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Pedophilia
The essential features of this disorder as described by the DSM-IV-TR include the following:
While female pedophiles are considered to be rare, discrepancies between the numbers of male and female offenders are tied to sexual stereotypes. Masculinity connotes sexual qualities, while femininity connotes maternal qualities and nurturance. When a female pets a child, she is nurturing. When a male pets a child, he is molesting. The majority of men who have had sexual contact with a woman when they were boys viewed it positively rather than negatively. Consequently, these acts were probably unreported. In one study, 16% of college males and 46% of prisoners reported having had sexual contact with older females, and half of the encounters involved intercourse. Mean age of males at the time of sexual contact was 12 years, and the females with whom they were involved were aged 20-30 years.
Many pedophiles have a personal history of unstable parent-child relationships as children and sexual abuse. The majority of pedophiles have a clear sexual preference. The undifferentiated or bisexual group accounts for only 5-25% of pedophiles. Most studies indicate that 60-90% of incidents of abuse involve girls.
Great variation exists among men who use children sexually. One third to one half prefer children as sexual partners. Others are attracted to children but act on their impulses only under stress. Some, who typically are younger than 30 years, are sociosexually underdeveloped, lack age-appropriate experience, and have feelings of shyness and inferiority. Unable to attain adult female contact, they continue prepubescent sexual patterns. Amoral delinquent youths (younger than pedophiles proper), lacking control when aroused, use whoever is close at hand. Patients with the situational type of pedophilia have no special preference for children, although they have sexual contact with children because of convenience or coincidence. Contact typically is brief and nonrecurrent. A residual category of offenders includes people with mental retardation, psychosis, alcoholism, senility, or dementia.
Approximately 37% of sexual assault victims reported to law enforcement agencies were juveniles (<18 y); 34% of all victims were younger than 12 years. One in 7 victims is younger than 6 years. Forty percent of offenders who victimized children younger than 6 years were juveniles (<18 y).
