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In this review, in which we will be using all three terms - sexual abuse, child molesting, and pedophilia - we will use the term pedophilia in its broader "inclusive" definition, taking into account the behavior of any individual who has had sexual contact with children, including incest offenders. We favor this definition of the term because the other definition reflects a particular theory about pedophilia, one that has some empirical support, but is far from being fully substantiated. [...] We favor being able to define the category by some more readily ascertainable behavioral criteria, which is easier to do with the broader definition.
[...] What most of these approaches tend to share is that they are "single-factor theories." They identify one or, at the most, a couple of mechanism to explain sexual interest in children. Not surprisingly, they have been inadequate to explain the full range and diversity of pedophilic behavior. This behavior ranges form the man who spends a lifetime masturbating over children's underwear ads in Sears catalogs but never touches a single child, to a man who after many years of respectable heterosexual fidelity to his wife is possessed by a strong sudden impulse to caress his granddaughter's genitals, to a man who persuades his girlfriend to help him bring a child into their bed after reading about such activities in an X-rated novel.
Such diversity of behavior defies single-factor explanations. What is needed is a more complicated model that integrates a variety of single-factor explanations in a way that accounts for the many different kinds of child molesting outcomes.
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Some of the most widely cited theories about pedophilia explain that sexual abusers choose children for sexual partners because children have some especially compelling emotional meaning for them. We have called this "emotional congruence" because it conveys the idea of a "fit" between the adult's emotional needs and the characteristics of children, a fit that the theories are trying to account for.
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McGuire, Carlisle, and Young (1965), in their general model of sexual deviation, suggest that what is important in the development of a fixation is that the early experience of arousal be incorporated into a fantasy that is repeated and becomes increasingly arousing in subsequent masturbatory repetitions (also see Wenet et al., 1981, p.149). [...]
In another theory of sexual arousal, Howells (1981) speculated about how a process of "attributional error" may play a role in creating arousal to children. Children elicit strong emotional reactions in many people, reaction usualy labeled "parental" or "affectionate," but some individuals may mistakenly label these reaction as sexual and then come to act accordingly toward children.
Still other accounts of the origin of sexual arusal to children have focused on biological factors such as hormone levels or chromosomal makeup (Money, 1961; Goy & McEwen, 1977; Berlin, 1982).
A final theory about sexual arousal derives from speculations that some individuals might learn to become aroused to children through exposure to child pornography or other media that project children in an erotic light.
In examining the above theories, the first matter is to be established is whether or not child molesters are in fact persons who have unusual sexual arousal to children. There is a fairly impressive body of experimental evidence suggesting that they are indeed unusualy sexually responsive to children. Most of this research has been conducted by Freund and collegues and Quinsey and collegues. In fact, this particular body of research represents the most methodologically and statistically sophisticated research on pedophilia.
Frend (1967a, 1967b) and Freund and collegues (1973, 1976), in a series of studies, investigated penile responses to slides of female and male children and adults. They found significantly more arousal to children in a group of molesters, both female-object and male-object, than in either of two control groups (homosexual and heterosexual males).
Quinsey and collegues (1975) conducted a number of similar studies and found similar results. For example, using penile and skin conductance responses to slides of children, they compared child molesters (N=20) with nonmolesters (N=20). Although the child molesters claimed adult females as their preferred sex object, in tests they exhibited the largest penile responses to slides of female children. The penile tests also confirmed that female-object child molesters had peak arousal to female children, and male-object pedophiles to male children. Bisexual pedophiles, interestingly, had peak arousal to female children, although the second highest peak was for adult females. (For more on bisexual pedophiles, see Freund & Langevin, 1976.) Atwood and Howell (1971) also found that the pupils of child molesters dilated to slides of children on contricted to adult females, an opposite pattern from that found for a control group.
As a whole, the above studies seem to establish the fact that some pedophiles have an arousal preference for children, but whether or not all child molesters, including incest offenders, have such a preference is not clear. There is at least one study that indicates that incest offenders do have such an arousal to children. Abel, Becker, Murphy and Flanagan (1981) played audiotapes of sexual encounters to 6 female-object incest offenders as well as to 10 female-object pedophiles, and found that, similar to the other sex abusers, the incest offenders "developed significant erections to pedophilic cues that were not descriptions of sexual acts with their daughters or stepdaughters." However, when Quinsey, Chaplin, and Carrigan (1979) examined the penile response of a matched sample of 16 incestuous and 16 nonincestuous child offenders, they found "that incestuous child molesters have more appropriate sexual age preferences (adults) than those who are nonincestuous.
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Theories that try to account for incest offenders rely heavily on this blockage model. In the family dynamics model of incest, for example, the marital relationship ha broken down; the wife has become alienated for some reason; the father is too inhibited or moralistic to find sexual satisfaction outside the family; thus, blocked in other avenues of sexual or emotional gratification, he turns to his daughter as a substitute (deYoung, 1982; Gebhard et al., 1965; Meiselman, 1978).
[...]Repressive sexual norms, one could argue, operate to make adults feel guilty about engaging in adult sexual relationships, and this may push some into choosing child partners. Fro example, norms tabooing extramarital affairs may in some cases block the incestuous father from seeking out other adult women rather than his child (Weinberg, 1955). There is also a norm that makes masturbation seem inappropriate for adults, and this norm may block what would otherwise be another alternative and benign sexual outlet. However, it is somewhat difficult to understand why someone so sensitive to the taboo on extramarital sex or masturbation would not be sensitive ot the taboo on sex with children. [...]
[...] Goldstein et al. (1973) found that 80% of his pedophile group reported guilt or shame from looking at or reading erotica, compared to 47% for a control group. They were "the least permissive ... regarding premarital and extramarital intercourse." These researchers also report that male-object pedophiles expressed more opposition to talking about sex than any of the other study groups.
In sum, the evidence does seem to support the idea that many sex abusers do have problems relating to adult women and that possibly poor social skills and sexual anxiety contribute to this. Whether or not this has anything to do with family background and dynamics, as alleged in many of the theories, is, however, another matter. Gebhard et al. (1965) found evidence of poor parental relationships for his heterosexual aggressor, incest, and male-object (but not female-object) offenders. But the types of poor relationships differed. Paitich and Langevin (1976), using the Clarke Parent Child Relations Questionaire, found problems with mothers to be characteristic of incest offenders, but not of other pedophiles. In general the evidence on this matter is very spotty and inconclusive and cannot be said to support theories about castration anxiety of Oedipal conflict.
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