by Chrystal Mahan

Created on: October 12, 2009   Last Updated: October 13, 2009

Every time you turn around, it seems there is more scandal in the headlines about sexual abuse and children. What is causing this trend? And why is it all coming out now?

We know from listening to the television that many adults are coming out with their stories. As children they were abused. But no one ever talks about the person who did the abuse. We just all assume that person is bad and dirty. But, has one ever stopped to think that maybe there is something within this person that caused him or her to do that. What if they did not do it simply because they wanted to, or it made them feel good, but because they did it because they felt they had to?

Childhood Sexual Abuse is defined as any sexual activity with a child by an adult, teen or even another child, anyone with more power. When an adult abuses a child sexually, that is Sexual Abuse. This heinous act is illegal in all fifty states. At least 1 in 5 girls and 1 of 10-20 boys are abused, and 88% of the abuse is never reported. People who sexually abuse (molest) are more likely to be people we know, like, trust and care about. In 70-90% of the reported cases, the child knows the abuser (Finkelhor). Most definitions tend to ignore the social and cultural context of any given episode of sexual abuse. But without taking into account the context, it is very difficult for individuals, communities, or systems to truly define, much less respond appropriately to, the sexual abuse of children (NYC Alliance).

So then who would want to harm a child in such a way? Well, there are a number of reasons. It is likely that the abuser was also abused as a child and is acting out against that. If that is the case, they may never have learned that sexual abuse was wrong. But, let's clarify that not all sexually abused children abuse as adults (Gordon, S.). It could also be they abuse due to the feelings, the rush they get at that chance to increase their power and pleasure. These people become "hooked" on using children for sexual arousal the way a drug addict depends on its drugs for that euphoric feeling. Abusers may seek children to abuse because they have a long history of sexual attraction to kids or because they took advantage of an opportunity to abuse a child in their trust (stopitnow.com).

We can not put the abusers into one and the same category. Just as not all people are the same, not all abusers are the same. As with any other group there are different behaviors and a wide variety of people who abuse. We have

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