A brief Explanation of Factors Contributing to Sexual Abuse
This paper was written to help young people who have been molested understand that they did not cause someone to hurt them sexually. It gives some answers to the age old question, "Why did he/she do that to me?" It was also written to help people who have touched children sexually gain a deeper understanding into the causes of their behavior. There are four kinds of problems that can cause people to hurt children in sexual ways. The proper name for each type is given in parentheses after each code name.
An outlaw behaves and feels very much like a baby. You would not expect a baby to understand what other people are feeling. An outlaw is an adult who does not understand anyone else's feelings. His own wants and needs come first and when he does not get what he wants, he may have a temper tantrum. When babies are anger, they frequently hit and bite. An outlaw may also hit or become violent when he is angry. Babies get into all kinds of things that are off limits because they are just discovering their own power and have not yet learned to follow rules. Outlaws have never really learned to follow rules and frequently break them. When things go wrong for babies it is never their fault. Even though an outlaw is an adult, he blames all his problems on others. People easily fall in love with babies because they are cute. An outlaw can also be very charming and use his "cuteness" to get what he wants or to use people so he doesn't have to work for anything.
A baby starts to grow up when he realizes that his parents can help get what he needs and put limits on what he doesn't need. Once he can trust his parents, he will want to be like them and accept their rules. An outlaw never had a parent that he could trust to meet his needs or set limits with him. Or, he may have lost the person he counted on most and decided not to trust anyone again. He cannot get help and learn to change unless he begins to trust someone, and this can be very difficult!
Locked inside the outlaw is all the anger he has from not having his needs met when he was little. When things are not going his way, his anger can get to the boiling point and he might do something sexual with a child to let off steam or to get back at someone else. because he does not understand other's feelings and does not care about following rules, there is little to stop him from doing something really wrong. When the abuse is discovered he is very likely to deny that he had any part in it. Having his own way comes before doing what is right or getting help.
Child molesters act very much like children themselves. Their behavior and interests are childlike. They enjoy spending time with children more than talking to other adults. They can be very good at making friends with children. They may have jobs and activities which bring them in contact with children.
They may marry a woman with children and enjoy being a father and "playmate" more than they like being a husband. They have not really grown up emotionally but have all the adult equipment for sex. This makes it natural for them to think of children in sexual ways. They are usually interested in children who are not yet teenagers.
How do people get stuck feeling and acting like children? It is natural for children four to six years old to become interested in what makes boys and girls different. They may play "house", "doctor" or "show-me" games to explore their differences. If older children or adults get young children involved in sexual activities that involve more than looking and peeking, they may feel very confused and frightened. Some children try to understand these experiences by repeating them with other children. They can feel "in-charge" to regain a sense of power and safeness they seemed to lose when they were abused. They start to act and feel younger than their age in order to find younger children to abuse and they get stuck being interested in children for sex because they feel so young themselves.
It is not the experience of being sexually abused that makes a young person get stuck, but turning that abuse around and showing it to younger children that makes it become a way of life. Young people who do sexual things with other children before they are old enough to be interested in adults, may never become interested in adults for sex, or they may stay "turned on" to children even after they have had sexual experiences with people their own age. Most child molesters were abused as a child themselves. However, people who are mentally slow or socially backward may also be interested in children sexually because they have always been more comfortable with those younger than themselves. Because child molesters are like Peter Pan who does not want to grow up, they can be hard to help in therapy.
Grown-up men who are only interested in boys for sex are not "gay" or homosexuals. This is because they do not fall in love with adult men and they may be "turned-off" by a grown-up man's body. When they were young it may have been easier for them to find boys to abuse and they became fixed on these early experiences. If they were around girls a lot and used them for victims, they may stay fixed on girls when they grow up.
It is natural for teenagers to think a lot about sexual matters as their bodies are going through new and interesting changes Girls may act "boy crazy" and boys can get caught-up in wanting to "score" and "cruise" girls, and making crude comments. An adult who stays busy thinking about sex may be a sexual addict or have sexual compulsions. His life becomes centered around sexual interests. These may include constant demands on his wife for sex, sex with other women or even strangers, great interest in "dirty" magazines or movies, paying for sex ,or anything that will give him the sexual high he wants. His sexual interests begin to interfere with his job or family life. Even though he may have no real interest in children for sex, he may "accidentally" involve a child in his sexual activities. After a while sexual contact with a child can become his main interest. Why do some people stay stuck thinking about sex all the time while others grow out of this as adults? Teenagers and young adults have two important jobs to do: (1) They need to discover who they are and what they want to do with their lives, and (2) they need to learn how to have long lasting, close relationships with people. Boys are often encouraged to be good at the first task, while girls are expected to be good at the second.
When people don't learn who they are and what they want, they can have problems thinking for themselves, standing up to others and depending on themselves. They may not get addicted to sex, but they can get "addicted" to and dependent on a person. When people have not learned how to have longlasting, close relationships with people, they may try to substitute sex for the close feeling they are missing. People who were shown all about sex before they learned how to get close to people are especially likely to try to use sex for closeness. However, sex alone can never provide the bond that people need to feel deeply connected to another person. As a sexually compulsive person grows older, he may find his life style dissatisfying and be open to getting help.
An adult who has rally grown up can trust and understand others, feel independent and have self-control, reach goals, be true to his beliefs and have close, long-lasting relationships with people. Some people who have been hurt when they are young are able to learn these tasks in spite of their problems. However, when things in their life go wrong and they are under pressure, feelings from buried problems come up and make it hard for them to deal with their responsibilities. They go back to a very young time when security and discovering their own power were their most important needs.
A family offender may have married a strong woman. In times of trouble he starts to depend on her more and more. In the back of his mind he begins to feel like a child. He can start to feel very close and attracted to his own child ( or a child he cares about). After a while sex becomes the "glue" that will keep him close to that child.
Or, a family offender may have married a woman who is not sure of herself. In times of trouble he starts to control her and/or the children in the family in order to feel more powerful. In the back of his mind his wife may start to seem like a child and he may start to treat his daughter like an adult. She may become his substitute wife and friend. After a while sex with her becomes the final example of how "powerful" he is.
Having sex with a child may go against everything a family offender believes. He may feel terrible afterwards. But his pattern is to have old feelings come up when things are not going right. His guilt makes him feel even more alone, dependent and powerless. The worse these feelings get, the more likely he is to have sex with a child again to get that quick feeling of closeness or power. Then the cycle starts all over again. The cycle "feeds" on itself. The more it happens, the harder it is to stop. The person feels compelled to touch his child. He begins to do more extreme sexual acts and makes up excuses for what he is doing: "She likes it, " "This is sex education," "I'm not hurting her." A true family offender (who is not also an outlaw, child molester, or addict) never becomes completely comfortable with sexual activity with a child. He may feel relieved when he is caught and want help.
Very often drinking goes hand-in-hand with the other problems that lead to sexual abuse. "Outlaws" frequently have drinking problems. They are used to having their own way and doing what they want. If they want to have a drink, they will put that before other responsibilities. Drinking, in addition to violence and sexual abuse, is just one way of letting off steam and getting what they want, when they want it.
People who are "sexual addicts" are likely to have other addictions as well. Addictions start when a person doesn't know how to connect with others and he gets "connected" with an object or activity instead, whether that be food, drinking, sex, TV, bingo or Nintendo. Not all types of addicts become sexual addicts. People who get addicted to gambling, may crave that special feeling of power and well-being that they think money can give. People who get addicted to sex may be trying to create a feeling of closeness and love without having to be involved with people. Whatever a person is addicted to can be a symbol for something important that he is missing or avoiding in life.
"Family offenders" problems begin when things are not going right in their lives and they don't know how to deal with feelings from current and past problems. Their first attempt to cope or run away from their problems may be through drinking. If past problems involved deep feeling powerlessness, insecurity or sexual confusion, drinking alone may not be enough to push those feelings away. Without knowing why he may feel pushed towards sexual activity with a "safe" child.
The type of offender least likely to abuse alcohol is the child molester. Often, he begins sexually abusing others when he was a child himself, before he really had a chance to be around drinking. Because he uses sex to feel like a child, drinking alcohol is not a part of the way he looks at himself.
Although "Outlaws," "child molesters," "sexual addicts," and "family offenders" have been presented in this paper as separate groups, there may be no such thing as a pure type. A single person may have traits of more than one type of offender and he may not show all the marks of one type. There are other types of people who may also offend children -- exhibitionists, voyeurs, sadists, rapist, etc. However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss these problems.
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