Trauma does not beget trauma. Trauma can be stopped and not passed on. Passing on trauma is a choice.
I really object to the idea that having been sexually abused in childhood in any way explains (I accept you don't claim it excuses it) going on to sexually abuse children in adulthood.
If this was true, the majority of sexual abusers of children would be women, because the majority of sexually abused children are girls - but only a tiny minority of sexual abusers of children are female. In my experience, women who have been sexually abused in childhood are not at all 'devoid of empathy' - they are more likely to be campaigners against sexual abuse, than perpetrators of it.
Men can choose to do likewise - my father was badly abused as a child, and decided that he would never lay a finger on his children, and would instead give us all the security and love he had been deprived of in his childhood. And if he could make that choice, so could any male survivor of sexual abuse.
Having been fortunate enough to have a father who was not abusive, I had the misfortune to be sexually abused by a neighbour. So I know what the trauma of sexual abuse is like, and therefore, far from wishing to pass it on in the negative chain of trauma, the so-called cycle of abuse, I would never ever inflict that trauma on anybody else.
The backstories of the defendants in the Pelicot case had to be presented because their lawyers had to do everything in their power to defend their clients, including playing the sympathy card; fortunately the judges saw through it, and held the men responsible for what they, as grown up men, choose to do.
I'm sorry Yatzydog, I hope what I've written doesn't come across as too combative, it's just something I feel very strongly about from personal experience, and I get emotional about it.
Upset by the topic, not at you Yatzydog