Citation

Jahnke S, Malón A. Psychol. Crime Law 2019; 25(1): 90-107.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/1068316X.2018.1503665

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

To date, very little research has tackled whether pedophilic men's attitude towards adult-child sex depends on characteristics of the adult or the child involved in such acts. This study examines the effect of the child's gender (male vs. female) and physical maturity (pre-pubescent vs. early pubescent) on the moral evaluation of apparently noncoercive adult-child sex in a 2 × 2 factorial online vignette experiment. One hundred eighty-three English-speaking pedophilic men rated their agreement with moral arguments on the Immoral Sex Scale, as well as whether they believed this behavior to be typical for a child. The results revealed considerable inter-individual differences, with about one third showing restrictive moral attitudes. Contrary to our expectations, gender and physical maturity neither affected the perceived morality of the sexual act, nor beliefs about the representativeness of the child's behavior. However, when controlling for confounds, pedophilic men believed that boys were more likely to willingly engage in adult-child sex. Furthermore, participants with stronger liberal attitudes were found to be more likely to defend the sexual act, as were participants with a preferential interest in pre-pubescents. There was no link between attitudes towards adult-child sex and sexual offending, replicating the non-associations reported in previous community surveys.

Language: en

Keywords

attitudes; child sexual abuse; Pedophilia; survey