In the classical pedophiliac crime the offender is a timid person, usually without adult contacts, childish and immature. In these cases many of the child victims belong to the groups "provocative" or "participating" (groups 3 and 4) (Rogers and Weiss, 1953; Karpman, 1954; Revitch and Weiss, 1962; Rasch, 1963; McGeorge, 1964; Mohr et al., 1964; Gebhard et al., 1965; Swanson, 1968; Witter, 1972; Watman, 1974; Schultz, 1975; Virkkunen, 1975, 1976). The same categories can be found in incest cases with child victims. More aspects of these are given in a later chapter.
Rogers and Weiss (1953) in their study found that the degree of participation ranged from simple compliance with the offenders to actual solicitation of his sexual advances.
Revitch and Weiss (1962) say: " The child victim is often aggressive and seductive and often induces the adult offender to commit the offence ".
Mohr et al. '(1964) say: " The child may very well be a willing participant if not instigator of a sexual act with an adult ".
Schultz (1975) says: " Many child victims consent intentionally or unwittingly to the sex offence, or offer only passive resistance ".
In their study, which is the most definitive work on sex offenders, Gebhard et al. (1965) found that among "heterosexual offenders vs. children", in contrast to "heterosexual aggressors vs. children", 16.4% of the children, according to official records, had encouraged the sexual advances, 8.2% had been passive and 75.4% had resisted. According to the offenders, however, 48.4% had encouraged the sexual advances, 36.9% had been passive, and only 14.6% had [page 124] resisted. So there was a very clear difference between the official records and the information of the offenders. It is important to notice that these cases did not include any heterosexual pedophiliac crimes where there had been violence or clear threats.
Among "homosexual offenders vs. children" Gebhard et al. (1965) found that 70% of the offenders said the boy had encouraged the sexual advances, or had been passive, which corresponded with the official records. In another 19% of the crimes there was agreement on the fact that the boys had resisted. In a further 8%, however, officially recorded resistance was denied by the offenders. In 3% of the cases some resistance had followed the initial acceptance. The investigators themselves considered that the boys resisted the sexual overtures in only one-quarter or one-third of the cases. This seems to indicate the cooperation of many of the victims, and the fact that the use of physical force was rare lends further support to the above supposition.
According to Witter (1972), active resistance on the part of a child victim appeared in only about one-quarter of the pedophiliac cases investigated criminologically. Prahm (1974) found that offenders met resistance on the part of only 33% of the children. In these two reports from Europe there were all kinds of pedophiliac cases. So these percentages were lower than those above if we look at the part of the resistance.
Witter (1972) found that resistance appears only in cases where the child is afraid of the threats of the offender. In many cases children passively allow events to take their course or they may even take the initiative by coming to the offender, often bringing their playmates as well. Male and female children do not differ much in these aspects.
Virkkunen (1975) studied the typical features in those pedophiliac cases, not incestuous, where the initiation of the acts was associated with the victim's precipitating behaviour. The study consisted of 64 cases of pedophilia, in 31 of which (48.4%) these characteristics were found. They manifested themselves in visits made to the offender on the victim's own initiative and in her/his taking some kind of initiative in the offence itself. The investigator personally assessed and selected these cases.
In the cases where the features of victim precipitation were involved, the offenders had clearly a weaker intelligence than the other pedophiliac offenders. They had less criminality of other kinds, especially in relation to offences against property. In the victim [page 125] precipitated offences, in contrast to the controls, there was never any aggressive behaviour involved.