The Relation of Familiarity With Sexual Abusers to Subsequent Developmental Adaptation in Youths Who Have Sexually Offended

Abstract

The present study explored the effects of child sexual abuse (CSA) on the adaptation of male juveniles who subsequently sexually offended (JSOs; n = 178; age, M = 16.05 years, SD = 0.27, range = 12-22). It examined multiple levels of interpersonal closeness between the perpetrators of sexual abuse and their JSO victims. JSOs who were sexually abused by older children or adults who cohabitated with them for at least 3 months reported higher levels of emotional dysregulation, callousness/manipulativeness, and sexualization than did both JSOs who were sexually abused by someone they had never lived with and JSOs who reported no experiences of sexual abuse. Implications of these findings are discussed.

The Relation of Childhood Abuse Experiences to Problematic Sexual Behaviors in Male Youths Who Have Sexually Offended

“…The current finding that sexual abuse emerged as a significant predictor of normophilic sexualization is consistent with previous literature linking childhood sexual abuse to the development of excessive normative sexual thoughts and behaviors in juvenile sexual and nonsexual offender samples (Berman & Knight, 2015;Grabell & Knight, 2009;Knight, 2004;Miner et al, 2010). In a meta-analysis of male adolescent samples in the United States and Canada, Homma et al (2012) found that males with a history of sexual abuse were significantly more likely to have engaged in a variety of risky sexual behaviors, including behaviors related to hypersexuality, such as having sex with multiple partners.…”

“…Samples of adults have comparably high testretest reliability and internal consistency, and both juveniles and adults have shown considerable agreement in responding across domains (Knight, 2004;Knight et al, 1994). The MASA has been validated across samples of adults with sexual and nonsexual offenses, juveniles with sexual and nonsexual offenses, college students, and community samples (Berman & Knight, 2015;Daversa & Knight, 2007;Grabell & Knight, 2009;Knight, 2004;Knight & Cerce, 1999;Knight et al, 1994;Knight & Sims-Knight, 2003Zakireh et al, 2008). The focus for the present study was on the sections of the MASA that assess developmental abuse histories, as well as the scales used to assess problematic sexual thoughts and behaviors.…”

“…This finding not only complicates previous etiological models of problematic sexual behavior by highlighting the potency of maltreatment types other than sexual abuse, but it also identifies the gender composition of the parent-child dyad as a potential moderator of the effects of childhood abuse. Other factors, such as timing in development (Grabell & Knight, 2009;Jaffee & Maikovich-Fong, 2011), severity of abuse (Bryant & Range, 1997), duration of abuse (Cicchetti, Cowell, Rogosch, & Toth, 2015), and closeness to perpetrator (Berman & Knight, 2015) have been implicated as moderators of the effects of different types and combinations of abuse, and these findings have indicated that the gender of the abuser may also play a moderating role. Given that Kingston et al's (2017) participants were all male, it is not apparent that male caregiver emotional abuse would prove equally potent for hypersexuality in females, because we cannot conclude whether the effect is driven by the perpetrator's gender or by the gender symmetry of the paternal figure-son dyad.…”

“…The average period of commitment was 1 to 2 years. This sample has previously been analyzed to address other issues (Berman & Knight, 2015;Daversa & Knight, 2007;Grabell & Knight, 2009). This is the first study to focus on this issue with these preselected variables.…”

“…For example, Grabell and Knight (2009) found that sexual abuse experienced between the ages of 3 and 7 predicted sexual fantasy during adolescence in this sample of JSOs. The nature of the abuser-victim relationship--and specifically the amount of time during which the abuser cohabitated with the victim--has also been found to predict higher levels of emotional dysregulation, callousness/ manipulativeness, and sexualization in male JSOs who have been sexually abused (Berman & Knight, 2015). It would be particularly interesting to explore whether those male caregivers who were emotionally abusive also perpetrated physical or sexual abuse against the juveniles, and whether the effects of those abuse types might be moderated by perpetrator gender as well.…”