I first found out about this study while browsing one of the more female-oriented subs. Posters were sharing it and using it to argue that a significant portion of men couldn't be trusted around children because the aforesaid study showed that a shocking 1 in 6 admitted to being attracted to children and 1 in 10 admitted to having offended against children.

Given that the study was way out of line with other studies that showed pedophilia to be rarer (although any number is obviously too large), I figured right away that 1) it was most likely flawed and 2) I'd probably be hearing it bandied about online for the next 20 years because it validated what a subset of people want to believe about men.

However, I didn't have time to go back and check the study. I got busy with other things and promptly forgot about it. It was only the other day that it popped up in my feed again, and I decided it was time to see what this study actually said.

Sources:

• One of the many news articles that was posted about this study: https://phys.org/news/2023-11-ten-australian-men-committed-sexual.html
• The actual study: https://www.humanrights.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviour and attitudes among Australian men.pdf

I won't pussyfoot around. The study found that 15.1% of the men responded affirmatively to one of the following:

• Has sexual feelings towards people below the age of 18 years (3.4%)
• Would have sexual contact with a child between 12 to 14 years if no one would find out (5.7%)
• Would have sexual contact with a child between 10 to 12 years if no one would find out (4.6%)
• Would have sexual contact with a child younger than 10 years if no one would find out (4.0%)
• Has concerns about sexual feelings towards people below the age of 18 years (4.5%)
• The lowest age they typically find attractive is under 18 years (5.7%)

Sounds damning. Except...

15.2% of the study participants were between the ages of 18 and 24, and the study defined children as people below the age of 18, even though the age of consent is 16 in Australia.

The study authors note this in their limitations section, but gloss over it as unimportant because:

95% of men who answered yes to the question “Have you had sex or sexual contact with a person below the age of 18 while over the age of 18?” were over 24 years of age, and almost half (48.4%) were over 54 years of age.

This is problematic for several reasons:

• First of all, the question is still vague because we don't know what age the person was. All they said was that they had sexual contact with someone who was under 18 while they were over 18. They didn't say they had that contact at their current age. 84.9% of the study participants were over the age of 24. If they had even a fleeting sexual contact with someone under the age of 18 at a graduation party, they'd still answer yes to that question. Throw in the genuine sex offenders, and 95% might not be that unexpected.
• Second, the study authors own charts in the supplementary section show that 53.5% of the men who answered yes to one of the questions above was in the 18–34 age range. It would actually be odd for an 18-year-old to not be somewhat attracted to people only a few years younger than them. Since the author failed to provide any more granularity, we'll never really know how this broke down inside of that range.

In essence, the study is bad, and what's frustrating, besides the fact that it's being used to smear all men as potential sexual predators, is that the poor design actually makes it hard to draw any good conclusions about the men who are genuinely harmful.

For instance, are the 5.7% who would have sexual contact with a 12- to 14-year-old overlapping with the 4.6% who would have sexual contact with a 10- to 12-year-old? Undoubtedly, yes. But the study authors have provided no quality information about that.

And the data indicating a higher level of household mental illness among men who have indicated feelings for someone below the age of 18 and sexual contact with someone under the age of 18 would be really useful, if we didn't know that this group undoubtedly is grouping together genuine offenders and 18-year-olds feeling up their high school girlfriends.

Essentially, the poor design of this study has rendered it useless for drawing any conclusions.

edit: Thanks to /u/RadioactiveGorgon for pointing out that Professor Michael Salter, the lead on this paper, who is also citing many of his own papers, is a proponent of the idea that the Satanic Panic wasn't really just hysteria. Great information. I think we can pack it up, boys, and go home.

https://greyfaction.org/resources/proponents/michael-salter-phd/