The mediating role of psychopathology in the emergence of deviant sexual fantasies in sexual aggressors of children

Many researches in the field of sexual delinquency focus solely on the presence of inadequate coping strategies prior to the sexual offense and on the role they play in the assault sequence. Moreover, not only the presence of these inadequate coping strategies has been shown on multiple occasions to enhance the probabilities of committing a sexual offense within a sexual offender population, but also this seems to be particularly appropriate when it comes to sexual aggressors of children. But how do these offenders come to develop strategies such as alcohol misuse, drug abuse and more particularly, deviant sexual fantasies as a normalized way to manage day-to-day difficulties? To gain insight into the origins of the development of inadequate coping strategies, we have carried out a series of structural equation modeling analyses (SEM) on a sample of 276 sexual aggressors of children. These analyses were based on the theoretical model of Maniglio (2011) stipulating that child victimization (and especially sexual victimization) would later on create psychological problems, which in turn, could lead to the development of deviant sexual fantasies as a form of coping mechanism. Multiple pathways were found linking childhood victimization to psychological problems and to alcohol misuse, drug problems and deviant sexual fantasies. The theoretical and empirical implications of our results will be discussed unknown unknown