ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on three versions of the abuse-to-abuser hypothesis: the age men are abused determines the age of their sexual victims; sexually abused men are likely to reenact the type of abuse they experienced; men who were sexually abused as children are more likely to sexually abuse same-sexed victims. It aims to test whether information about the offender's childhood history of sexual abuse predicts the type of sexual history offender's sexual abuse assaults he will engage in as an adult. Many male sex offenders against children say they themselves were sexually abused in childhood. The observation has supported several variations of what has come to be known as the "abuse-to-abuser hypothesis." The "age hypothesis"predictsthat anoffender's age of abuseas a child will correspond to the age of victim he later chooses to sexually assault. The "orientation hypothesis" predicts that children who are sexually abused will be more likely to assault children of the same sex as their abuser.
