Child sexual abuse Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Causal factors=== Causal factors of child sex offenders are not known conclusively.<ref name=psychtoday2008>{{cite web |url=http://psychologytoday.com/conditions/pedophilia.html |archive-url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20080219104453/http://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/pedophilia.html |archive-date=19 February 2008 |title=Pedophilia |publisher=Sussex Publishers, LLC |work=Psychology Today |date=7 September 2006 |access-date=9 January 2009 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> The experience of sexual abuse as a child was previously thought to be a strong risk factor, but research does not show a causal relationship, as the vast majority of sexually abused children do not grow up to be adult offenders, nor do the majority of adult offenders report childhood sexual abuse. The US [[Government Accountability Office]] concluded, "the existence of a cycle of sexual abuse was not established." Before 1996, there was greater belief in the theory of a "cycle of violence", because most of the research done was retrospective—abusers were asked if they had experienced past abuse. Even the majority of studies found that most adult sex offenders said they had ''not'' been sexually abused during childhood, but studies varied in terms of their estimates of the percentage of such offenders who had been abused, from 0 to 79 percent. More recent prospective [[Longitudinal study|longitudinal]] research—studying children with documented cases of sexual abuse over time to determine what percentage become adult offenders—has demonstrated that the cycle of violence theory is not an adequate explanation for why people molest children.<ref>{{cite web |title=Cycle of Sexual Abuse: Research Inconclusive About Whether Child Victims Become Adult Abusers |url=http://www.gao.gov/archive/1996/gg96178.pdf |work=US Government Accountability Office General Government Division United States |author1=E L Rezmovic |author2=D Sloane |author3=D Alexander |author4=B Seltser |author5=T Jessor |year=1996 |access-date=2009-01-09 |archive-date=2011-05-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524004442/http://www.gao.gov/archive/1996/gg96178.pdf }}</ref> Offenders may use [[cognitive distortion]]s to facilitate their offenses, such as [[minimisation (psychology)|minimization]] of the abuse, [[victim blaming]], and [[making excuses|excuses]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ward |first1=Tony |last2=Hudson |first2=Stephen M. |last3=Marshall |first3=William L. |year=1995 |title=Cognitive Distortions and Affective Deficits in Sex Offenders: A Cognitive Deconstructionist Interpretation |url=https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/cognitive-distortions-and-affective-deficits-sex-offenders#:~:text=Cognitive%20Distortions%20and%20Affective%20Deficits%20in%20Sex%20Offenders%3A%20A%20Cognitive%20Deconstructionist%20Interpretation,-NCJ%20Number&text=This%20paper%20conceptually%20integrates%20cognitive,maintaining%2C%20and%20justifying%20sexual%20offending |journal=Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=67–83 |doi=10.1177/107906329500700107 |s2cid=145666322}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page