I am curious what the percentage of gay pedophiles vs. hetro pedophiles there are? Does anybody know?
Kurt Freund and Robin J. Watson, The proportions of heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles among sex offenders against children: An exploratory study (1992)
Ryan C. W. Hall, M.D., and Richard C. W. Hall, M.D., P.A., A Profile of Pedophilia: Definition, Characteristics of Offenders… (2009)
Really depends on what you are actually asking
Are you asking for percentage of pedophiles that identify as heterosexual or homosexual?
Are you determining as to what their sexuality may be based on the gender of the victims?
There is a lot of data on pedophiles how you phrase your question can give very different results.
I assume what he’s asking is whether the proportion of adult males attracted to young boys vs. young girls matches the proportion of men attracted to adult males vs. adult females in the general population.
Interesting question. The one link suggests 1:11 vs 1:20 but it looks like the prior ratio is based on sex offenders only; one has to assume the number of cases reported, and the inability to control ones self are equal despite preference, etc. As with anything to do with sexual orientation, especially when the law is involved, the answer will always be marked with an asterisk.
I assume there is a commensurate number for females, but the vast majority of sex offenders tends to be male.
I thought I had read that applying “homosexual” to a pedophile is not really correct. Their issue is pedophilia and not homosexuality. Which is to say a male pedophile who abuses little boys does not identify as a homosexual.
He probably doesn’t “identify” as a pedophile either.
I don’t know about that, the ones that posted here seemed self-aware of their desire, and understood what it was. If anything they seemed to want to make sure the distinction was made between abusers/ rapists, pedophiles, and (H)ebephiles.
A pedophile is an accurate description for them, but there was always a distinction it seemed being made between one who has an attraction for young children and one who actually abused or harmed young children.
For what it’s worth, the only thing of note we had to learn about in Psych class for pedophilia abusers was to make the distinction of their preference, as there was a correlation between preference and abuser style:
Those who chose only males- they tended to have a broader abuse pattern with many victims, and multiple abuses and incidents with various victims over time.
Those who chose only females- tended to abuse specific targets- they were more narrow in their focus- usually focusing on fewer victims but more incidents with the single child repeatedly.
Those who had no preference in their selection/chose both- they tended to abuse extremely younger children than the above two groups.
Those were the only things we were told to make a note of when taking a history of a person who has a history of acting on their pedophilia.
The implication pregnant in the OP is that because the greatest number of abusive pedophiles are men who abuse young boys, then they must be gay men who want to have sex with children. But in the absence of data, that’s an unsupportable conclusion. Gay men like to have sex with men. Men and boys don’t look or act like each other, so it is not necessarily the case that someone who is willing to “have sex with” (i.e., rape) boys also wants to have sex with men. (And indeed, AFAIK the data supports this – of pedophiles who also have sexual relationships with adults, I believe they are typically heterosexual relationships. Of course, some of this may be “cover,” like Humbert and Charlotte.)
But logic suggests that by far the most likely explanation is that pedophile males who are willing to rape children to satisfy themselves sexually will tend to have much more access to boys. Because a (male) youth pastor or scout leader or camp counselor can quite easily get himself into a position of trust which leads to unsupervised responsibility over a group of boys, but he would have almost no chance of similar access to girls. (The fact that children are less differentiated physically by gender might also mean that pedophiles are less picky about the sex of those to whom they are attracted, or at least are more willing to settle for whoever is available even if they are of the “wrong” gender.)
There are presumably studies of this stuff, but I’d expect them to be generally paltry for a number of reasons. First, they’re inevitably case studies, because obviously you can’t design an experiment where you give a pedophile access to both girls and boys and see how many of each he rapes. But more importantly child molestation is, for obvious and perhaps excusable reasons, not a subject that can be treated rationally. Pedophiles who don’t rape children (probably the vast majority of them) don’t tell anybody about it because they’d be demonized and hounded. So there’s no easy way to get an idea of how many people are attracted to children but **don’t ** act on it, whereas the pedophiles that you can identify (because they get caught) usually have incentives to shut up or to lie about their preferences and behaviors.
–Cliffy
I think the question is clear and I don’t understand why the pussy footing around it.
- Gay = Guy who likes guys sexually
- Hetero = Guy who likes chicks sexually
- Pedophiles = Guy who sexually asaults minors (ephebo/pedo)
Is there are fear that saying that gay men would be more prone to pedophilia un-p.c. for this board? I have no clue as to the answer, but this whole hitting around the bush is sad.
1 and 2 are self described characteristics. 3 is not.
If you allow the question to be what sexuality do those found committing acts of pedophilia identify you will find heterosexuals are far more prone to molesting children.
Very few people caught molesting children ever describe themselves as homosexual.
Only 1 in 30 is gay, so very few would be homosexual anyway.
Yeah, they’re also attracted to little girls, not little boys.
Heterosexual pedophiles will abuse little girls. Homosexual pedophiles will abuse little boys. Bisexual pedophiles will abuse both. This isn’t difficult.
Someone who is attracted to young boys is not necessarily going to be attracted to adult men. If you define men who abuse boys as homosexual, then 100% of men who abuse boys are homosexual. That doesn’t add much to the discussion however.
The reason the question usually comes up is around whether homosexuals who are attracted to adult men are more likely to abuse boys than those who are not attracted to adult men.
You wouldn’t think so, but there seems to be a group of posters on SDMB who are unwilling to admit that (for example) that a man who sexually abuses only young boys is indeed (by definition) a homosexual pedophile—I think they are concerned that it will somehow lead to additional discrimination agains homosexuals, and so will not accept the rather simple fact that someone exclusively sexually attracted to the same sex (whether expressed in a consenting mature adult relationship OR in the pedophillic rape of a child) is homosexual.
100% of them are bisexual at the very least.
The obvious answer is that they aren’t. Little girls are abused just as often as little boys are, I believe.
The research is even stronger than that. Pedophiles who are attracted to young boys tend NOT to be attracted to adult men. Here’s a link to a reference for a 1978 paper on the topic.
And the abstract:
“A random sample of 175 males convicted of sexual assault against children was screened with reference to their adult sexual orientation and the sex of their victims. The sample divided fairly evenly into two groups based on whether they were sexually fixated exclusively on children or had regressed from peer relationships. Female children were victimized nearly twice as often as male children. All regressed offenders, whether their victims were male or female children, were heterosexual in their adult orientation. There were no examples of regression to child victims among peer-oriented, homosexual males. The possibility emerges that homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia may be mutually exclusive and that the adult heterosexual male constitutes a greater risk to the underage child than does the adult homosexual male.”
Yes it is. Terminology is important. Men who molest little girls would more appropriately be called male-female molesters. Homosexual heterosexual and bisexual are adult oriented sexualities.
This paper talks terminology a bit. The stated goal is to disprove myths about homosexuality and child molestation.
From what I’ve read little girls are 2-3 times more likely to be abused.
Can I get a cite? I’d really like to rub this in the face of people who don’t want gay teachers on the grounds that their boys will get diddled. Yes, I’ve learned in this thread that men who diddle boys are rarely attracted to adult men and so wouldn’t identify as gay to begin with, but this seems like much more powerful evidence.
Which makes it completely pointless. Their stated goal is in conflict of impartially investigating the data. The previous citation is much better.
And I would like a real citation about homosexual et al referring only to adult sexualities. Non-exclusive pedophiles exist, and, as far as I know, tend to prefer the same sex adult or child.
Oh, and if we’re going to be terminologically correct, let’s not imply that child* molester is a sexuality. Pedophilia is the sexuality. Child molestation is the crime.
*You left this word out too. But I assume that was just an accident.