Rarely does a pedophile experience sexual desire for adults of either gender. They usually don’t identify as homosexual; the majority identify as heterosexual, even those who abuse children of the same gender. They are sexually aroused by extreme youth, not by gender.
In contrast, child molesters often exert power and control over children in an effort to dominate them. They do experience sexual desire for adults but molest children episodically, for reasons apart from sexual desire, much as rapists enjoy power, violence, and controlling their humiliated victims. Indeed, research strongly suggests that a child molester isn’t any more likely to be homosexual than heterosexual.
In fact, some research shows that for pedophiles, the gender of the child is immaterial. Accessibility is more the factor in whom a pedophile abuses. This may explain the high incidence of children molested in church communities and fraternal organizations, where the pedophile may more easily have access to children.
In these situations, an adult male is trusted by those around him, including children and their families. Males are often given access to boys to mentor, teach, coach, and advise. Therefore, a male pedophile may have easier access to a male child. In trying to make sense of an adult male’s sexually abusing a male child, many of us mislabel it as an act of homosexuality, which it isn’t.
Feminists have argued for years that rape is not a sex act but an act of violence using sex as a weapon. In the same way, a pedophile abusing a child of the same sex is not perpetrating a homosexual act but an act of violence and exploitation using sexuality. There is a world of difference between these two things, but it requires a subtle understanding of the inner motivation of the abuser.
To call child molestation of a boy by a man “homosexual,” or that of a girl by a man “heterosexual,” is to misunderstand pedophilia. No true pedophile is attracted to adults, so neither homosexuality nor heterosexuality applies.
