Homosexual Conflicts and Adolescent Sex Offenders

These pages contain information on Homosexual Conflicts and Adolescent Sex Offenders Disorder which I gathered from a collection of words. Authors and sight address included when available.

Much of the recent literature in the area of treatment of adolescent sex offenders has focused on the cognitive, behavioral, and even physiological approaches to this problem. To maintain balance and perspective, clinicians also need to remain aware of the emotional and psychodynamic underpinnings of the adolescent sex offender’s behavior.
I have worked in clinical settings with victims of sexual abuse since 1979. Since 1984, I have been working with adolescent sex offenders in groups and individually. I am spending 10 hours per week in group with adolescent sex offenders. Certain key clusters of psychodynamics are emerging in my work with these young men. It is beyond the scope of an article in this newsletter to attempt to deal with all of these dynamics. I would like to focus here on just one, which I feel is of particular importance. This dynamic is the role of homosexual conflicts in leading the adolescent sex offender to become sexually involved with younger children. Many of the male victims with whom I work developed serious doubts about their own masculinity and sexual identity as a result of sexual molestation by other males. When I began to do groups with adolescent sex offenders, several additional bits of information came to my attention. I routinely administer the MMPI to boys joining my groups. Many of these boys score very high in scale five which measures traditionally feminine traits in a male. This scale has been criticized as being sexist. I would note, however, that the population I am working with is very traditional in its attitudes. The boys in my groups think in terms of sexually stereotyped behavior and this thinking influences their attitudes toward themselves and toward the opposite sex.
Many boys in group provide clinical illustrations of the linkage between their own doubts about their masculinity and their won offenses. One boy expressed it very succinctly during a group session. He described the offense for which he is now in placement. The day he was arrested, he was picked up by an uncle who had been molesting him for years. The uncle pulled his vehicle off onto a desert road and molested the boy. He then dropped the boy at a house where there were two younger children, a boy ten and a girl eight. The young proceeded almost immediately to force the younger boy into oral sex with him. Following that incident he vaginally penetrated the younger girl. He frankly told the group that he had committed the second offense to prove to himself that he wasn’t a “fag”.
Based on this accumulating information, I began to probe for information about homosexual feelings and conflicts in the boys with whom I work. Most of them acknowledged such conflicts. In groups which have a high degree of cohesiveness, members have actually discussed sexual attractions to each other.
As many as eight out of ten offenders I work with may have a significant conscious, preconscious, or latent homosexual conflict. I stress the conflict because none of these boys are openly homosexual nor do they wish to be openly or otherwise homosexual.

For purposes of study and illustration case material can be very helpful. The case of “Joe” is offered here with this in mind. “Joe” is an adolescent offender seen in a group as part of an overall program of residential treatment. He comes from a disturbed family in which the mother is suspected of being an unidentified victim herself. From a very young age, “Joe” could not get along with his mother. Because of neglect he was placed in foster and group home care. He was molested by several older men prior to age nine. He was also involved in sexual activity with younger boys while in foster care. On a home pass from one of his placements, he molested both his younger brother and sister.
When this was detected “Joe” was placed in a residential treatment facility for adolescent sex offenders. On arrival to the program he presented as a very hostile young man. On the surface he was very homophobic. Unlike many offenders, he began by talking about his own victimization. It rather quickly emerged that he wished to return to live with a single male foster parent who had come close to molesting him. All of his productions in group therapy indicated that he saw males as a source of emotional support and companionship. His view of females was one of exploitation and hostility. As group treatment continued, “Joe” began to acknowledge homosexual attractions. A sexual advance was made on him by a boy in another group home program. “Joe” was reported this but was very panicky about it. As time went on he began to discuss his sexual feelings for other boys in the program quite openly. His level of anger and hostility dropped. In this period, “Joe” asked to have family therapy with his mother and was able to confront her with his own anger and with the fact that on home passes she appeared to be making efforts to force him into intimate contact with the brother and sister he had molested.. He decided to discontinue these home visits as a result of the family therapy sessions.
At this point, the treatment team was beginning to consider graduation for “Joe”. Some program changes occurred and “Joe” was assigned to a different cottage and a partially different peer group. As these changes were being made, “Joe” became increasingly withdrawn and hostile. He began to adamantly deny having any homosexual feelings at all, stating that he had solved his problem. He became explosively hostile and difficult for the staff to deal with.
A new boy had been introduced to the program. The boy was physically attractive and self confident. In the course of a group activity, this young man bumped against “Joe” from the rear. “Joe” became extremely hostile. Shortly after that, “Joe” pulled out a knife and waved it at the other young man in the course of an argument. “Joe’s” hostility became so intense that it appeared to have paranoid underpinnings.
Based on observations in group and a clinical hunch, I felt “Joe” had developed a sexual attraction to the new boy and was attempting to repress and deny these feelings. I confronted “Joe” with this in group. He initially denied it but slowly came around to discussing it. He acknowledged that he did feel an attraction to the boy. This confrontation also led him to discuss masturbation fantasies. “Joe” used a Playboy magazine to assist him in masturbation. He stated that recently when he had been doing this, images of a nude male had been intruding into the fantasies. He did not want this intrusion, but could not prevent it. Outside the group, he told the home social worker that he might want to have a homosexual experience when he got out of the program, but would not do it while he was in the program.
My interpretation of this material is that “Joe’s” improvement was considerably facilitated by his free discussion and acknowledgment of homosexual feelings and conflicts. His regression in the program appears to have been triggered by his attempt to bottle these feelings up in the face of a strong sexual attraction within the home.
I would now like to lift this case material into a larger hypothesis. “Joe’s” case is a dramatic example, but it is, in many ways, typical of what I have seen. I would like to suggest that there may be a group of adolescent sex offenders who have homosexual conflicts which play a dynamic role in generating their criminal behavior. I am not talking here about boys who are openly homosexual. In working with adolescent sex offenders, I have hot personally encountered one who openly says that he is homosexual and prefers to be that way. What we seem to have here are boys who have latent or preconscious homosexual feelings which are not acceptable to them. I would make it clear that I am not talking about all sex offenders, but a subgroup within the population. These boys deeply dislike their homosexual feelings and attempt to repress them when they can. I would further suggest that the highest risk of re-offense in these boys is when these feelings are repressed. It is at this time that they may to attempt to molest a younger child, particularly a female, in order to shore up a sagging sense of masculinity. Their fear and hatred of women their own age or older may block them from acting out in this direction. I this hypothesis is correct, part of the task of a clinician treating this population is to help make the boys aware of this conflict and to keep them aware of it until they come to terms with it or resolve it.
In practical terms, this hypothesis has several implications. Groups should be structured so as to create a climate in which homosexual feelings can be discussed. Among teen age boys, this is very much a taboo topic. It is often also a taboo topic for the adults in our society.
It is very important that the therapist maintain a neutral stance about homosexual or bisexual feelings in working with this population. Any degree of judgement or discomfort on the part of the therapist is likely to shut off all communication. I would add that it is important the therapist not create the impression that he is in favor of homosexual behavior. Neutrality is the proper stance. If boys acknowledge a homosexual conflict and wish help resolving it in the direction of heterosexuality, they should be helped to do so.
By way of illustrating this point, let us return to “Joe’s” case. One of the difficulties “Joe” has had in discussing his homosexual feelings is that he has felt that when I point out that he may be bisexual, this means that I am advocating that he go out and have a sexual experience with a male. It took me some time to realize this. When this issue became clear to me, I assured “Joe” that I was asking him to get in touch with his feelings, not suggesting a course of behavior. He then became more relaxed and more willing to continue discussion.
In summary, I have tried to point out here on dynamic factor which may underlie adolescent sex offenders. It is my hypothesis that in many cases this issue must be dealt with in order to assure successful treatment of the adolescent sex offender. I suspect this perspective may not be either a popular idea nor an easy one for many practitioners to deal with. However I think it merits serious evaluation and testing to see if it results in better service to our clientele on, ultimately, society.