Are Child Molesters Really Just Victims Themselves?
"All victims are offenders," one professional challenged me at a conference, "and all offenders are victims. How does your work address that?"

My work doesn't address that because I don't believe there's any evidence for that assertion. Obviously, not all victims are offenders, but it is also likely that most offenders weren't victims. The studies that find a high proportion of child molesters who were victims of child sexual abuse themselves are almost always based on self-report, and even there, study results differ dramatically. Studies show the number of child molesters who were themselves molested as children ranges from 22 percent in some studies to 82 percent in others.[101]

Anna C. Salter