A Balancing Act A Family Perspective to Sibling Sexual Abuse

Keane, Guest, & Padbury (2013) explored issues of sibling sexual abuse in their recent article. According to the authors, there must be a balance of concern for victims of sibling sexual abuse, as well as those who offend. They rejected the feminist framework that prioritizes victim rights (specifically in the instance of youth offending) in order to look at it from a developmental framework.

Adult theories of offending are located in research that suggests the likelihood of repetition of established behaviors. In contrast, sexual offending by adolescents replicates juvenile offending which is far from entrenched and tends to diminish with maturation...

—Keane, Guest, & Padbury (p. 247)

That is, we often look at all sexual offenses as being equal, which does a huge disservice to youth whose behaviors are more likely to adapt and change as they grow.