Grooming, Child Abuse, & Child Sexual Exploitation
Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviours and attitudes among Australian men.
Open Access: No
Abstract
Executive Summary. This project aimed to inform efforts to better detect and prevent child sexual abuse through a rigorous analysis of the prevalence and attitudinal, behavioural and demographic correlates of sexual feelings and/or offending against children amongst Australian men. The research measured the prevalence of offending and risk behaviours and attitudes amongst of a weighted sample of 1,945 Australian men over 18 years of age.
Relevance
“All categories of men who had sexual feelings and/or offending with children were significantly more likely to watch violent pornography, bestiality, and purchase online sexual content from adults, than men
who had no sexual feelings or offending with children.”
Men who had sexual feelings for children and sexually offended against children “were over eleven times more likely to watch violent pornography and over twenty-six times more likely to watch bestiality pornography. They were over sixteen times more likely to purchase sexual content online” and over three-and-a-half times more likely to accesses pornographic websites in general. “The use of pornography emerged as a key risk factor in our study.”
“The regulation of pornography, particularly violent and deviant content, is important in the prevention of child sexual abuse. Our research shows men with sexual feelings and offending against children are frequent users of pornography…A public health approach to the primary prevention of child sexual abuse must grapple with the influence of pornography on normalising the sexual abuse of children and shaping abuse-supportive attitudes.”
Citation
Salter, M., Woodlock, D., Whitten, T., Tyler, M., Naldrett, G., Breckenridge, J., Nolan, J., & Peleg, N. (2023). Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviours and attitudes among Australian men. Public report issued as part of Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviours and attitudes among Australian men, a collaborative research project between academics and civil society (Australian Human Rights Institute, University of New South Wales, Jesuit Social Services, The Men’s Project, and Stop It Now! Australia). https://www.humanrights.unsw.edu.au/research/current-research/understanding-online-child-exploitation-practices
