Sonia Harrati

Qualitative Study on the Traumatic Experiences of Female Sex Offenders

ABSTRACT This study into female sex offenders examines the links between their sexual acting out and traumatic life events. The methodology is based on an analysis of 35 court cases involving females convicted of sexual abuse alongside semistructured interviews recorded with 13 participants. NVivo® software was used to analyze the data thematically, whence four key themes emerged (a desire for power, sadism, extreme anger, and the quest for self-affirmation); these themes fall into a typology that highlights the different contexts and characteristics of the sexual abuse. The results also highlight a traumatic context during childhood and adolescence that is likely to have formed the basis for the development of the deviant sexual behavior and the fact that all the women acted in collusion. The discussion on the results suggests that assessing and analyzing the needs of these women should focus in particular on the relationship between the current sexual acting out and a personal biography filled with traumatic events.