Female Sexual Predators: Understanding Them to Protect Our Children and Youths

(Hardback)

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This unprecedented look at female sexual predators explains why and how they prey on our children and youths and what adultsand children and youths themselvesshould understand to prevent victimization. In Female Sexual Predators: Understanding and Identifying Them to Protect Our Children and Youths, social worker and therapist Karen A. Duncan helps adults be proactive so children will not fall prey to this violation. Vignettes pulled from news headlines and interviews with female sexual predators Duncan has encountered in her own practice are used to help readers understand these crimes and the women who commit them, as well as the impact these crimes can have on victims. The women profiled were in positions of authority at churches, schools, sports institutions, and the home. Victims explain how these women exploited their positions of trust, planned their crimes, groomed their victims, deceived adults into not detecting their behavior, and how they did not stop even when they recognized the danger and the harm to themselves and their victims. Duncan addresses the issue of maternal sexual abuse answering questions about mothers who willingly sexual abuse their own children and at times commit child sexual abuse with other adults, as well as women who sexually abuse girls. Four types of female sex offenders are presented within the emerging research on this topic, along with questions regarding assessment, treatment, and management of female sex offenders in the community. It also addresses the controversial issues of female pedophilia and female sexual deviance within the context of what we know about human sexuality.

Reviews

Duncan has created a book that could be equally helpful to a sexual assault survivor, family member, or concerned layperson Duncan brings a clinical perspective to the subject through vignettes and other examples that carry detail and richness to the concepts she is working to explain. . . . As a means of prevention through raising awareness, this easily readable book provides a resource not reliant on the full understanding of statistical methods. She does a wonderful job at exploring dynamics seldom seen in the literature, such as the reference to female sexual aggression on college campuses. Furthermore, the vignettes found in her section on child sexual assault at the hands of educational professionals provide an insight that could prove remarkably helpful to those most in need. . . . Duncan's Female Sexual Predators could find applicability in the larger contexts of the helping professions, the concerned community, and as a phenomological tool for survivors and those concerned about them * Journal of Forensic Social Work *

Author Bio

Karen A. Duncan, LSW, LMFT is a licensed therapist and social worker, as well as a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Mental Health Counseling.