"THAT´S NOT ME" Views of self and experiences of intimate relationships in young men who sexually offended in adolescence

Sammanfattning: There are few follow-up studies about young men who sexually offend as adolescents. Specifically, we know little about the group who enter adulthood without sexually re-offending, which comprises the majority of adolescents who sexually offend. The two studies here are a part of a follow-up project aimed to study the transition to early adulthood in young men who sexually offended as adolescents. Data was previously gathered from a group of 45 adolescents who had sexually offended; 10 years later, we were able to gather data from 20 of these 45, now aged 22–31 years, for a second data-gathering. In Study I, a mixed methods design was used to explore views of the self in this group of men. The participants were interviewed and they rated themselves on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). The interviews were coded with content analysis to find all utterances reflecting the participants’ views of themselves. These utterances were then divided into two groups: those that indicated positive views of themselves and those that indicated negative views. Total RSES scores and scores for the Self-Competence and Self-Liking facets were calculated. Results showed that 19 participants rated themselves within or above the normative range and that they generally rated Self-Competence higher than Self-Liking. Combining the quantitative and qualitative data we found contradictions between the rated self and the narrated self. Most of the men seemed to rate their self-esteem as they hoped it was currently, but another picture emerged in the narratives. For example, many men said something similar to “I was this way before, but today I am quite different.” In Study II, experiences of intimate relationships and sexuality were examined. The participants were interviewed and the transcripts were thematically analyzed. The main picture that emerged was that of young men with unfulfilled needs and a low capacity to meet these needs. The men’s experiences of intimate relationships and sexuality seemed to be affected by their experience of having sexually offended. Some men longed for closeness with a partner but were afraid of getting too close. Others distanced themselves from relationships, claiming that they did not need others. These findings may demonstrate the men’s self-protective strategies for handling their identification as sexual offenders. The two studies together show a group of young men who, on their road to adulthood, seemed to struggle with feelings of shame and who tried to adapt through using different self-protective strategies to handle these shameful feelings.