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Most pedophiles are men. Why?

Dustin Kesselberg

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I was reading the "Perverted Justice" website and noticed that something like 800 of the perverts they busted were man while only 1 was a woman. Why?Scientific studies have shown that the vast majority of sexual predators are men. Why does anyone think this is? Whenever I go into Chatrooms for instance all I see are people typing "25/m/la young gurlz wanna chat?". I never see "25/f/la young boyz wanna chat?". I never see that.

Why are 99% of pedophiles and sexual predators male?


Discuss.
 
Women hide their tracks better? I suppose that in general male mammals tend to spread their genes more widely than female ones, so perhaps that leaves their brains wired up differently as regards their need for sex. Or perhaps it's all social conditioning?
 
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"Why" questions about human behaviour are very difficult to answer.

In this particular case I don't think the answer is going to be separable from the question of why some people are sexual predators and some are not, and we don't have the answer to that question. We know some things about what genetic factors (having a Y chromosome) and environmental factors (being sexually abused) tend to be statistically linked with sexual predation, but we don't know why those links exist.

Biochemical research on one hand and cross-cultural studies of human sexual behaviour on the other could in theory get us better answers.

ETA: I did a fair bit of reading about this topic when the acrimonious thread on paedophilia and age of consent was running, and although I don't have a cite on hand I believe Dustin is basically right that the overwhelming majority of sexual predators are male. I won't vouch for 99% but if I can trust my recall it's over 90% at the very least. That's based on victimisation surveys, not convictions, so it's not likely to be purely an artifact of women "covering their tracks better".
 
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Dustin said:
I was reading the "Perverted Justice" website and noticed that something like 800 of the perverts they busted were man while only 1 was a woman. Why?Scientific studies have shown that the vast majority of sexual predators are men. Why does anyone think this is? Whenever I go into Chatrooms for instance all I see are people typing "25/m/la young gurlz wanna chat?". I never see "25/f/la young boyz wanna chat?". I never see that.

Why are 99% of pedophiles and sexual predators male?


Discuss.
Click to expand...

Maybe men are more likely to get observed and caught.
 
As I said earlier, surveys of more-or-less random sets of people have shown that the overwhelming majority of people who claim to have been sexually abused claim to have been sexually abused by males.

Lacking any reason to think they are lying, I tend to believe that it is in fact the case that the overwhelming majority of sexual predators are in fact men.

So due credit to those who asked a good skeptical question, but in this case I believe Dustin's question is not based on a factual error.

CFLarsen said:
Unless you can quantify your claim, it is impossible to discuss it.
Click to expand...

I agree that the question cannot be answered sensibly without being refined a great deal further.
 
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Perhaps a good place to start would be to look at contemporary and historical societies where it was known such activities rarely, if ever, occurred.

Margaret Mead did some interesting studies of human sexuality in "primitive" societies.

M.
 
Easy question.

Girls are exposed from early on, to male frontal nudity. Girls bond with mothers and girls see mom changing diapers of their brothers and get used to this. Boys, as they get older, only get bigger and hair down below...but nothing really new.

But girls change and get breasts and their hips widen. Boys are never allowed to see these breasts. They are kept hidden. They are considered another private part. Girls have 2 private parts and men only have one!

Guys, at about the age of puberty, (some before then) start just dying to want to figure out someHOW how they can grope breasts (because the guy does not have breasts). But they know they can't..they aren't allowed to... so they get Playboy magazines, look at dirty movies, etc.

But for some men, this is not good enough. They want the real thing.

The men who look at themselves in the mirror and figure no GROWN woman would want them, and perhaps have felt this way for their entire life, then have no choice but to try to go after young girls, because with young girls they feel that they 'have a chance' with them. They aren't as intimidated with young girls because they don't have those intimidating breasts that can cause some shy men to literally choke on their saliva...so they probably go after little girls and get to check out what is down below (something they weren't allowed to see much of either, while growing up) and then probably pretend in their minds that the little girl has breasts, perhaps. I could go into all kinds of psychological theory as to why this is so, but you get the picture.
 
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Dustin said:
Nonsense. A "vast majority" works just fine.

Why are a vast majority of pedophiles men?
Click to expand...
Save everyone else's speculation, this question has too big a scope to be answered by any single field of study.

ETA: For example, we have some idea why men are more likely to be promiscuous, but not necessarily why they would be going after children.
 
CFLarsen said:
Unless you can quantify your claim, it is impossible to discuss it.
Click to expand...

Claus- you are discussing it.

Let's put the claim this way. "It appears that the overwhelming majority of pedophiles are men. Discuss"

I suspect the reasons are many and include genetics and society.
Here's one trivial factor. A tue story observed by me.

A four year old girl enters a church hall with her mother . The mother , who is on a church committee, is pounced on by several people who need to discuss finances. Bored, the girl wanders away and is picked up by an elderly lady (about 75) who sits the kid in her lap and starts asking her questions and generally keeping her amused.

After a minute, this lady is also called to the discussion and passes the kid to her husband ( over 80 , father of three, grandfather of five and great grandfather of one), who treats the kid exactly as his wife had, whereupon the mother rushes over and "rescues " the kid from the somewhat bemused gentleman.

What's going on here? How much of paedophilia is a perception problem?
 
Iamme said:
Easy question.

Girls are exposed from early on, to male frontal nudity. Girls bond with mothers and girls see mom changing diapers of their brothers and get used to this. Boys, as they get older, only get bigger and hair down below...but nothing really new.

But girls change and get breasts and their hips widen. Boys are never allowed to see these breasts. They are kept hidden. They are considered another private part. Girls have 2 private parts and men only have one!

Guys, at about the age of puberty, (some before then) start just dying to want to figure out someHOW how they can grope breasts (because the guy does not have breasts). But they know they can't..they aren't allowed to... so they get Playboy magazines, look at dirty movies, etc.

But for some men, this is not good enough. They want the real thing.

The men who look at themselves in the mirror and figure no GROWN woman would want them, and perhaps have felt this way for their entire life, then have no choice but to try to go after young girls, because with young girls they feel that they 'have a chance' with them. I could go into all kinds of psychological theory as to why this is so, but you get the picture.
Click to expand...

You have no evidence that "girls are exposed to male frontal nudity early on." The opposite is actually true in the media, male frontal nudity is very rare, but there is a ton of female nudity. And that's not because of your made-up idea but because men have been shown to be generally incapable of arousal by the same sex, unlike women.
Whose psychological theory supports this?
 
Soapy Sam said:
What's going on here? How much of paedophilia is a perception problem?
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Here's the only article I could find that gives some numbers in the time I have.
10 myths about Priestly Pedophilia
In 1994, the National Opinion Research Center showed that the second most common form of child sexual abuse involved women abusing boys. For every three male abusers, there's one female abuser. Statistics on female sex offenders are more difficult to obtain because the crime is more hidden (Interview with Dr. Richard Cross, "A Question of Character," National Opinion Research Center; cf. Carnes). Also, their most frequent victims (boys) are less likely to report sexual abuse, especially when the abuser is a woman (O'Leary, "Child Sexual Abuse").
Click to expand...
Based on the last part, there may be a misperception as to how many pedophiles are women, but it's hard to know with only the given 3 to 1 ratio.
 
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