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When the trials of priests or entertainers don't make headlines, the predominant picture of a child molester is a ratty guy wearing a dirty coat, a predator who grabs children off the street or out of their homes and violently rapes them. He's single, rumored to be homosexual, and definitely anti-social. He's the guy that kidnapped and killed Polly Klaas. He's the guy whose address people find online, courtesy of Megan's Law, and who is hounded from town to town.

The reality is that only 10 percent of child molesters are strangers to those they abuse (6 percent for children under 6 years old). About 30 to 40 percent are family friends or trusted adults. Typical child sex abusers -- 50 to 60 percent -- are fathers, stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers, and brothers. (The percentage of women who sexually abuse children is low.)

They're heterosexual, married or formerly married, have jobs, attend church, are very personable, look clean and respectable, love kids, and represent all ethnicities and income levels.

They're teachers, coaches, doctors, dentists, diplomats, psychologists, psychiatrists, bureaucrats, laborers, clergy and businessmen. A significant number are teenagers. Most of their victims are girls.

Because family members rarely make it into the criminal justice system, researchers stumble along in the dark to characterize their behavior. But individual cases range from violent rapes to intercourse in the name of "sex education." 

When they're caught, their excuses are often preposterous, like this one cited in a research study by psychiatrist Gene Abel: "Yes, I penetrated my 6- year-old daughter, but it was an accident. I was coming out of the shower. I slipped on the soap, and my penis accidentally went into her vagina." 

Researchers know a little more about child molesters who are family friends and trusted adults because more of them have been arrested. These molesters don't use violence on their victims. They "groom" them, says Robert Geffner, a psychologist and president of the board of directors of the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute in San Diego. 

They establish a relationship with a child, become his or her friend and ally, and play games in which they have more physical contact. "It's done so gradually and the child is so conditioned that he doesn't know what's happening," says Geffner. Some people molest children because they're interested in them sexually. For others, the molestation is not a sexual act; it's driven by an urge for power and control. What leads so many men to molest their own children or the children of their friends? The cause "is a profound puzzle for all of us," says clinical psychologist Ray Knight, president of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers and a psychology professor at Brandeis University.

Researchers can say that if a child experiences or witnesses physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse, his chances for molesting children when he's a teen or adult increase. What's certain is that most people who are abused sexually at a young age do not become child molesters. There are simply too many victims.