Abstract
Emotional abuse and sexual abuse, either alone or in combination, have been implicated as developmental antecedents of problematic sexual thoughts and behaviors in studies of sexually aggressive males (Knight & Sims-Knight, 2011). Recently, emotional abuse perpetrated by a male caregiver has emerged as a strong predictor of subsequent hypersexuality in adult male sexual offenders. In a study of 529 adult male sexual offenders, Kingston, Graham, and Knight (2017) found that male caregiver emotional abuse was the most prominent predictor of hypersexual thoughts and behaviors in adulthood, above and beyond the effects of other abuse types, such as physical abuse and sexual abuse. Consequently, we hypothesized that among juveniles who had sexual offended (JSOs) higher self-reported levels of childhood emotional and sexual abuse in contrast to other types of childhood maltreatment experiences would covary with higher subsequent levels of normophilic sexualized thoughts and behaviors. Consistent with Kingston et al. (2017), Male Caregiver Emotional Abuse emerged as a potent predictor of subsequent reported hypersexuality in this juvenile sample. Furthermore, this factor also emerged as a strong predictor of deviant sexual behaviors and fantasies, such as paraphilic interests and pedophilic preference. Sexual Abuse was also found to be a significant predictor of hypersexuality. These findings provide additional support for the strong relation between male caregiver emotional abuse and subsequent problematic sexual thoughts and behaviors. These data are consistent with other research that suggests a parent-gender effect on the impact of parental discipline and the differential effect of male caregiver abuse on male children.