Part one in my series on the risks of sexual assault focused on five broad conditions that repeatedly appear in the research about heightened vulnerability to child sexual abuse: fragile economic stability, limited education, the absence of a stable two-parent relationship, low-quality parent-child bonds, and weak community accountability.
In part two, the evidence turns toward a different cluster of factors—patterns that often show up in the lives of victims and perpetrators: significant mental-health struggles, early and risky sexual behavior (including exposure to sexually explicit content), aggression and impulsivity, and drug and alcohol influence.
This article also examines the research on faith and religiosity. The findings are more complex than many people assume. Healthy religious practice functions as a protective layer in a number of studies—often indirectly, by shaping peer networks, substance use, and sexual risk-taking. But religious identity alone is never a guarantee of safety, and faith settings can also be exploited when adults are unaccountable or when communities fear the consequences of transparency.
What follows are five patterns of individual behavioral risks associated with childhood sexual assault—not as moral judgments about families or youth, but as population-level signals that help clarify where prevention and safeguarding can be strongest.
Ongoing, Significant Mental Health Struggles
While you would expect poor mental health in the aftermath of abuse, there’s repeated evidence that young people who struggle with various mental health challenges are also more likely to be victimized sexually, as well as to become perpetrators themselves.
This appears to be largely due to the emotional vulnerabilities associated with high levels of despair, hopelessness, fear, and anger. But it’s also clear that some psychiatric treatments can involve emotional blunting and heightened indifference—making affected youth more likely to be sexually victimized.
There’s also evidence for “drug-induced activation” and manic symptoms in treated youth that can sometimes manifest as excessive hypersexuality and uncharacteristic sexual aggression against other youth.
Where abuse has taken place, it’s especially critical to help young victims receive as much compassionate support as possible to heal from earlier trauma. That’s confirmed by abundant evidence showing that previous abuse of any kind sets up a child for future sexual victimization and perpetration.
Early, Risky, Casual Sexual Behavior
A significant number of studies find that youth who are sexually active at a younger age or who have multiple, casual sexual partners are at heightened risk of being sexually victimized or becoming perpetrators.
Adults who are hyper-sexual are also at greater risk of perpetrating sexual violence against children. This is especially true in the presence of cognitive distortions that justify exploiting children as a legitimate “need” that doesn’t “really harm” the child.
More than 100 studies have likewise linked compulsive pornography use to sexual aggression, coercion and violence against women and children, contrary to industry-friendly messaging that mass consumption of explicit material somehow “reduces” sexual violence.
One 2023 review of 27 studies involving 16,200 young participants in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa concluded that “significant associations were found between exposure to both violent and nonviolent sexual content” and the likelihood of engaging in “problematic sexual behaviors” (frequently involving force, coercion and aggression).
Aggression, Lack Of Empathy And Impulsivity
Young people who display a marked lack of empathy, along with significant anger and hostility, are more likely to be involved in sexual violence. This is especially true if boys show a behavioral pattern of fighting, conduct disorders, and disciplinary problems at school. Penn State researchers found that “delinquent youth” were “more likely to have favorable attitudes toward the abuse, to initiate the sexual encounter and to experience repeat victimizations.”
Young people who spend time with “delinquent” friends are also more likely to perpetrate sexual abuse against others and be victimized themselves—especially if they demonstrate consistent patterns of aggression, impulsivity and rule-breaking. These are the patterns U.S. researchers find lead to a “heightened risk for most types of victimization.”
Dutch researchers reported in 2023 that “impulsivity increases the odds of future sexual victimization as a child.” And German researchers found earlier that the lack of self-control likewise predicts “sexually aggressive behaviors” among adolescent boys.
Adults who display low empathy and callous, aggressive, criminal patterns—as well as an overall lack of impulse control—are also more likely to sexually offend against children.
Drug And Alcohol Influences On Both Youth And Adults
Substance abuse has multifaceted impacts on abuse, starting at home—since the children of parents who use alcohol are more likely to be sexually victimized and to sexually offend against other children.
Teenage boys who use substances, both drugs and alcohol, are more likely to sexually abuse others. And teenage girls who use alcohol are also more vulnerable to being sexually victimized by other adolescents and adults.
This is true in a dating context as well, with University of Maryland researchers summarizing: “substance abuse during a date is linked to experiences of sexual and physical violence.” Even “being in places where one’s friends are drinking alcohol” is “associated with an increased risk of victimization” according to the same scholars.
Adults who sexually abuse children often struggle with drugs and alcohol as well—this frequently being one of many factors bringing a man (or woman) to the point of being willing to exploit someone so vulnerable.
Limited Faith Commitments And Religious Practice
Young people who report infrequent attendance at church show heightened risk for both sexual victimization and perpetration. For instance, “low frequency of attendance to religious services” was identified in a survey of 250 high school teens as one of the “socio-cultural factors that affect the kind and intensification” of family abuse that includes sexual violence.
Other studies report “not having religious affiliations” as a risk factor for sexual violence—with young girls who report their religious affiliation as Protestants compared to those with no religious affiliation. Among other things, these researchers hypothesized that “girls who do not have religious affiliations could be marginalized and socially isolated.”
The protection of a healthy faith
By contrast, youth who report frequent attendance at church have repeatedly been found in studies within different countries to have less risk for abuse of various kinds, including sexual violence—especially when they demonstrate “intrinsic religiosity” (sincere faith).
For instance, adolescent girls who rated themselves as very religious in a 2021 South African study were 80 percent less likely to describe any previous experience of sexual violence in their lives compared to girls who were not religious. In addition:
- Church attendance was identified as protective in a survey of Puerto Rico students from 117 schools, making violent behavior between adolescents less likely.
- “Religious service attendance” was a central variable associated with a lower prevalence of recent dating violence.
- Church attendance and religiosity protected against perpetration of sexual violence among high school students.
The Sexual Satisfaction and Function Survey asked nearly 1,400 women in 2019-2020 whether they had experienced sexual abuse as a teen, and how often they attended religious services during high school. In a new analysis of the data, Stephen Cranney found that women who reported attending religious services weekly during their high school years were significantly less likely to talk about experiencing sexual abuse as a teen, compared with those who were less religious in high school.
These same trends show up in research on sexual minority youth as well:
- In a survey of 117 adolescents in same-sex relationships, those who reported that religion was important to them were at lower risk of “any violence.”
- A study of sexual and gender minority youth found spirituality was among protective factors associated with lower likelihood of adverse outcomes, including sexual violence victimization and perpetration.
- Spirituality also emerged as a significant protective factor associated with lower risk of sexual violence victimization among high school students, as replicated in a follow-up paper.
This goes against common biases in the research community. One researcher set out with a hunch that “authoritarian ideology, including religious conservativism (which) endorses obedience to authority” might also correlate with the “mistreatment of children.” But on closer examination, political and religious conservativism both predicted lower child abuse rates.
How faith shapes other variables playing a role
Studies also identified a number of other variables that play an indirect role in increasing or reducing sexual violence—each of which are tied to the level of religious commitment in a teenager:
- More risky sex—Adolescent females “for whom religion was not or only somewhat personally important” had higher odds of participating in “riskier sex” in one multi-factor analysis.
- More negative friends—Elevated levels of “religious coping” were indirectly protective against violence by reinforcing “less antisocial bonding” among high-risk youth in a longitudinal study.
- More substance abuse—A “personal belief in God” and “parent religiosity” were connected with less adolescent substance use in one survey-based study. It’s long been known that illicit drug use decreases among young people as belief in God increases in broader population research, or they are involved in a spiritual system that provides grounding (including Buddhism, as shown in cross-cultural work).
Consistently, one study found high-risk behaviors fully mediated the link between religious activity and dating violence. Another paper likewise cites research suggesting that “values upheld by the clergy and their peers who attend church could also reinforce youths’ personal values against violence and/or high-risk behavior.”
In the other direction, one analysis highlights research linking religiosity with stronger bonds to family members and school. Another paper adds that stronger bonds to family members and school mean that a youth will spend greater time with parents and other adults in schools that will act as the child’s ‘handler.’ These handlers will protect the child from engaging in criminal behavior, which will decrease the odds of victimization.
Religious children are still abused far too much
None of this is to minimize heartbreaking instances where a child is assaulted in a religious home, or by a perpetrator acting in a religious position. And, indeed, there is no such protective religious influence in a home or community where children are harshly controlled and manipulated by domineering adults. When such devastating abuse is perpetrated by a person of such immense trust, it can prompt in a young person what one scholar described as “rage and spiritual distress that pervades their entire life being.”
As two researchers argued in 2010, “the particular nature of religiosity needs to be considered when interpreting a connection between religiosity and abuse risk”—going on to highlight differences in the “underlying motivation for an individual’s religion.” The authors suggest that “Religiosity per se may not be as critical to predicting physical abuse risk as selected approaches to religion or particular attitudes the religious individual assumes in their daily life.”
In response to the same article, another researcher in 2011 pointed out that “it is very common for social distortions and individual pathology to be hidden by groups and individuals behind a religious construction, misconception or misinterpretation.” The same researcher also underscored that “the fundamental concept of the major religions in the world deal with loving one’s fellow man, caring for the family and one’s children, and being a positive element in the community (with kindness and charity).”
Like other communities, faith communities are actively taking more steps around the world to prevent such tragedies. Meanwhile, it seems clear that healthy and cooperative religious communities generally reduce victimization, in part, because children with such a faith commitment shaping their lives and homes typically engage in less risky sex, less substance abuse and have fewer negative friends.
In part three, I look at what happens when these risk factors stack and their effects are combined—and the specific protective patterns the research suggests can reduce harm before it occurs.
