5 Uncomfortable Truths Every Parent (and Church) Should Know About Male Child Abusers
Note: This post discusses child abuse and child abusers. Reader discretion is advised.
I'll be honest: this isn't the blog post I wanted to write.
But sometimes the most important conversations are the ones we'd rather avoid.
I have the privilege of working with the Presbyterian Church of NSW to revamp their online safe ministry training. And in the process, I came across a groundbreaking study from the University of NSW in Sydney that shattered some of my assumptions about who harms children in our communities.
The title of the report is ‘Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviours and attitudes among Australian men’, and is the first nationally representative child sexual abuse perpetration prevalence study undertaken in Australia to date, and the largest ever undertaken globally.
The findings from this report aren't just unsettling—they're dangerous to ignore. Because while we're watching for obvious predators, the real threats, according to this research, are often hiding in plain sight.
Here are 5 of the most uncomfortable truths this research revealed—truths that every parent and church leader needs to understand if we're serious about protecting our children:
1) They make up 1 in 20 men in the Australian community
While we might wish that male paedophiles are few and far between, the research says they’re more prevalent than we might expect:
‘Men with sexual feelings towards children, who had sexually offended against children [make up] almost one in twenty men in the Australian community.’ [1]
Note that this isn’t just those with sexual attraction toward children: they’re also those who acted on that attraction (e.g. watched child abuse material online).
Such high numbers mean they’re not ‘out there’ somewhere. Statistically speaking, they’re in our neighbourhoods, sporting clubs, workplaces. And even our churches. I write this not to generate a moral panic, but to raise awareness that the threat - if we’re not careful - is real.
2) Male Child Abusers are more successful and wealthier than we expect
The research questions our mental image of the abuser being the proverbial creepy loner in a van.[2]
Men who both have sexual feelings toward children and act on them are significantly more likely to be married, have strong social support networks, and earn high incomes. In fact, they're twice as likely to earn over $150,000 annually compared to other men.[3]
This finding should be a wake-up call to every parent and church leader.
We've been conditioned by our society to trust success, wealth, and social status as indicators of character. But this research shows these very traits often provide perfect cover for harmful behaviour.
Think about it: the married lawyer who's always volunteering with youth, the respected businessman who coaches your son’s soccer team, the likeable manager respected by everyone at church. These aren't just innocent examples—they're the statistical profile of who's most likely to abuse children. Of course, that doesn’t mean that every well-off professional who’s helping at Sunday school is going to abuse children.
But it does mean that our intuition about ‘respectable’ people’ is often worse than useless—it can be dangerous.
3) They deliberately seek roles working with children
These men don’t just stumble into child abuse – they strategically plan for it.
The data shows male abusers are nearly three times more likely to work in child-focused roles compared to other men.[4] They understand that working with children provides three crucial elements: access, trust, and opportunity.
A youth pastor has ready-made explanations for spending time alone with children. A sports coach can justify physical contact. A teacher can build special relationships without raising suspicion.
This doesn't mean we should view every childcare worker, pastor or teacher with paranoia. But it does mean our safeguarding systems need to be bulletproof, regardless of someone's reputation or role. Nobody should receive a free pass from our child protection systems simply because they’re known, likable and respectable.
To put it bluntly, the person most likely to harm your child or grandchild isn't the stranger you're worried about—it's the trusted authority figure you never suspected.
4) They're tech-savvy privacy experts, not Luddite predators
This research reveals that those who abuse children are highly sophisticated online users who gravitate toward encrypted platforms, privacy services, and cryptocurrency. They're over four times more likely to use dating websites, significantly more likely to use encrypted messaging apps, and over five times more likely to use cryptocurrency.[5]
They understand digital footprints better than most parents.
While we're having basic ‘stranger danger’ conversations with our kids, these individuals are using advanced privacy tools to obscure their online activities.
For parents, this means our children are encountering people online who are far more sophisticated than we realise. They can pose as fellow gamers or interested teenagers, which serves as a cover for building trust with your child.
For churches, it means digital safeguarding needs the same rigour as physical safeguarding. For example, does your church have a policy on how/when youth leaders can contact your teenagers? Are you aware of that policy as a parent?
Again, this isn’t intended to generate paranoia, but rather to emphasise the importance of protective safeguards at home and church.
5) They consume increasingly extreme pornography as a pathway to abuse
The research reveals a clear escalation pattern that should concern every parent.
These men are 11 times more likely to watch violent pornography and over 26 times more likely to view bestiality compared to other men.[6] Most alarmingly, the majority who view child sexual abuse material first accessed such content as children themselves.[7]
This finding exposes pornography—particularly extreme content—not as a harmless outlet but as a gateway to increasingly harmful behaviours. The average age of first pornography exposure is now 11-13 years old, and children are accessing content that would have been considered extreme just a generation ago. (It’s no surprise, then, that the Bible condemns lust and illicit sex in such strong ways).
For parents, this means we can't afford to be naive about our children's online exposure.
For churches, it means we need honest conversations about pornography's impact and robust support for those struggling with harmful sexual behaviours. And if you’re a church leader, what policy do you have in place if one of your leaders is found struggling with pornography?
The impact of pornography does more than harm the user: for some people, it also opens the door to abusive behaviour.
Yes, abuse can and sadly does happen in our churches if we’re not careful
None of these findings should make us paranoid, but they should prompt us to be deliberate and careful in our approach to child protection.
At a church level, we need safeguarding systems that don't rely solely on character judgments or trust. Forget the belief that ‘this sort of thing could never happen among our trusted leaders’. The people most likely to abuse are often the people you would least suspect. Thankfully, most, if not all, churches have made enormous strides in implementing systems designed to prevent abuse.
The price of a church free of abuse is eternal vigilance. And that includes understanding the profile of abusers.