Child survivors of child sexual abuse often think the abuse is their fault, but when perpetrators talk about the abuse they do, it is clear who is at fault. It is not the children. Children do not "ask for it." Perpetrators take advantage of children for their own emotional, sexual, and sometimes financial, gain.
Perpetrators rarely think of child sexual abuse as abuse. They believe sexual abuse is many other things, such as love, affection, play, comfort, a thrill, a high, a teaching moment, or payback.
For many, sexual abuse is love. These perpetrators say they have fallen in love, what they do is love, they are having a love affair with the children, they want to run away with the children, and they want to marry them. They make claims that the sex is mutually pleasing. They often become angry and disgusted when they hear that someone else is sexually abusing children. “String them up!” they say. In their minds, what they do is love while what others do is abuse.
Those who see sexual abuse as play giggle and joke about the sexual touching they do or have the children do to them. They may play games like “You show me yours, and I'll show you mine.” Some feel like children themselves. Many men who abuse boys establish a kind of “buddy” relationship with the boys where wrestling and “horsing” around lead to sexual contact.
Sex abuse as comfort is common among perpetrators. Some say sex with children is a “fix”-it fixes them when they are feeling bad. Others say the only time they feel good is when they are have sexual contact with children.
Sometimes perpetrators see themselves and the children they victimize as soulmates. For them, life is hard, and they think it is hard for some children. They seek children who appear sad to them. In their way of thinking, their sexual behaviors comfort and soothe hurt, sad children. Sex abuse for them becomes an act of kindness.
Those who seek thrills and highs experience sex with children as the greatest feeling in the world. They would do anything to get the high that sex with children gives them.
Still others see themselves as teaching children, often their own biological children, how to make love. They would rather that their children learn from them rather than some scruffy teenager.
Some are rough and mean, deliberately hurting children. In their own minds, they believe children deserve to be hurt and damaged. They may confuse children with other people who have hurt them, and they think they have a right to take revenge on children. Children are scapegoats.
Here are the words of a father who could described what he did in some detail and stated how he felt. Absent is concern for his daughter's well-being. He lived with his wife, three children, and a cat.
One night I was making my regular rounds through the house, making sure the kids were in bed, the doors were locked, the cat was in and stuff. I had gone down to my daughter's room. It was very dark. I leaned over to give her a kiss goodnight. When I went to brace myself on her bed, I actually touched her breast when I kissed her on her cheek.
It was just like a shot of electricity through my body. I went upstairs and went to bed and tried to forget about it, but it was just racing in my head. I didn't go back down in her room for several days after that. Eventually, I did go back down there and the same thing. Kiss her on the cheek, but this time when I touched her breast it was intentional.
Then progressively it got to the point where I went down there, and I would touch her breasts over and under her pajamas while she slept, or I believed she slept. I would touch her with one hand, and I would masturbate with the other.
Children Understand Sexual Behaviors Differently
Children do not understand sexual behaviors in the ways perpetrators do. Children do not have the experience, the emotional and cognitive development, and the brain development to do so.
For instance, a thirteen year-old girl believed that her uncle was trying to love her. She said, “I didn't like him the way I like boys.”
Sexual acts are a mystery to children. A girl whose grandfather abused her for six years, starting when she was three, said
Grandpa used to do it on the boat. He had sort of a grin on his face. White stuff came out.
Another girl, age 10, said her teenage babysitter sort of did push-ups on her.
