What Child Sexual Abuse Means to Child Survivors and Perpetrators

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 soul mates. 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.