Sexual offenders aren't monsters

So.

I was 15 years old.

Some adults came to my high school and encouraged us to do strange stuff in front of everybody else at the assembly hall. I volunteered. And I did not have a good time; so did a friend of mine, who left before everything was over. I then went to find her, and she was (also) having a panic attack. We then went to hide in one of the classrooms and listen to music with some friends and my older sister.

My homeroom teacher found us, and I ended up talking to her about what happened in the office. I ended up crying, if I recall. Just before I left, she told me something along the lines of “if there is anything you need me to do, just ask”. She said it in, what I interpreted as, a suggestive tone. This woman was in her late 30s or 40s.

I would be inclined to brush it off… if she didn’t mention in a groupchat¹ that she would date one of the students there if she wasn’t his teacher. And if she didn’t hang up my drawings in her office. She also mentioned in that groupchat that she hadn’t had sex in a while.

This woman was… odd. She was too lazy to send my brother’s high school transcripts to universities, until my mom screamed at her. She seemed to disliked women. She was a libertarian (of course!) and would argue about politics with me in school.

And no, I did not have sex with that woman. I do still think about her, though.

The question is, why do these people want to have sex with minors or students, and not adults?

The case of men doing this is not so mysterious. Maybe they want to have sex, think it’s possible a long term relationship could develop, or just happen to like somebody who is under 18. Women doing this is weirder. If they just wanted to have sex, they could ask random men or hire prostitutes. Young men generally don’t go for older women when they want longer-term relationships.

The idea people initiate these types of relationships for the purposes of power is true for a few cases, but far too reductive. I could believe it’s a misguided attempt to be exploitative. The fact of the matter is that, if the student/child feels pressured, they can admit to the relationship, and result in their partner losing their position of authority or suffering legal consequences.

The meta-answer: they cannot find adults that are suitable replacements, because if they could, they obviously wouldn’t be doing what they are doing. Relationships with teenagers could also provide them things relationships with adults can’t: sexual validation, the dynamic, lower stakes, and the taboo element.

Beyond that — I think these types of offenders are strongly motivated by loneliness.

Evidence

Pedophiles are more introverted and neurotic than regular people.

from here. p-values for agreeableness and conscientiousness look like nothing

Accordingly, they are more likely to have fewer friends, and be less likely to psychologically tolerate their lack of them. They don’t have lower levels of conscientiousness, which seems believable, since most pedophilic crimes are premeditated.

Fortunately, we have another study of the personality traits of sex offenders — 32 child molesters, 26 sexual offenders against adults, 31 regular prisoners, and 42 controls:

from here. Neuroticism (F(3,124) = 4.82; p < .01; η2 = .11), Extraversion (F(3,124) = 4.19; p < .01; η2 = .09)

The pedophile personality profile² replicates, and regular sexual offenders have similar personalities to them: low extraversion and high neuroticism. Still no difference in agreeableness, a point against the power explanation.

Beyond that, there’s a qualitative study of 10 English women who had sex with male teenagers when they were in a position of authority. Their research suggested that they did not have exploitative motivations, and were more motivated by low self-esteem, issues with their own relationships, and a desire for intimacy. Generally, I don’t trust qualitative research, but this seems fairly credible to me.

There are various typologies of offenders: those with preferences for teenagers/children, situational offenders, and repressed offenders (those who fail with adults). There is something here, but I think the independence between these categories is questionable: why, exactly, do some people prefer minors in the first place? It’s not impossible that personal circumstances and failures with adults could subconsciously raise attraction to minors. People are often attracted to things based on what they mean, not what they are.

Oh, and there is evidence that teacher misconduct regarding students is becoming more common over time. In 2004, 9.6% of students claimed to have been sexually harrassed/abused by educations; in 2023 11.7% claimed to be.

So

There is no one reason why somebody decides to try to have sex with a teenager, though one thing unites all cases: they chose a teenager over an adult, or loneliness. I think a lot of the reasons people espouse out: a lack of morality or desire for power, are framed incorrectly or too reductive. They’re making choices under uncertainty and incentives.

Unfortunately, it is necessary to say that dating a 6 year old and a 15 year old is not the same thing. I’m not talking about morality, or even about harm. The thing about harm-based theories of rules is that there are lots of harmful things people are allowed to do, so something being harmful isn’t a good theory as to why things are not allowed. In terms of ethics, there is a clean difference: some people would privately excuse dating a 15 year old, but almost never a 6 year old. The whole field of “sexually unallowed behaviour” has a lot of issues with categories and words getting mixed up, leading to tedious definitional discussions.

And no. I don’t support removing the age of consent³. And I think rape is bad.

Ideally, the age of consent would be the same as the age of voting, graduating, and working. I think we could design society in a way where people graduate from high school at 15, but #wecanthavenicethings.

1. With my older sister and her classmates.

2. More: pedopophiles and those who actively abuse children are more neurotic than the regular person:

from here

Non-offending pedophiles (NM) and healthy controls were unlikely to have been abused by an older person when they were a child. Offending pedophiles (FM), on the other hand, were much more likely to have been abused (according to them… at least).

from here

3. Deep Left Analysis with the nuclear take: the age of consent is… eugenic?