Why boys?

[caradoc]

Why are the vast majority of the victims boys? You would think that young girls would be equally or even more attractive to pedophiles, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Could there be some biological factor involved? Perhaps a hormone? Man/boy sex goes back at least to Sparta. Is there more to it than abuse?

[biaothanatoi]

Which victims? Whose victims? Paedophilia in general? Boys aren't more likely to be abused the girls. You can't really depend on the figures, but victim report studies suggest that girls are more likely to be the targets of both incest and extrafamilial abuse.

[caradoc]

I'm thinking of high profile cases, especially those involving powerful men, politicians, and clergy. This seems to be a different order of behavior than typical child abuse.

[Wombaticus Rex]

^^right, because it's ritual, not merely sexual.

I suspect your answer lies somewhere between elite boarding schools, a little too much appreciation for Greco-Roman culture and aliester crowley.

[biaothanatoi]

I'm thinking of high profile cases, especially those involving powerful men, politicians, and clergy. This seems to be a different order of behavior than typical child abuse.

Extrafamilial offenders who abuse boys are specifically targetted by the law in a way that men who abuse girls, or men who commit incest, are not. They are more likely to get caught, more likely to end up in front of a judge and more likely to draw media attention.

This "special" category of "high profile" cases has nothing to do with the offenders themselves, but rather the response of the law and the media to those offenders. All the evidence suggests that girls are victimised at a higher rate then boys both inside and outside the family, but people implicitly take this abuse less seriously.

[Canadian_watcher]

very very well put, biaothanatoi. I wholeheartedly echo your statements.

[Frankenkitty]

Very well said biaothanatoi. One wonders what kind of official response would take place if towns like Bountiful BC where adolescent girls are routinely married off into plural marriages were run by middle-aged women who took multiple partners from the adolescent ranks of the town's sons.