"Most child sexual abuse is committed by men; studies show that women commit 14% to 40% of offenses reported against boys and 6% of offenses reported against girls."
While I'm sure kosher'd say that's heterosexual offending, in fact the literature calls is female-male offending differentiating between heterosexuality and child sexual abuse directed at " ".
"Some sources report that most offenders who have sexually abused a prepubescent child are pedophiles,[19] but some offenders who have sexually abused a prepubescent child do not meet the clinical diagnosis standards for pedophilia."
"Offenders
Demographics
More offenders are male than female, though the percentage varies between studies. The percentage of incidents of sexual abuse by female perpetrators that come to the attention of the legal system is usually reported to be between 1% and 4%.[121] Studies of sexual misconduct in US schools with female offenders have shown mixed results with rates between 4% to 43% of female offenders.[122] Maletzky (1993) found that, of his sample of 4,402 convicted pedophilic offenders, 0.4% were female.[123] Another study of a non-clinical population found that, among those in the their sample that had been molested, as much as a third were molested by women.[124]
In U.S. schools, educators who offend range in age from "21 to 75 years old, with an average age of 28".
Early research in the 1970s and 1980s began to classify offenders based on their motivations and traits. Groth and Birnbaum (1978) categorized child sexual offenders into two groups, "fixated" and "regressed."[126] Fixated were described as having a primary attraction to children, whereas regressed had largely maintained relationships with other adults, and were even married. This study also showed that adult sexual orientation was not related to the sex of the victim targeted, e.g. men who molested boys often had adult relationships with women.[126]
Later work (Holmes and Holmes, 2002) expanded on the types of offenders and their psychological profiles. They are divided as follows:[127]
* Situational – does not prefer children, but offend under certain conditions.
o Regressed – Typically has relationships with adults, but a stressor causes them to seek children as a substitute.
o Morally Indiscriminate – All-around sexual deviant, who may commit other sexual offenses unrelated to children.
o Naive/Inadequate – Often mentally disabled in some way, finds children less threatening.
* Preferential – has true sexual interest in children.
o Mysoped – Sadistic and violent, target strangers more often than acquaintances.
o Fixated – Little or no activity with own age, described as an "overgrown child."
Causal factors
Causal factors of child sex offenders are not known conclusively.[128] The experience of sexual abuse as a child was previously thought to be a strong risk factor, but research does not show a causal relationship, as the vast majority of sexually abused children do not grow up to be adult offenders, nor do the majority of adult offenders report childhood sexual abuse. The US Government Accountability Office concluded, "the existence of a cycle of sexual abuse was not established." Before 1996, there was greater belief in the theory of a "cycle of violence," because most of the research done was retrospective—abusers were asked if they had experienced past abuse. Even the majority of studies found that most adult sex offenders said they had not been sexually abused during childhood, but studies varied in terms of their estimates of the percentage of such offenders who had been abused, from 0 to 79 percent. More recent prospective longitudinal research—studying children with documented cases of sexual abuse over time to determine what percentage become adult offenders—has demonstrated that the cycle of violence theory is not an adequate explanation for why people molest children.[129]
Offenses may be facilitated by cognitive distortions of the offender, such as minimization of the abuse, victim blaming, and excuses.[130]
Pedophilia
Main article: Pedophilia
The term pedophilia refers to persistent sexual feelings of attraction in an adult or older adolescent toward prepubescent children, whether the attraction is acted upon or not.[131][132] A person with this attraction is called a pedophile
In law enforcement, the term pedophile is sometimes used to describe those accused or convicted of child sexual abuse under sociolegal definitions of child (including both prepubescent children and adolescents younger than the local age of consent);[19] however, not all child sexual offenders are pedophiles and not all pedophiles engage in sexual abuse of children.[20][133][134] Law enforcement and legal professionals have begun to use the term predatory pedophile,[135] a phrase coined by children's attorney Andrew Vachss, to refer specifically to pedophiles who engage in sexual activity with minors.[136] The term emphasizes that child sexual abuse consists of conduct chosen by the perpetrator."
lots more at link
Child sexual abuse - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
