child offender in terms of a sexually prohibitive, repressive, and ignorant society that mistakenly labels him as deviant–the social attitudes toward his behavior rather than the behavior itself being inappropriate. Or the child offender may be seen as the product of a sexually permissive and immoral society with lax attitudes and laws regarding sexuality that stimulate and encourage him through the availability of pornography, prostitution, drugs, alcohol, and sex outside of marriage. Some see such behavior as reflective of lower-class mentality and morality, poverty, and the lack of education. Others attribute it to a criminal personality. And still others, when the offender is an adolescent, take the position that this behavior is typical for a sexually maturing male–nothing more than experimentation.

Sexual Assault of Children and Adolescents

By Ann Wolbert Burgess, Nicholas Groth & Suzanne M. Sgroi

Release : 1998-06-03

Genre : Family & Relationships, Books, Nonfiction, Social Science, True Crime

Kind : ebook

(0 ratings)
A. Nicholas Groth

A sexual offender against young people (commonly referred to as a child molester ) is a significantly older individual whose conscious sexual desires and responses are directed, either partially or exclusively, toward prepubertal children (pedophilia) and/or pubescent children (hebephilia) to whom he or she may be directly related (incest) or not. It is a widely held assumption that such contacts constitute a risk to the sexually immature child, whether that risk be ethical (the misrepresentation of the moral standards of the community), psychological (the development of emotional disturbance and distorted ideas and attitudes toward human sexuality), and/or physical (the jeopardizing of the child’s safety). The exposure and introduction of a child to adult sexuality is regarded in the American culture as especially serious and something from which children should be safeguarded. Unlike other aspects of adult-child interactions, it is regarded as inappropriate and potentially traumatic for an adult to instruct a child in human sexuality experientially. There is the legitimate assumption that the adult’s motive is self-serving in such situations rather than an expression of a genuine investment in the child’s needs and welfare. Given such strong social and legal sanctions against such behavior, why would any adult turn to a child in search of sexual gratification rather than other, more acceptable outlets? Such behavior seems unreasonable

In order to answer such a puzzling question and to explain such behavior, a number of myths and misconceptions have developed about the child offender both on the part of the general public and by professionals as well. The layperson imagines the child offender to be a stranger, an old man, insane or retarded, alcohol or drug addicted, sexually frustrated and impotent or sexually jaded, and looking for new “kicks.” He is “gay” and recruiting little boys into homosexuality or he is “straight” and responding to the advances of a sexually provocative little girl. Perhaps the most insidious myth is that the offender himself is the victim of a provocative and seductive child, for here the victim is blamed for being victimized, and the actual offender is not held fully responsible for his behavior. He is sometimes regarded as a brutal sex fiend or as a shy, passive, sexually inexperienced person. He is oversexed or he is undersexed, and so on. These are popular notions, appealing in their simplicity–even if they are self-contradicting-and they offer the advantage of making the child offender as different and unlike the ordinary person—ourselves, our parents, our children, our relatives, friends, and teachers—as possible. These same basic views are offered by many professionals—psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, physicians, social workers, sociologists, police, lawyers, and judges–who may view the child offender in terms of a sexually prohibitive, repressive, and ignorant society that mistakenly labels him as deviant–the social attitudes toward his behavior rather than the behavior itself being inappropriate. Or the child offender may be seen as the product of a sexually permissive and immoral society with lax attitudes and laws regarding sexuality that stimulate and encourage him through the availability of pornography, prostitution, drugs, alcohol, and sex outside of marriage. Some see such behavior as reflective of lower-class mentality and morality, poverty, and the lack of education. Others attribute it to a criminal personality. And still others, when the offender is an adolescent, take the position that this behavior is typical for a sexually maturing male–nothing more than experimentation.

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