When we hear about sex offenders we tend to be fairly one-dimensional in our thinking.
We assume them to be older men with low intelligence who have most likely come from poor, violent backgrounds and who have possibly been abused themselves.
But recently high-profile cases involving rich privileged males have dominated world headlines – including the singer R Kelly and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Both men probably thought they were untouchable but chickens come home to roost.
And for Epstein that ended in his death in a prison cell and R Kelly a 30-year sentence handed down this week.
The majority of sex offenders are male but in the last few years the numbers of female predators has been growing.
We’ve seen several cases recently where women are the abusers and instances of female teachers being involved in relationships with pupils.
And just a few days ago socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was given 20-years for grooming and trafficking young girls.
The 60-year-old socialite was helping her then-boyfriend Epstein to abuse young women.
The list of her crimes was abhorrent and described by a judge as “heinous”.
One of her victims told her: “Without question, Jeffrey Epstein was a terrible paedophile. But I never would have met him if not for you. For me, and so many others, you opened the door to hell.”
Is female sex offending really on the rise or is it something we’ve always known about and is too sickening to even contemplate?
Could it be that with #MeToo that culturally victims feel more confident to come forward and point the finger at the women behind their ordeals?
For centuries women have been seen as the caring, nurturing sex incapable of such behaviour but those are old-fashioned views and society is changing.
Indeed Maxwell tried to pull the old “woe is me” trick with a statement about her “unhappy childhood” in the hope the sentencing judge would pull out the hankies.
Many of us have suffered some form of childhood trauma – the death of a parent or sibling, a victim of bullying or abuse, a chaotic neglectful upbringing – but all of those things don’t turn us into sexual deviants or abuse enablers.
Over the course of 20-plus years reporting I’ve met dozens of victims and I can honestly say almost all have not turned from victim into criminal.
Female sex offenders don’t fit our stereotype of what a sex offender is, it makes us uncomfortable and we want to turn away from it as we don’t want to feel the sex we see as “motherly” is capable of such acts.
But we turn away at our peril. To do so would be turning our backs on the countless victims who are ashamed and confused that the female they trust the most is the one they live most in fear from.
As a society it’s ingrained in us to believe that men are bad and women are good and while statistically we aren’t far wrong, this is a dangerous and deluded mindset.
We must stop looking for excuses to explain why women offend and accept that the buck stops with them themselves.
We teach our children about the bogeyman – we tell them to be wary of male strangers. We almost never tell them to be wary of women.
In this age of equality, it’s time to tell them that any human being can be a danger. Male and female.
One of Maxwell’s victims said she felt safe because it was a woman engaging with her.
All of Epstein and Maxwell’s victims learnt the hard way – it’s up to all of us to ensure that everything which we think we know about sex offenders includes women too.
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