ABSTRACT
Preceding chapters of this book have set out a variety of practice approaches to work with young people who have sexually abused across a wide range of therapeutic and service delivery contexts. In this sense, we have seen the young person’s ‘starting point’ and have identified ways of helping him or her to move to a different and non-abusive position. Throughout this chapter young people who abuse are referred to as both male and female. This is done in order to stress that sexual abuse is a gendered problem and that gender-specific considerations are crucial in the field. Indeed, to adequately extend professional consciousness to include the existence of female abusers, we must not only acknowledge their existence, but also maintain an undistorted perspective on the fact that it is overwhelmingly males who perpetrate sexual violence and that sexual violence is bound up with issues about masculinity.
