ABSTRACT
Female-perpetrated sex abuse (FSA) has recently emerged as an object of scientific inquiry and is gradually gaining momentum and visibility in various fields of study. This chapter traces this emergence by first thinking through definitional and construct-related issues in relation to sexual abuse generally, and their theoretical and practical implications in the FSA area more specifically. It provides an overview of current typological and aetiological FSA formulations. Through the identification of the function of gender and sexuality in underwriting these formulations, the chapter outlines reasons for the continued conceptualisation of FSA as both rare and innocuous. It furthermore emphasises how engrained and widely circulated discourses on men, women, and children continue to delimit the sexual and gender lines in which FSA is thinkable. The primary challenge in researching female sexual abusers is that, compared to their male counterparts, very few women that commit sex crimes are actually convicted and sentenced.
