I have no research data on this, but I have been at this long enough that I consider it more than anecdotal. Once again, when reading a sex offender’s history today, I noticed that he had observed his mother having sex with someone other than her husband. This shows up remarkably often in this population. One might expect that as a general rule, a woman with poor sexual boundaries and notions of privacy might bring up a son more likely to offend. But I wonder if the specific act is charged enough to be pathogenic, even as a single occurrence.
If anyone knows of research on this, please pass it along. I haven’t been able to discover any. I am also interested in anyone’s rambling thoughts on the matter.
Additional: Interesting blogging on a sex offender today over at Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred.
It's probably a statistical x z relation.
ReplyDeleteMeaning X causes Y, which Causes Z. X being the mother and Z being the sexual offender.
The Y is probably all the OTHER things that occur with that mother bringing up the child.
So it might not be X that causes Z, but all the other things caused by the original X (mother) problem in the first place, that brings up a child that repeat offends.
Again, there probably is not enough money or people researching this. So there is a lack of information for statistical or trend analysis.
Examples for the Y.
ReplyDeleteThe boyfriend can be abusing the male child, which grows up abusing others cause he thinks it is normal.
A male child sees how other men use his mother, how they enjoy it, and how they get no punishment. So male child grows up treating other women like things to be used for his pleasure, thinking there are no consequences.
A male child might see some menage a trois, or S and M, or seeing the boyfriends rough up his mother, and take this to mean that this is normal sex and if he wants to be normal, he needs to do the same things to his women.
I have seen a lot of patients, few sex offenders. I always ask a question question about growing up with a view to finding out about sexual abuse. The history of sexual abuse in depressed women is not uncommon. I have occasionally gotten a comment about a mother having a lot of boy friends, never mother being seen having sex with anyone. The Bible has a comment about some women 'uncovering their father's nakedness' which a rabbi said was metaphorical for sexual relations. What you describe seems a profound boundary violation and, given what you are hearing as compared to my experience, likely has high statistical power.
ReplyDelete