The aggressor vs. minors is apt to be an only child (or reared alone apart from his siblings). If he has siblings, he tends more than other sex offenders to be the eldest child. A full third of the aggressors vs. minors were eldest children, whereas this was true of only about one quarter to one fifth of the other sex offenders. This propensity is not seen in the other heterosexual-aggressor groups, though they do share with the aggressors vs. minors a tendency to be only children or reared as only children. Some 22 per cent of the aggressors vs. minors were reared with no siblings at home; this is the largest percentage recorded. In addition, they reveal the smallest median number of siblings: 3.5. This deficiency was especially true with regard to sisters; some 44 per cent had none (the largest percentage recorded) and one third had no brothers (the second largest percentage). The average aggressor vs. minors had only 1.5 sisters, the smallest number in our tabulation, and had also the fewest brothers (1.4). This resulted in their being one of the four groups in which the sibling sex ratio favored the sisters, the ratio being 76.5 brothers per 100 sisters.
Like the aggressors vs. children, the aggressors vs. minors did not get along well with their fathers: they had one of the poorest paternal relationships of any heterosexual offenders, whereas in most groups the percentage who got along well with the father exceeds (usually substantially ) the percentage who got along poorly. Again like the aggressors vs. children, they had a poor relationship with the mother, almost one third reporting that they got along badly with her, which gives them first place in a rank-order of bad adjustment.
At this point it is of interest to recall that the offenders vs. minors got along extraordinarily well with both parents. There is some reason to believe that a poor adjustment to one’s parents presages a use of violence or threat in adult life, a belief that is not discordant with current psychiatric thinking.
In answer to the question, “With which parent did you get along better?” the aggressors vs. minors showed themselves the most partisan of any group. Whereas in the majority of groups most of the members got along with both parents equally well (fewer got along better with the mother, and very few got along better with the father), the aggressors vs. minors present a totally different picture: more than half got along better with the mother (only two groups exceed this), about a quarter got along better with the father (no group exceeds this), and roughly only a fifth got along with both parents equally well. This is a unique order and there is justification for looking upon it as a pathological one as well, for it is quite unlike the order displayed by the control and prison groups. In short, a preference for the mother seems to characterize the heterosexual offenders who use force or threat.
About 56 per cent of the aggressors vs. minors came from broken homes. The breakup occurred quite early when the average (median) boy was only five years old, the second youngest age recorded. The subsequent marriages of the parents do not seem to have been much happier than the marriages that broke up, for the aggressors vs. minors had one of the poorest interparental adjustments: only 41 per cent reported that when they were fourteen to seventeen their parents got along well with one another (the control-group figure was 59 per cent).
The number of years they spent in a home in which a husband and wife were present, and the number of years they spent in a household that lacked a father figure do not show anything distinctive. However, the aggressors vs. minors are distinctive in some respects: not only had a third of them been sent to institutions following the breakup of the family, but in general they had the most unstable postbreakup environment of all the groups. Whereas the average number of post-breakup arrangements (the placing of the child with one parent, with foster parents, in an orphanage, etc.) was 1.42 for the control group, it was 1.93 for these aggressors. No other group exceeded 1.73.
While the heterosexual aggressor vs. children was typified by having numerous companions, both boys and girls, at ages ten to eleven, the aggressors vs. minors were rather lacking in friends at that age. Of all the groups available for comparison, this one had the lowest percentage of persons who reported having had numerous companions: 11 per cent to the control group’s 23 per cent. It is not that they wholly lacked companions; they had them, but they did not have many; for example.
fewer reported having had no female companions than in the control group. The aggressors vs. adults present a very similar picture; of the heterosexual aggressors it is the aggressor vs. children alone who had excellent prepubertal social relations. Note that the aggressors vs. children had, on the average, five siblings, and were especially well supplied with sisters; the aggressors vs. minors and adults were reared with considerably fewer siblings and had a less than average number of sisters.
Whatever hindered the general social adjustment in the early life of the aggressor vs. minors was inoperative when it came to prepubertal sex play: he indulged in a great deal of it, and, as with the aggressor vs. children, it was strongly oriented toward heterosexuality. Indeed no less than 81 per cent of them had heterosexual play, by far the highest percentage of any group. Some 52 per cent had homosexual play, a figure that gives the aggressors vs. minors fourth place in that rank-order.
As is typical of all heterosexual aggressors, a relatively high number (30 per cent) confined their prepubertal sex play to girls. This heterosexual bent is emphasized by the fact that in our sample of aggressors vs. minors not one had had sex play solely with boys. The aggressors vs. adults likewise had very few individuals with exclusively homosexual prepubertal play.
Nearly half of the aggressors vs. minors confined their heterosexual play to one year of prepubescent life, and about two fifths continued their play for three or more years.
A unity is to be seen in the techniques of heterosexual play, for the heterosexual aggressors rank in second, fourth, and fifth place among those who had coitus. Of the aggressors vs. minors who had prepubertal heterosexual play, 73 per cent had coitus with prepubescent girls. This high figure is exceeded only by the offenders vs. adults.
Since we have already discussed the prepubertal heterosexual orientation of the aggressors vs. minors, it is no surprise to find that their homosexual activity was quite limited. The number of aggressors vs. minors with homosexual behavior is so small that an analysis of duration and techniques is not worthwhile.
While the aggressors vs. minors had a relatively rich prepubertal sex life with their female contemporaries, very few had experience with adult females, and none of it led to any specifically sexual physical contact. In connection with this it is interesting that about four times as many aggressors vs. minors reported that their first sight (generally before or near puberty) of adult female genitalia came as a result of deliberate exhibition as reported that it came from accidental exposure
(17 per cent vs. 4 per cent). This is a reversal of the usual pattern: nearly all other groups reported accidental sight outweighing exhibition by a ratio of three or four to one. The amount of exhibition reported by these aggressors assumes especial importance later when we find they are very prone to wishful thinking and to imputing to females sexual responses that the latter did not have. In the homosexual sphere, because of the aggressiveness of adult males, about 30 per cent of the future aggressors vs. minors had received overtures from adults, but in only 9 per cent of the cases did the overtures lead to sexual physical contact.
The heterosexual aggressors vs. minors were, as children, one of the healthiest groups, being surpassed only by the heterosexual offenders and aggressors vs. adults. Only a few reported poor health, whereas over three fourths stated that they had had good health during childhood.
A somewhat below-average number of aggressors vs. minors masturbated before puberty; this is in keeping with the general picture for all heterosexual offenders against females aged twelve or more. Of those with masturbatory experience, 73 per cent began before they were ten. This is by far the highest percentage shown by any group, but its significance is as yet unknown. The early advent of masturbation does not seem to correlate with the use of force or with the age of the sexual object.
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