Why do people assault others sexually

Whatever your situation and your path, please remember this: demands, threats, manipulation, trickery and guilt can never bring genuine forgiveness. In fact, when someone tries to manipulate or force you into forgiving them or someone else, they are mostly trying to help themselves — not you. For example, the other person may be trying to relieve their own guilt, or to free themselves from uncomfortable questions your experiences and needs raises about how their family or organization e.

Sometimes such behavior can be abusive in its own right. Like making excuses, demonizing can provide the illusion of understanding, as well as the illusion of having emotional resolution about what happened. This is revealed by the simplistic stereotypes that go along with demonizing those who are sexual with children. Such labels may express totally justifiable anger, even rage, about what those people have done.

But they provide zero understanding of why those individuals sexually abused and harmed children in the ways they did. Also, like making excuses, demonizing others is an extreme way of responding to such experiences that — for totally normal and understandable reasons — many people get stuck in.

This usually happens before one truly acknowledges what happened and attempts to deal with its effects, or early in that process. Again, these extreme responses may be a necessary phase for many people, but they should not be confused with genuine understanding. They have good qualities as well as bad qualities.

They have positive motivations as well as negative ones. They have basic human needs for respect and love, and the need to have some control over how they seek to meet their needs. In the case of children who sexually use other children, the confusion is usually about the impact of sexual abuse they have experienced themselves, as well as the general confusion and misunderstandings that children have about sex.

Because people who use and abuse children are complex human beings, with complex lives, there is no single path that leads them to engaging in such behavior. This is true whether they were an adult when they sexually used and harmed a child engaged, or an older or more powerful child.

There are some general principles that therapists and researchers have learned, by working with and studying adults who have engaged in such behaviors, about why people sexually use or abuse children. Some who sexually use or abuse children maintain sexual relationships with age-appropriate partners, including at the same time they are using or abusing a child.

In reaction to those experiences of abuse, neglect, betrayal and powerlessness, they may have attempted to find feelings of power and control over others — including sexual power over children. Others struggle over time to contain their sexual interest in children, mostly successfully, but with periodic failures. Sometimes an unexpected opportunity to be sexual with a child suddenly presents itself and a person with the potential to engage in such behavior acts spontaneously and impulsively.

This is true for some adolescents, who are dealing with intense sexual desires that are not focused on children, but suddenly sexually misuse a younger or more vulnerable child. Any form of sexual violence is a frightening and humiliating experience during which the person has no control over what happens.

No one enjoys an experience like that. Men sexually assault others because they are sexually frustrated or cannot control themselves. If a person did not scream or fight or has no injury, it could not have been a sexual assault. Despite what you might see on TV, most people do not scream or fight. This is because they freeze. It is a common reaction for people to become paralysed with fear. It is not possible for a man to sexually assault a woman unless he has a weapon.

When someone is in fear of being hurt or killed they will submit to what is being forced upon them. Prostitutes cannot be sexually assaulted. Everyone has the right to say no to sexual acts they do not want. Children who dress like adults and act in a provocative way are asking to be sexually abused. A child, by law, is unable consent to any sexual activity with another person no matter how they dress or act.

No child asks or deserves to be sexually abused. Some children let the abuse go on for a long time because they like it. A child may not tell anyone about the abuse for many reasons. This may be because the abuser threatened them, or they may feel ashamed or they may feel guilty. Sometimes they do not tell in order to keep the family together. Sexual abuse of a child or young person occurs within a loving relationship. Children are often targeted for sexual abuse simply because they are usually more vulnerable than adults.

Abusive people find it easier to act on their desires if they have convinced themselves that what they want to do is ok. All of these things their desires, beliefs and psychological difficulties are influenced by past and present life experiences.

So, for example, growing up living with domestic violence could make it more difficult to manage intense emotions, and make it easier to believe that it's ok to control others.

Messages they see or hear in society also play a large part in shaping how abusive people think, and can provide ready excuses. Our culture frequently shows people, especially women and girls, as sex objects, and often sexualizes children, especially teens. It also sometimes promotes the idea that crossing and confusing important boundaries which respect other people, is in fact sexy — for example, a lot of media sexualizes power and aggression, and a large proportion of sexual scenarios in mainstream pornography include manipulation, coercion or persuasion.

These are just some of the reasons why someone may chose to sexually abuse a child. None of these reasons excuse or justify sex between an adult and a child. No matter what the reason for the abuse, the effects on children are severe and can last a lifetime.