Adolescent boys in Australia and the US have overtaken adult men as the most likely perpetrators of sexual violence against an under-18-year-old, according to Chanel Contos, founder of Teach Us Consent and author of Consent Laid Bare.
Contos writes that the Australian public has witnessed another devastating string of sexual assault allegations this week. While the alleged perpetrators vary in age – some as young as 13 – they share a common trait: they are immersed in elite institutions like private all-boys’ secondary schools, places that can socialise entitlement, exceptionalism and impunity.
Contos says her thoughts are with the girls and women who have alleged these crimes, and she wishes them the best in the criminal process ahead, which is often traumatic for victims.
Research findings on adolescent perpetration
The Australian child maltreatment study found that 18.2% of Australians aged 16 to 24 have experienced sexual abuse by an adolescent before age 18, while a comparative 12% have experienced sexual abuse by an adult. This research solidified what was intuitive to Teach Us Consent when it called for and published 6,700 testimonies alleging peer-on-peer sexual assault in teenage years.
Contos notes that her team has heard from multiple criminal lawyers who describe a stark drop in the age of defendants and complainants in the courtroom, alongside a rise in violent sexual behaviours including strangulation, anal tearing and other forms of physical harm in youth. These behaviours are repeatedly exposed to children who access mainstream pornography, which remains the main form of sex education in Australia.
Understanding the 'entitled opportunist'
Contos says she is often asked how nice, sweet boys can be rapists. She explains that most rapists hold misogynistic views, condone violence, endorse rape myths and associate strongly with the masculine role. However, given how many people in society have raped, it is not useful to understand rapists as a homogenous group.
Based on forensic research, classification systems identify whether the rape was motivated by sexual or non-sexual desires; if non-sexual, whether it was anger, hate or a need for power and control; and finally, whether the rape was impulsive or planned. Research has categorised offenders into four types, and Contos believes the fourth, the “opportunist rapist,” is better described as the “entitled opportunist” because entitlement often underpins the motivation.
These rapists have high social competence, and their offences are predatory acts that are unplanned and show little self-impulse control. They exhibit little anger and minimal violence, meaning their method of rape is usually sexual coercion – tricking, pressuring or forcing someone into a sexual act in a non-physical way – or using drugs or alcohol so the victim cannot consent or is unable to withdraw consent. Their motivating factor is not malice or sadism but the prioritisation of their own immediate sexual gratification.
Proposed solutions
Contos notes that in question time two days ago, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was asked by independent MP Zali Steggall what additional plans his government had to address the worsening scourge of gender-based violence. In his response, the prime minister noted the stark and distressing increase in youth-on-youth perpetrated sexual violence.
Contos welcomes this awareness, stating that as the problem evolves, so too must solutions. In addition to reforms recommended by gender-based violence and child sexual assault prevention experts, this must include addressing predatory social media algorithms, ideally through a robust digital duty of care that prevents tech-induced and facilitated harm before it occurs. Teach Us Consent believes the option to turn off recommendation algorithms and return to a chronological following-only feed could be one step.
Young people also deserve to understand the factors at play in pornography so they can comprehend that this form of increasingly violent and degrading adult entertainment is not a script for sex to be mimicked. Alternative mechanisms of justice outside the criminal system must be imagined for survivors and perpetrators, because evidence shows that effective responses that truly restore can prevent further harm – and because the criminal system is no place for children, who are perpetrating these crimes at higher rates than ever.
