Child Molesters Flashcards
What percent of female children are sexually victimized?
12-18%
What percent of male children are sexually victimized?
5-8%
What population is the most common offender?
Adult males
What population is the most common victim?
Juvenile females
What is the most common relationship between child molester offenders and victims?
Uncle, stepdad, some sort of male relative
What are some characteristics of child molesters?
- Generally under age 35
- Acquainted with their victims
- Alcoholism (fewer are drug addicts)
- Multiple victims
What is Factor 1 of Finklehor and Araji’s 4-Factor Model?
- Why would a person find sexual activity with a child emotionally satisfying?
- Emotional Congruence
- Pedophiles have emotional needs of a child and children fulfill the needs
What are some theories related to Factor 1?
- They have low self-esteem and relating to a child gives them a sense of power
- They are narcissistically in love with themselves as a child and thus, children who represent the adult’s lost youth become love objects
Emotional Congruence
Convergence/meeting of the adult’s emotional needs with a child’s characteristics
What is Factor 2 of Finklehor and Araji’s 4-Factor Model?
- Why would a person be capable of being sexually aroused by a child?
- Some theories argue it’s conditioning
- Could be caused by trauma that causes the conditioning
- Factors 1 and 2 do not necessarily go together - they can have emotional needs met in non-sexual manners
- Other theories suggest attribution error, fondness for a child mistaken for sexual arousal, or when an adult suffers from sexual deprivation and mistakes emotional arousal for sexual arousal
- Repeated fantasies and masturbation reinforces the conditioning
What is Factor 3 of Finklehor and Araji’s model?
•Why would a person be frustrated or blocked in their efforts to obtain sexual and emotional gratification from an age-appropriate person?
- AKA “Blockage” - Developmental or Situational
Developmental Blockage
•Part of the offender’s developmental process makes it difficult to have a sexual or emotional relationship with an adult
- Oedipal complexes where people have emotions regarding their mothers or “castration anxieties” that make it harder to have a relationship with an adult woman - Frustration may be the result of the offender’s belief that they were impotent in their first sexual encounter and then believe adult sexuality is frustrating
Situational Blockage
•Events or situations in the offender’s life make it difficult to have a sexual or emotional relationship with an adult
-Used to explain incest (Example: a father would seek sexual access to his children if his wife were sexually unavailable and he was too inhibited to seek a sexual relationship from other sources or masturbation)
What is Factor 4 of Finklehor and Araji’s 4-Factor model?
•How can a person NOT be deterred by socially-acceptable standards that prohibit sex with a child?
- Disinhibition: Whatever is keeping someone from doing something that they know they’re not supposed to do because of society is gone - Impulse control, alcoholism (Alcohol is a disinhibitor), drug use, neurological impairment
Pedophiles
Sexual interest in pre-pubescent children
