New study: Millions of men ‘would xesually abuse children if secrecy was assured’ — The Times

[ElatedShark]

New study: Millions of men ‘would xesually abuse children if secrecy was assured’ — The Times.

A new study has revealed a shocking proportion of Australian men would abuse children “if no one found out”.

The research, conducted by the University of New South Wales, found “concerning” patterns, including that one in six Australian men said they had feelings for children under the age of 18, with 48 per cent of those answering being aged over 54.

One in 15 men questioned admitted they would have xesual contact with a child under the age of 14 if “no one found out”, while one in 25 said the same about children under 10.

The odds of a respondent saying they would have had xes with someone under the age of 18 was 10 times higher if they were aged over 65.

The survey, which questioned over 1900 men aged between 18 and 65 years old, is the world’s largest child sexual abuse perpetration prevention survey of its kind.

The study was welcomed by those who say that the common nature of xesual violence against women needs to be studied at the perpetrator level as well as with victims.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/millions-of-men-would-sexually-abuse-children-if-secrecy-was-sure-ncf9lx5v7

AIBU to be find it disturbing that these were the men only willing to admit it and its probably alot higher??

Reminds me of that red*it thread about men getting aroused changing their daughters diapers or that other study that showed men would happily commit rape if they were assured to never be revealed/caught.

What can we as women/parents/men that don't fall into the above statistics do to combat this ? How can we ensure our sons are not thinking these thoughts are ok?

As regards the BMJ figures I am not entirely sure as obviously social constraints will limit the number of pregnancies in outlying age ranges. But ot is clear that women in their late 20s and early 30s usually have good fertility so there is no excuse for going for a teenager.

But I think it's uncontroversial that teenage pregnancies are high risk for things like premature birth and even if that were for social reasons, that's still not a plus in fertility terms, to impregnate a girl so young she won't or can't behave in an optimum way to sustain rhe pregnancy.

I do think it likely that it's more biological in origin though, as anyone who breeds animals knows you don't do it as soon as possible or you risk injury to both the mother and offspring. Humans are mammals and no different in that respect.

Certainly people in the past did recognise this and most very young brides in dynastic arranged marriages were not expected to consumate their marriages until some time after the wedding. There was at the time some criticism that Henry vll's mother had him at 13. She never had another baby and it was debated at the time that her young age at the birth had permanently damaged her.

I'm no expert but on the few documentaries I have watched on this matter, the abuser when interviewed said that they started watching normal porn, then it progressed and progressed until they needed a bigger "kick" i.e child sexual abuse.

I think this narrative has lots of holes in it.

I think it's child sex offenders trying to blame pornography rather than themselves. They're trying to get lighter sentencing.

Ateotd there is tonnes and tonnes of porn of every imaginable type & extremity online - free. How come their "descent" doesn't go to BDSM or bi or whatever.

You cannot access images of child sex abuse on main stream sites, you have to search hard and long and with the risk of your searches triggering reports to the authorities from ISPs, you have to find your way into the dark web, you have to become involved in rings of child sex abusers.
It is not a natural, easy, or automatic progression from mainstream porn, at all.

They want to depict as as such because it takes away from awkward questions, like why they went looking and persisted in looking for images of child sex abuse ... Why they don't have a line/boundary re child sex abuse that you don't cross, why it's acceptable to them personally to search out and use images of child sex abuse etc.

Not all porn addicts "descend" to using images of child sex abuse. In fact I'd wager most don't. So it's not a porn addiction "thing". It's a child sex abuser thing.

Child sex abusers (direct or not) are hardly relaible honest narrators of why they want to see images of child sex abuse. They are fundamental liars and manipulators who want to shift responsibility, so why believe their "porn slippery slope" excuse??

On the main subject of the thread, I think we have lots of ideals about men - as people and as fathers - that are actually just that; ideals and very flawed ideals at that.

We have an ideal that they are wired to be good fathers, wired to be "decent" around children and youths ..... But are they??

A percentage might be, but clearly a very large proportion are not trustworthy or positive around children and young people. They are sexually driven, sexually predatory etc.

Even outside of their sex driven, predatory behaviour; they tend to be much less caring, empathetic, responsible etc. than females on average.

Anytime I see irresponsible behaviour towards children by a parent or adult, it's 9/10 a man, not a woman.

Anytime a parent abandons their children, it's vast majority the male parent.

We think they should have equal access and responsibility for the children they produced (and be caring and empathetic and responsible toward children and young people in general) but isn't that actually just a naive ideal? Look at the nature of the beast.

Look at crime stats - males, at the narrow end of the wedge - are responsible for the vast vast majority - nearly 100% of violent and sex crimes.

At the less narrow end they are responsible for the vast majority of partner and ex partner murders.

At the even less narrow end, they are responsible for the majority of domestic abuse.

The vast vast majority of the sex industry exists to cater to them/with them as customers.

There are so many other examples.

It's sad, but I think we really have the rise tinted glasses on, about what a significant portion of males in any society are like ..and what a risk (from "minor" to major) they are to women and children.

I'd have to find a link to it but I think there is also a body of work that argues, with evidence, that the "worst" traits in males have actually been passed on ... because those males with the worst traits were the most successful in passing on their genes.

In the distant past, the vast minority of males got to reproduce and pass on their genes ...this is apparently seen in DNA. The vast majority of males did not. The ones that did tended to be dominant, ruthless, resource & power amassing (even if it was at a small/local level) avaristic "alpha" males with some traits that might fall under the dark triad trait umbrella. Narcissist, lacking empathy, manipulative, sociopathic, dominant etc.

An example of this on a large scale would be Genghis Khan; it is thought from DNA studies that 1 in 12 men across 8 Asian populations (one in 200 around the world) is descended from him.

This theory just backs up the fact that we attribute the best traits to men automatically, but actually a large proportion of them may have the worst traits, and that puts women and children in an ongoing "at risk" situation.

For all the ones that would, there's plenty of men who wouldn't.
It's like when people say 1 in 3 marriage fail. That means 2 don't.

The only good thing from this post is that thanks to the internet it seems a lot of incels are now single and sitting at home wanking on the net rather than actually breeding and continuing these genetics. Small mercies.

But the other two out of three marriages aren't always happy. In many, many cases the couple only stay together because of the kids, the house, the debts, etc. In fact, I would say at least half the married couples I know are unhappy but grinding it out.

It's the same with sexual abuse. Just as unhappy marriages are often hidden behind a mask, so is sexual abuse. The majority of victims never go to the police. And the vast, vast majority of rapists are never convicted or punished. I have often looked at old men and thought "I wonder if you ever abused a young girl when you were in your prime." Until very recently (thanks to DNA testing, security cameras, media coverage, pressure from campaigners, and a greater willingness to confront these issues) sexual abuse was hidden away and accepted. It was very difficult to secure a conviction. Without CCTV footage or DNA evidence it was one word against another. And a confused and frightened 12-year-old isn't the best witness. We will never know, but I have a hunch that the sexual abuse of young people was rife, in both institutions and families. I have known at least six women in my life, possibly more, who were raped or abused in their childhood or teens. None of them ever went to the police. It happened in orphanages, hospitals, schools and families. Jimmy Saville wasn't a freak. He was an extreme example of something that was happening everywhere. That's why he got away with it.

I remember reading a newspaper article about this. The journalist wrote that when she was eight or nine a man had stuck his hand up her dress and tried to kiss her. She'd fought him off and run home in tears. Her mother gave her a cup of tea and told her not to be upset and then carried on making dinner. It was just accepted. I don't mean people approved. But it had probably happened to the girl's mother and grandmother. Women had this attitude of "well, that's just what men are like." If you could go back to, say, 1970, it was common for 13 or 14-year-old girls to be groped, assaulted, pressured into sex, etc. I remember a woman (who would have been a teenager in the early 1980s) saying bitterly to me "I always had a different stepdad coming in to kiss me goodnight." Her mother (an alcoholic) had had numerous boyfriends, and the majority of them had sexually abused the daughter in some way. Again, she never went to the police. She had stayed in touch with a man her mother had dated when she was young, and was sort of taking of him in old age (he'd have been in his 80s). She said "of all my mum's boyfriends, he was the only one who was kind and never tried it on with me."😪

Oh good - we can all relax then! Thank you for letting us know.

This study doesn't really prove anything. Millions would abuse if they were certain to get away with it - sure, but the overwhelming majority know that there's a real likelihood of getting caught. It think this is true of most crimes, almost everyone would kill or steal if they could do so with no chance of ever being charged or prosecuted - we don't though, because we don't have that immunity.

The report also talks about sex with people under 18. There's a massive difference between an adult having sex with a 16 or 17 year old versus a younger child. The stats about 14yo and 10yo are unsurprising - the vast majority would never countenance such a thing.

almost everyone would kill or steal if they could do so with no chance of ever being charged or prosecuted

The reason I wouldn't kill someone has nothing whatsoever to do with whether I'd be prosecuted for it!

Agree @HorsesDuvets and stealing isn't a victimless crime, I don't steal because it is wrong, not because of the fear of getting caught

I think you've massively missed the point - men fancy children isn't something we can just shrug about.

Until very recently (thanks to DNA testing, security cameras, media coverage, pressure from campaigners, and a greater willingness to confront these issues) sexual abuse was hidden away and accepted.

A woman I know and her Mum stopped to buy meat from a butchers in a very small rural town/village near their (already relativey) rural town when I was visiting them, and said to me

"this is xxxxx, known for incest .. and its really good butchers lol".

They found it funny and referred to it as incest. I was thinking "incest or child sex abuse"??

How many girls and very young women do you think actively, willingly want to fuck their older male relatives?! How much awareness and agency are they likely to have had?
It's a (sick) male fantasy but the reality is they wouldn't choose it and if they ever did, they'd have "issues".

But all this undoubted child sex abuse was described and dismissed as "incest" and seen as blackly funny.

almost everyone would kill or steal if they could do so with no chance of ever being charged or prosecuted

Stealing is one thing but killing!!!!!

You seriously think everyone would kill someone else if they wouldn't get charged??!!

Maybe you're projecting your own (psychopathic) values and inclinations there.

Yeah but dark triad narc sociopath men are still breeding like rabbits.

No you can relax, but your just focussing on the ones that do.

@Xenoi24 what a horrifying thought- that there is an evolutional advantage to some of these dark traits. Makes you reflect on where things could go in the future.

@PassingStranger sure they are in the minority but it’s a significant minority! Which means we all probably know someone who thinks like that.

Oh god, I growing up in the 70s and 70s there were so many incest 'jokes'.

The one I remember the most is:

A boy from Town X goes home to his family and excitedly tells his parents, "mum, dad, I've met a girl from Town Y and we're getting married, and she's a virgin!". His dad says to him, "if she's not good enough for her own family, she's not good enough for you!".

Yay.

A female doctor friend once told me that the best, overall safest age for pregnancy is from age 17/18. At about aged 17 a girl’s hips have finished growing to their full width. No one wants 18 year olds to have babies now so statistically it will be an older age group who will come across as having the most children.

I am just watching news about the appalling raping going on in Sudan.

The rate of rapes in war ( including by British, US men etc) shows what men will do when they get the chance and feel either sanctioned, or tolerated.

That's vile. I remember many moons ago on Facebook when older people who'd never been around the Internet properly first started getting online and learning how to use it was becoming more common. There was a shared picture of a very young, attractive teenager in a cheerleader outfit and some absolutely gross individual commented on it, "I wish she was my granddaughter" and some of his family commented on it joining in on the joke. I remember feeling sick, because he had no idea his friends and family could see that and it just shows what he's thinking about young women, related or not.

I fucking hate these predatory fucks, I really do

You seriously think everyone would kill someone else if they wouldn't get charged

But you're looking at that from your current perspective. If it was something that people just did and no one blinked an eye, then maybe you would! There's been a couple of people in my life I probably could have killed if not for the threat of prison! Doesn't make me a psychopath I don't think. There were reasons. But I don't want to spend 20years in prison. It wasn't "that" worth it.

So yeah I think plenty of people would do illegal things if they knew they wouldn't get caught.

We think they should have equal access and responsibility for the children they produced (and be caring and empathetic and responsible toward children and young people in general) but isn't that actually just a naive ideal? Look at the nature of the beast

The law in all its stupidity treats mothers and fathers as equal when that is bound to cause trouble in most cases.

I even saw on the news last week that men who have sexually abused their children still keep their so-called ‘Parental Responsibility’. Charlotte Proudfoot was talking about it.

And men didn't need an anonymous survey to shock them they all know this.

How many women do you think are actually attracted to children though?
That is the point. Men, seemingly quite a large amount, are and we encourage them to be around children.

It's not the same as thinking you'd rob a bank, just the once; a relatively victimless crime.

As a society we’ve shifted what we see as a ‘child’. For many many centuries girls (and boys) were considered ‘adult’ ie fine to have sex with, once they hit puberty. I’m not personally saying it’s ok, and I do know they are a child, what I am saying is that I think we (or men) are on some level biologically primed to become aroused around someone who has reached biological sexual maturity.

My basic point is we should not fall into the trap of thinking it is safe to leave our girls around any man. Yes I know NAMALT, but do you know which ones are?? Don’t ever forget they are vulnerable.