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Abstract
In a study of 1,310 Finnish adult male twins we found that sexual interest in children aged 12 or younger was reported by 0.2% of the sample. Sexual interest in children aged 15 or younger was reported by 3.3%. Participants reporting sexual interest in children aged 15 or younger were younger, reported stronger sexual desire, and had experienced more childhood sexual and nonsexual abuse. The present study is the first to give a population-based estimate of the incidence of sexual interest in children among adult men. The 12-month incidence of sexual interest in children below the age of 16 years is roughly comparable to the one-year incidence of major depression or the lifetime prevalence of transvestitic fetishism.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Academy of Finland.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Pekka Santtila
Pekka Santtila, PhD, MSc, is a professor of legal psychology at the Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. His research interests include interviewing and decision making in child sexual abuse investigations as well as evolutionary analysis of incestuous behavior.
Jan Antfolk
Jan Antfolk, PsD, MA, is a researcher in the Department of Psychology and Logopedics at the Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. His research focuses on sexual preferences, child sexual abuse, and pedophilia.
Anna Räfså
Anna Räfså works as a clinical psychologist in Ekenäs, Finland. Her research interests include the study of pedophilic sexual interest. She received her master’s degree in psychology from the Department of Psychology and Logopedics at the Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland.
Maria Hartwig
Maria Hartwig has published research on the psychology of deception and its detection and on interview and interrogation techniques using a broad sample of laypeople, legal professionals, and prison inmates. She has received an Early Career Award by the European Association for Psychology and Law, and in 2012 she received the Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence in Psychology and Law awarded by the American Psychology-Law Society and the American Academy of Forensic Psychology.
Heikki Sariola
Heikki Sariola, MA, works as a senior adviser at the Central Union for Child Welfare in Helsinki, Finland. He has done research on the prevalence of child abuse, child sexual abuse, and incest.
N. Kenneth Sandnabba
N. Kenneth Sandnabba is a professor in the Department of Psychology and Logopedics at the Åbo Akademi University. His research interests include sexual behavior and aggression.
Andreas Mokros
Andreas Mokros is a research psychologist working in the Department of Forensic Psychiatry of the University Hospital of Zurich, Switzerland. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Regensburg, Germany. His research interests include the indirect assessment of sexual preference disorders as well as forensic risk assessment. In 2012 he received the Eberhard-Schorsch research award of the German Society for Sex Research (DGSf).