Recent theories of child sexual offending have overcome past theoretical limitations by focusing on the onset, development, and maintenance of child sexual offending in an integrative way. Past work on the causes of child sexual offending has privileged the role of cognitions or distorted thinking as an important factor in both the initiation and maintenance of child sexual abuse. These theories, however, have focused too narrowly on the identification of post hoc rationalizations of the offending behavior without a corresponding effort to explain the underlying mechanisms that may have instigated the abuse in the first place. Recent theories such as the Pathways model outlined by Ward and colleagues take into account the need to focus on cognitions at all stages of the offense cycle in order to understand the mechanisms underlying child sexual offending. Most current theories of child sexual offending indicate that the cognitive distortions of sexual offenders emerge from their underlying beliefs about the nature of themselves, their victims, and the world. The authors analyze the nature of these cognitive distortions by focusing on Finkelhor’s Precondition Model, which explains the occurrence of child sexual abuse through four underlying factors: emotional congruence, sexual arousal, blockage, and disinhibition. Finkelhor’s theory is outlined and contrasted with aspects of Ward’s “pathways” model, which holds that there are four clusters of problems typically found among adult child sex offenders: emotional, intimacy, cognitive, and arousal problems. The authors also review the qualitative and quantitative research related to distorted thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs among child sexual offenders and note that qualitative research in this area has provided promising contributions to the understanding of the cognitions of child abusers. Future research should explore the mechanisms in which distortions develop to create the vulnerability to sexual offending against children. References