ABSTRACT
Theories relating to an understanding of sexual violence, including individual motivations and functions, have greatly developed over recent years. Most of these models continue to focus on child sexual abuse, and make a number of efforts to extrapolate to other types of sexual violence. It can be difficult to make reference to theories of sexual violence, without referring to one of the founding theories, namely Finkelhor’s pre-condition model of child sexual abuse (Finkelhor 1984). Finkelhor’s model was the first to move away from single-factor models of sexual violence to look at a more holistic approach, with the recognition that offending behaviour was complex. The model argued the need to examine a range of factors relating to sexual violence, looking at internal and external factors as well as offering a framework upon which to base clinical interventions (Ward and Hudson 2001; Ward et al. 2006).
