ABSTRACT
Following the reading of an article in the newspaper about the brutal rape of a woman by a stranger, or the long-standing sexual abuse of a young boy by his step-father, most people have a strong visceral reaction which is a mix of anger, fear, and incomprehension. Apart from these aversive reactions, several questions come to people’s minds: Was this offender crazy or sexually obsessed? What is the purpose of such outrageous acts? What happened in these aggressors’ lives that pushed them to have such a lack of concern for others? What pushed them so far away from the normal bounds of civil society?
