Both groups completed the Social Self-Esteem Inventory, Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire, Family Violence Scale, Childhood Sexual Abuse Scale, and Personality Questionnaire. The results support the hypothesis that child molesters suffered from a deficit in their self-esteem in social situations. The results also confirm previous findings showing a higher frequency of childhood sexual abuse among child molesters. The findings showed a relationship between parental rejection and low self-esteem among these subjects; however, there was no difference between sexual offenders and nonoffenders in perceived parental rejection. Maternal, rather than paternal, rejection was linked to low self- esteem in this study. 1 table and 28 references