A survey of 6,010 men in Spain found that 10.2% reported having engaged in at least one form of sexual conduct involving a minor during adulthood. The findings were presented by the University of Barcelona’s Research Group on Child and Adolescent Victimization as part of what its authors describe as Spain’s first study of this kind, designed to inform prevention efforts.
The survey also found that 2.8% of respondents said they had engaged in sexual conduct with someone under 15, and 1.7% reported conduct involving a child under 12. A further 3.4% said they had engaged in such conduct during the previous year. The researchers said the reported behaviors ranged from looking at naked children to requesting sexual images or having sexual contact; most of the indicators examined constitute crimes.
On attraction, 22.2% of respondents said they had felt some degree of sexual attraction to someone under 16 since reaching adulthood. For most, this attraction was not exclusive: 67.4% said their primary attraction was to adults, while 0.3% reported attraction exclusively to minors. The study’s coordinator, victimology professor Noemí Pereda, cautioned that these figures do not indicate the prevalence of a clinical diagnosis of pedophilia.
The researchers said the 10.2% figure excludes consensual physical relationships between people of similar ages. For respondents aged 16 or 17, conduct was included only when the adult was at least 10 years older; this age-gap rule did not apply to online conduct. The authors also warned that the estimate may be understated because the survey relied on participants anonymously reporting their own behavior.
Pablo Romero-Seseña, a criminology professor and study author, said attraction alone does not explain all reported abuse. Among men who acknowledged abusive or exploitative conduct, 41.1% said they felt no attraction to children or adolescents. The researchers point to other possible risk factors, including impulsivity, difficulties with emotional or sexual self-control, and adverse childhood experiences. They reported that men who felt attraction to minors had four times the risk of reporting sexual conduct toward children compared with those who did not.
Pereda described the issue as a structural public-health problem and called for stronger prevention, including affective and sexual education in schools and support for people experiencing attraction to minors. The study found that 72.8% of those who reported such attraction did not report sexual conduct involving minors, which the researchers cite as a reason to offer preventive intervention before harm occurs.
Sources: El País Sociedad.