CHAPTER 2 

What is Different about Child Abusers 

[Introduction] 
FAMILY BACKGROUND 
PERSONALITY AND SEX ABUSE 
PAEDOPHILIA AND HOMOSEXUALITY 
FEMALE OFFENDERS 
MOLESTATION THEORY: SEXUAL ABUSE CYCLES 
RE-ENACTMENT THEORY 
VICTIMIZATION AND SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR 
ABUSE OR SEXUALIZATION? 

[Introduction]

[Page 33]

"Sexual offenders against children are not obviously different from other people. The most striking characteristic of the parents of abused children who came to the therapy groups at the hospital was that they were so ordinary. While waiting for the sessions to start they chatted about the difficulties of transport, of cars and the weather or helped each other to the coffee and biscuits that were provided." 
(La Fontaine, 1990, p. 102) 

Common sense suggests that child abusers must be very different y from "normal" people. Similar thinking leads to research into common factors among paedophiles that might give insight into the reasons why they offend. Several major contenders vie for consideration as the special "paedophile" ingredient. The list includes cycles of abuse, the homophobic view that these are rampant gays, inadequate family backgrounds, offenders' pathological (or pathetic) personalities and men doing what men are good at -- abusing power . 

Non of these simplistic views of paedophilia has any more than qualified support from research.  That is not to say that there are not peculiar men who offend against children, merely that a single common denominator has yet to be found. It is necessary to assess how far such broad explanations provide an answer to the question, "why paedophilia?"; this chapter takes an especially close look at the childhood sexualization of paedophiles.