One in ten men have carried out sex offences against children

Does this include 18 year old men with 16 year old girls or are we talking younger (16 and 18 is normal when they're in sixth form college)? 10% seems so high and really disturbs me. Although men my dad's age (20+ years older than me) kept eyeing me up and cat calling me when I was a teen and in my early 20s (when I still looked like a teen). I'm in my late 20s with a child now and these creeps don't look at me anymore (thank god).

But why? I wish we had some more answers about this and how to spot it.

I always get irritated with press releases about surveys where they don't point at the actual data. It doesn't look like this will be released for a while, and may only be released to professionals in the field in any case.

The only information we have about the methodology is that it's "carried out using an anonymised online survey in which men were asked questions about their sexual behaviour." Best case, this might be a carefully selected group broken down by demographics and then reassured that the answers won't be tied to them personally, but if it's self-selecting, it's pretty much useless.

It's entirely possible the stats are exactly as they appear to be, but I'll wait for the report.

16 year old or 5 year old? First is gross and second is horric.

Myself and several members of my family work in this kind of remit and it's very common. I see it several times a day, every day.

do you know why they did it or why they had no empathy for the children? I can’t really get over it. Destroying a life for your own pleasure.

Fucking hell

As a man of mature years myself, I'm confident that the nature of male sexuality is the "elephant in the room" in this context. We all understandably denounce the perverts without often asking: why are there always so many perverts?

Men of pretty much any age tend to be sexually attracted to pubescent and post-pubescent youth, as they were in their own adolescence and young adulthood, a time when male sexual urges tend to be particularly strong, tuning the brain for the attractions of the future. This may make sense from an evolutionary perspective, but it's also why male sexuality needs to be strongly socially controlled by age-of-consent laws, and widespread disapproval of sexualisation of early teens etc.

Men who are most attracted to pre-pubescent children presumably "failed" the adolescent phase for some reason, and reverted to previous attractions from the age when all such feelings were "naughty". Other paraphiliac men of an anti-social bent may be particularly turned on by transgression, and court paedophilia specifically for its "forbidden" status.

Is there any long term solution to the problematic aspects of male sexuality? Social progress, understanding and ethical engineering will play a role, but I suspect the final answer will rely on future biotech capabilities.

If you factor in offences involving a) men looking at inappropriate images online and b) men sleeping with teens aged 14-15 then it wouldn't at all surprise me.

When I was 15 I had numerous men between 18-20 cracking onto me despite the fact I was a child and under the age of consent. (And I was small, skinny and baby faced and looked 2 years younger than my biological age - so there was no way they thought I was older.)

@GarlicGrace

yes same. Jeans and a sweater. Not a cm of cleavage to be seen. I don’t accommodate perverts. If I want to wear revealing clothing I will wear it. When I feel comfortable and it’s age appropriate I’m not going to ruin my daughters childhood by teaching her that everything should be about living in fear. If clothing protected us then muslim countries would be a woman’s absolute safe haven and utopia. We would all just wear burkas and be protected. But it’s quite the opposite really.

I had countless experiences from older men when I was a teenager. Once was physical.
It's frightening as I have two daughters with one who has a learning disability. Disabled people are twice as likely to face abuse.
The culture needs to change but where do we start?

I don’t know as every family has a sex offender in its midst. I imagine there is very sadly some kind of clustering effect.

I doesn't make any difference, though. Most of us were importuned and/or assaulted while wearing non-scanty school uniform.

Yes I did @HelenFisksBrownSuit .
And I’m also aware that porn often shows scenes that seem to be a rape (or actually are, seeing that sites such as PornHub simply don’t remove films where they KNOW the woman was underage and raped as the hen were found guilty in court and put in prison).

But I’ve yet to see stars showing an increase of rapes due to the Internet etc….

It does make it easier fir some men to groom children but then the higher risk if sexual assault of children is still within the house….

Basically what I’m trying to say is that looking at the internet is a way to deflect tte much bigger issue that we have of rape and assault from family members and close friends. And let’s be honest, 1 in 10 men means we all have within our close family one man who has sexually assaulted a child. Maybe one if our own children (it’s one 1 in 4 after all) or a niece…
I don’t think many people are ready to face that reality.

And yet Scotland is wasting millions on hurty feelings.

Presumably not children or women's hurty feelings or trauma or physical harm though.

True, regrettably.

I've always known this about CSA prevalence - my dad was a cop. I know psychologists are taught this (they're actually taught it's more like one in five). It far predates the internet.

When I hear about a man who isn't interested in sex, I always wonder if he's just not that interested in sex with adults.

Thinking about the motivations for this preference, it suggests there are far too many men for whom sex is power. It should be discussed more in the other areas of MN, always, though I can understand why it isn't.

Does not surprise me but does disgusts me. My husband used to tell me he absolutely hates the male sex because his mother used to serial date while he was growing up and would constantly bring home strange men and some of the things they said and tried to do to him left him speechless.

Over the top crude sexual comments that weren’t age appropriate. Talking about young teen girls in a gross sexual way. Watching porn right in front of him. Trying to fight him to prove whose the bigger man ect and so on. These experiences have left him completely jaded.

I did mention part of his negative experiences seem to also have something to do with his mother’s absolutely negligent parenting and the fact that she seems to be attracted to perverts. But he said that fact doesn’t change how he feels now that he knows there are so many sick men out in the world like that.

@Iwasafool so glad you were able to get your revenge and hopefully made him squirm!!

I can't find the study itself, does anyone have a link?

It was a moment of sweet revenge. I was walking along a main road, saw this car which I recognised as it was quite distinctive so when he pulled over I thought my classmate was in the car and then he asked the question. I was so shocked I just walked off. Of course I knew who he was and waited for my opportunity to embarrass him. He must have been terrified of me saying anything.

You are using the wrong verb. The teachers and David Bowie were raping the girls.

Btw I don’t think the internet making it worse.
I think it’s simply better known and victims are starting to talk whereas the pressure of being a virgin at the point of marriage etc… meant no child/teen/woman would have dare talking p. See too the assumption that she must have lead him on, wanted it anyway, being a slut etc….. or as we can read now - if she didn’t say anything at the time, she can’t have been raped.