March 2009
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
		Apr »
	1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Pharmacy Links

VARIETIES OF SEX OFFENDERS VS. CHILDREN: SITUATIONAL CASES

March 27, 2009

This category is unsatisfactory in that it leaves unanswered the reasons for the offense behavior. In certain cases the individual was under stress, but why the stress led to (or was followed by) sexual activity with children is unknown. Perhaps one offender vs. children in a dozen could be classed as situational. Such offenders have no conscious sexual interest in children, who may be any age; deprivation seems involved in only about half of the cases, and the same is true of feelings of inferiority and shyness. Generally the offense behavior is of brief duration, often occurring only once, although an occasional male will get caught in a gratifying pattern of behavior and continue it for several months.

While the situational variety of offenders vs. children is so diverse in content that no one history can serve as typical, the following case of a twenty-seven-year-old male could be matched by many. After a rather restrained premarital life this shy and dependent young man married a girl who was more aggressive than he. She held a job, spent money freely, and went out frequently without her husband, leaving him at home to care for their child. He was periodically unemployed and felt perpetually jealous and inferior; the marriage continued to deteriorate. In a moment of depression he tried suicide. Not long thereafter while he was alone at home watching television some neighborhood children came in. One, a girl of ten, sat next to him and, according to him, hugged him. He became sexually aroused (coitus with his wife had become scant) and ultimately he took her into the bedroom and attempted coitus.

Leaving the “sane” varieties of offenders vs. children, there remain those whose mental functioning was either temporarily or permanently impaired.

*40\161\2*