Barbara (BB1) posted some off topic points on another thread relating to child sexual abuse and a post I submitted in 2005. Rather than continue that discussion off topic I'd like to take it up here.

Barbara's post is at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1861#37490

Key points mentioned by Barbara in her post seem to be

"To get the love they need (all children need) they often present themselves sexually or, as you put it in your post, try to 'come on' to guys.

They may continue to do this well into adult life, recreating the abusive situation over and over until they are finally forced - by the level of their own unhappiness and dysfunction - to confront their past and the damage that caused.

So, yes, young girls (and boys do the same following abuse) re-enact it and try to 'seduce' those they want affection from. They have learned from an impressionable age that the two go hand in hand. (Research repeated over and over in various countries puts abuse rates at one in four for girls and one in seven for boys. Although under-reporting for boys is suspected. One recent Indian study of 2200 particpants showed a child sexual abuse rate of 46% of girls and 49% of boys. The question was not framed in terms of abuse but of first sexual experiences.)

Also, as you or another poster pointed out, I have seen studies showing that one-third of child sexual abusers are female.

Although not all abused children become abusers, some 60% of child sexual abusers have been abused themselves. Those who are going to take this path often start abusing others in adolescence."

Barbara if you have a link to the post you refered to can you post it please so I can go back and see what I said then (I may have changed my views on some stuff in the interval).

Cheers
R0bert

I saw Barbara's post too, it has haunted me every second since, no academic it never entered my head it could be so.
Looking at cases I know of it is so clear that yes victims do offer sex in that way.
I know of two cases that clearly prove this.
And if only close family could understand just why a victim has lived life that way.
I will watch the thread with interest.

I don't see any questions, or what this is supposed to show. Can children be criminals? Why yes they can. The onus is not always on the adult. That is cultural propaganda.

Excellent, excellent question R0bert. I look forward to responses. I am at a loss myself.

The child sexual abuse case that I am close to and that has come up on this forum from time to time was of a ten-year-old boy by twenty-five-year-old man. I am pretty certain the boy didn't "come on" to the man, but the boy later spent time in prison and I know he to others that he had to do things in there that "would make you [his dear friend] hate me".

He was someone who had received no parental love. The attention he got from the twenty-five-year-old man was the first affection he'd ever received from an adult male. It doesn't seem a stretch to believe he may have tried to replicate this relationship later.

Through my research, I have also learnt that many child victims of sexual assault do not report the assault because, at least initially, they enjoyed it. If not the actual sex bit, then at least the attention. It follows that some of them may have initiated it.

Thanks for raising this R0bert. If BB1 could come back with some more info that would be great.

My interest came about because while I have known of about 8 cases of such abuse two stand out.
Both girls both assaulted before 10 years of age both by close relatives.
It was not until teenage years they told anyone what had happened to them.
For me their lives remind me children can have a whole life destroyed under our eyes if we are not watching.
One of the offenders died before he was uncovered the other was often heard insulting his victim because of her changed behavior.
After some time he too was uncovered and in truth no longer has a life.
To me the point is the explanation of why those girls acted the way they did.
And constant reminding their copped heaps for behavior they maybe could not control.
I am aware now that the surviving offender was a victim in his childhood years, it does not lesson his crime in my mind.

steel the questions don't appear to be here yet. I'm waiting to see what Barbara wanted to discuss.

I've not located the original discussion but your point about the onus not always being on the adult reminded me of an earlier discussion. One side some seemed to excuse some child sex abuse because the child came onto the adult. Others proclaimed that children could not and would not come on to an adult. That might have been to do with the female victorian teacher who had a sexual relationship with a teenage student where the boy (then much older) was clearly stating that he had sought the relationship.

My point was (I think) that children (and youths) do sometimes try and initiate intimacy with adults but the responsibility lies with the adult not to go there. Pretending it does not happen is not helpful nor is excusing those who accept the offer. Sex may be a tool used to try and gain something else rather than what the underage person is seeking or they may be experimenting and not knowing how far it will go but it still happens.

Belly, the correlation between victim and perpetrator is a difficult one. I don't think the things that happened to us in the past excuse what we do to others now or in the future but I do believe we need to think about how we deal with perpetrators where there is such an obvious contributing factor to their behaviour.

Vanilla, it must be very confusing for kids when they have done some of the initiating and then they realise what is happening is wrong. I've spend time trying to teach my son to take responsibility for his choices and actions and what we ask of children in that situation is almost the opposite.

Thanks all for your input so far. Hopefully Barbara will be back soon. As I mentioned earlier I'm hoping to be away over the weekend so I may not have more to contribute until next week.

R0bert