The Times - One in ten British men have carried out sexual offences against children, according to a major survey.

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From the article
"One in ten British men have carried out sexual offences against children, according to a major survey. The study involving 1,500 British men was carried out by Edinburgh University’s Childlight unit, a research centre that investigates the risk of sexual exploitation of children and young people, and the University of New South Wales, Australia.
It found that 10.1 per cent of men admitted they had engaged in child sexual offending, either online or offline.
Almost one in twenty (4.8 per cent) of those surveyed said they had had sexual contact with a child when they themselves were aged 18 or older.
The results also showed that 5 per cent of British men had sexual feelings towards children and had acted upon those feelings, while an additional 7 per cent admitted to having sexual feelings towards children but did not act on them.
The findings have raised concerns that there is a “public health emergency” with a rapid increase of child sex abuse online."

There's so much to unpack here but it's extremely worrying and very important to discuss given how much safeguarding has been corroded over the last few years.

Call me naive but I don't think this can be the truth.

I've always suspected it's a lot worse than we realise.

www.ed.ac.uk/news/2023/institute-using-data-to-protect-child-welfare

This is some information about who has done the study - it would be good to find a link to the study.

This doesn't surprise me at all. It is deeply, deeply ingrained in human culture that teenage girls are at the peak of attractiveness to men - it's established in art going back hundreds of years and it continues today. It's probably something to do with girls coming of age sexually combined with having the least power and knowledge.

Whatever it is, given that every woman I know was assaulted in some way as a teen, it must be the case that a lot of men are doing the assaulting (unless it's a few extremely busy men).

Hmm. I definitely think it’s more widespread than people generally realise. But I notice the article didn’t mention any parameters/definitions of what the men had actually admitted to - if they’re including things like a 16yo and 18yo having sex and sending/receiving nudes while underage then that is going to distort the figures. Knowing the breakdown of what’s actually happening is the only way to tackle it.

I find it hard to believe it is that low, based on my own experience and that of my DD and her female friends. Young girls are just there for men to letch at apparently. I noticed this starting while DD was stillat primary school.

Well, we knew this already, right?

Well, letchy pervy men are also hardly likely to have much fidelity, are they? So the 10% can be harassing a much wider cohort of younger people. And don't forget it's "children" not girls - it includes underage boys.

I can completely believe this. The only time I’ve ever experienced cat calling was as an (obviously VERY) young teenager in school uniform.

Whilst i suspect the true percentage is higher than we'd expect, I'm taking this with a bucket load of salt. The times article first doesn't link to the survey, so we don't know the questions asked.

For a start having sex with someone below the age of consent is a sexual offence even if both are under 16. Given that about half of kids lose their virginity before 16, a lot of teenage relationships which are perfectly consensual technically involve boys (and girls) committing sexual offences.

We don't know if they are defining 'child' as 16 or 18 here, if it's 18, then a proportion of the 4.8% of men who said they'd had sexual context with a child when they were over 18 would have been in relation to perfectly legal (and socially acceptable) sex between a 16-17yo and an older teen. A 17yo girl having an 18yo boyfriend would count.

The 'sexual thoughts' bit of a bit more tricky, but again we don't know how they are defining 'child'. Is it really a 'wrong' thing for a man, for example, to find a 17yo fully grown, post puberty young woman sexually attractive, even if because of her age he'd never want to do anything about it? I don't see that as a problem as such, more just honesty. The problem is more those that act on it. We don't know if these men are admitting to finding 7 year olds attractive or 17yos, and there's a huge moral difference.

I would be very interesting to see the actual questions asked.

Really??

I'm surprised the respondents were so honest. If they were honest.

I would like to see the whole survey and wonder if its similar to other surveys that had questions that where misleading or could be read either way to give the answers that were wanted.

Agree. In reality it's probably a much, much higher percentage.

I agree. I'm not saying the % is wrong, but it's a bit meaningless without the definitions.

I’m only surprised that the numbers are so low. Think back to all of the creepy comments and stares you got as a teen in school uniform. I’d be willing to bet that those men don’t consider themselves as having an attraction to children.

And what about the whole ‘naughty schoolgirl’ genre, where it’s so normalised that costumes are sold in Ann Summers? How many women would be aroused at the thought of their partners dressing up in their school uniform? Not enough for costumes to be sold, I’d think. Even something like anime, where drawings of females are always portrayed as very childlike faces, but with tiny skirts and very exaggerated proportions etc. Now I’m obviously not suggesting that all fans of anime are predators, but it’s something that hits me right in the face. Why would an adult male look at anime and not feel uncomfortable with that?

Remind me why certain sections of society are tying to make all places mixed sex. Women who support this need to wake up and stop being so naive.

And some of those people dress like schoolgirls too or have anime schoolgirls as their Twitter photos.

Think back to all of the creepy comments and stares you got as a teen in school uniform

I didn’t get any… and unlike PP most women I know were not assaulted as teens either.

That’s wonderful. I know this is going to sound sarcastic but I’m genuinely happy for you that you didn’t have to experience that. Unfortunately I don’t know anyone that wasn’t made to feel at least uncomfortable, going right through to full blown assault. I wonder whether, if you asked them, they’d acknowledge being at the receiving end of stares, shouts and beeps from passing cars/vans, whistles from building sites (going back to the days where they were allowed to get away with it), even if they didn’t consider it assault.

Almost one in twenty (4.8 per cent) of those surveyed said that they had had sexual contact with a child when they themselves were aged 18 or older.

In other words, over 95% of those surveyed did not.

What was the figure for those surveyed who said they had had sexual contact with a child when they themselves were 17 or under and still a child themselves?

I think your point about the days when they could get away with it might be key. I was at school in the 2000s. I don’t think the article mentioned the timeframe the study asked about either.

Given that the average age that girls start being ogled at is something like 11 (as found on a mega thread here years ago) I can well
believe it.

Pretty much every woman I know has been sexually harassed or assaulted in some way, even if they are in denial and don’t see a quick grope (or similar) as assault. (I grew up in a time when pervy men patting waitresses bottoms was accepted and just part of the job, difficult to see something as assault when you’ve grown up being told not to be so sensitive about being groped and fondled 🤢)

Dd was 10 when men started looking at her - she very much looked like a little girl, she was gawped at even when wearing jeans and hoodie. So many men disgust me.

When I was a schoolgirl a man old enough to be my grandfather put his hand down my top, a middle aged man kissed me on the lips with no warning and no conversation and a young man grabbed my arse when I was walking in front of him. I had had no interaction with any of them. Oh yes, it's common all right. I think there was a thread on here a while back about these 'minor' assaults which the vast majority of women had experienced as girls.

Given that the age of consent in the UK is 16, why are they using 18 as a benchmark?