Is assessment of sexual arousal in rapists worthwhile? A critique of current methods and the development of a response compatibility approach

Abstract Assessment procedures currently in use with sexual offenders which measure their patterns of sexual arousal are reviewed, and their application to rapists found to be of questionable validity. These techniques primarily emphasize features of the laboratory stimuli used to elicit sexual arousal in males; that is, these methods compare sexual arousal elicited by consensual versus forceful sexual depictions. These procedures assume that greater erectile responses to depictions of sexual assault relative to consensual sex bear an important relationship to sexually aggressive behavior. This review suggests that such a relation is tenuous because arousal to the stimuli employed is not usually a functional antecedent or aspect of sexual assault. Furthermore, arousal patterns do not reliably distinguish rapists from non-rapists, and suppression of arousal to aggressive stimuli is unproved as a useful treatment target for rapists. It is concluded that this form of assessment had limited usefulness for determinations of dangerousness, prognosis, or treatment needs. This paper outlines an alternative model in which sexual assaults against adults are based upon the compatibility of the responses of sexual arousal and coercion, rather than upon arousal to deviant stimulus configurations.

[1]  Suzanne S. Ageton.  Sexual Assault Among Adolescents , 1983 .

[2]  M. Zuckerman,et al.  Physiological measures of sexual arousal in the human. , 1971, Psychological bulletin.

[3]  W. Marshall,et al.  Deviant sexual arousal in rapists. , 1979, Behaviour research and therapy.

[4]  Linda S. Williams,et al.  The Classic Rape: When Do Victims Report? , 1984 .

[5]  N. Malamuth.  Factors associated with rape as predictors of laboratory aggression against women. , 1983, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[6]  J. S. Wormith,et al.  Assessing deviant sexual arousal: Physiological and cognitive aspects , 1986 .

[7]  William L. Marshall,et al.  The use of sexually explicit stimuli by rapists, child molesters, and nonoffenders , 1988 .

[8]  W. Marshall,et al.  Identification of cues and control of sexual arousal by rapists. , 1983, Behaviour research and therapy.

[9]  B. Flanagan,et al.  Sexual responding of “nonrapists” to aggressive sexual themes: Normative data , 1985 .

[10]  G. M. Farkas.  Comments on Levin et al. and Rosen and Kopel: internal and external validity issues. , 1978, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[11]  W. Marshall,et al.  Deviant Sexual Behavior , 1984, Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders.

[12]  E. Blanchard,et al.  Measurement of sexual arousal in several paraphilias: the effects of stimulus modality, instructional set and stimulus content on the objective. , 1981, Behaviour research and therapy.

[13]  E. Donnerstein,et al.  Erotic stimuli and aggression: facilitation or inhibition. , 1975, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[14]  T. Kane,et al.  Person perception and the Berkowitz paradigm for the study of aggression. , 1976, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[15]  V. Quinsey.  The assessment and treatment of child molesters: A review. , 1977 .

[16]  R. J. Kelly,et al.  Behavioral reorientation of pedophiliacs: Can it be done? , 1982 .

[17]  T. Tieger,et al.  Self-rated likelihood of raping and the social perception of rape , 1981 .

[18]  D. Sue.  Erotic Fantasies of College Students During Coitus , 1979 .

[19]  V. Quinsey,et al.  Sexual Arousal to Nonsexual Violence and Sadomasochistic Themes Among Rapists and Non-Sex-Offenders , 1984 .

[20]  A. Burgess,et al.  Rape: a sexual deviation. , 1977, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[21]  C. Nadelson,et al.  A follow-up study of rape victims. , 1982, The American journal of psychiatry.

[22]  Neil M. Malamuth,et al.  Aggression against Women: Cultural and Individual Causes , 1984 .

[23]  D. Finkelhor.  Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research , 1984 .

[24]  J. Bancroft,et al.  A simple transducer for measuring penile erection with comments on its use in the treatment of sexual disorders. , 1966, Behaviour research and therapy.

[25]  P. Bell,et al.  Sexual arousal and aggression by males: effects of type of erotic stimuli and prior provocation. , 1977, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[26]  A. Burgess,et al.  The Victim of Rape: Institutional Reactions , 1983 .

[27]  W L Marshall,et al.  A behavioral view of rape. , 1984, International journal of law and psychiatry.

[28]  W. Marshall,et al.  Handbook of sexual assault: Issues, theories, and treatment of the offender. , 1990 .

[29]  N. Malamuth,et al.  Predictors of naturalistic sexual aggression. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[30]  V. Quinsey,et al.  Stimulus Control of Rapists' and Non-Sex Offenders' Sexual Arousal , 1984 .

[31]  S. Sorenson,et al.  The prevalence of adult sexual assault. The Los Angeles Epidemiologic Catchment Area Project. , 1987, American journal of epidemiology.

[32]  D. Kilpatrick,et al.  Self-Reported Fears of Rape Victims , 1980 .

[33]  G. Eifert,et al.  Reliability and validity of the mercury in rubber strain gauge measure of penile circumference , 1979 .

[34]  W. Marshall,et al.  Control of penile tumescence: the effects of arousal level and stimulus content. , 1985, Behaviour research and therapy.

[35]  E. Blanchard,et al.  Differentiating Sexual Aggressives With Penile Measures , 1978 .

[36]  A. Frodi.  Sexual arousal, situational restrictiveness, and aggressive behavior , 1977 .

[37]  S. Riger,et al.  The impact of crime on urban women. , 1983, Issues in mental health nursing.

[38]  D. Laws,et al.  Differential erection response patterns of sexual child abusers to stimuli describing activities with children , 1984 .

[39]  A. Buss,et al.  Instrumentality of aggression, feedback, and frustration as determinants of physical aggression. , 1966, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[40]  R. Geen,et al.  Aggression : theoretical and empirical reviews , 1983 .

[41]  F. Keefe,et al.  The measurement of human penile tumescence. , 1978, Psychophysiology.

[42]  J. Singer,et al.  Women's fantasies during sexual intercourse: normative and theoretical implications. , 1974, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[43]  D. Levis,et al.  Aversion therapy applied to taped sequences of deviant behavior in exhibitionism and other sexual deviations: A preliminary report , 1970 .

[44]  W L Marshall,et al.  The relationship between cognitive and erectile measures of sexual arousal in non-rapist males as a function of depicted aggression. , 1984, Behaviour research and therapy.

[45]  W. Marshall,et al.  Sexual responses to consenting and forced sex in a large sample of rapists and nonrapists. , 1986, Behaviour research and therapy.

[46]  J. Tedeschi,et al.  A reinterpretation of research on aggression. , 1974, Psychological bulletin.

[47]  E. Donnerstein,et al.  Aggressive erotica and violence against women. , 1980, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[48]  J. Jenkins,et al.  Incestuous child sexual abuse: A review of treatment strategies , 1981 .

[49]  W. Murphy,et al.  Reliability issues in the penile assessment of incarcerants , 1981 .

[50]  E. Blanchard,et al.  The components of rapists' sexual arousal. , 1977, Archives of general psychiatry.

[51]  N. Malamuth,et al.  Sexual arousal to rape depictions: individual differences. , 1983, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[52]  W. Murphy,et al.  The use of penile tumescence measures with incarcerated rapists: Further validity issues , 1984, Archives of sexual behavior.

[53]  M. Cohen,et al.  Sociometric study of the sex offender. , 1969, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[54]  Beth E. Schneider,et al.  A descriptive study of rapists and child molesters: Developmental, clinical, and criminal characteristics , 1987 .

[55]  P. Gebhard.  Sex Offenders: An Analysis of Types , 1965 .

[56]  V. Quinsey,et al.  Penile Responses to Nonsexual Violence among Rapists , 1982 .

[57]  N. Malamuth,et al.  Sexual arousal and behavioral aggression. , 1974, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[58]  R. Baron.  The aggression-inhibiting influence of heightened sexual arousal. , 1974, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[59]  N. Malamuth,et al.  Repeated exposure to violent and nonviolent pornography: Likelihood of raping ratings and laboratory aggression against women , 1986 .

[60]  H. Scher,et al.  The courtship disorders , 1983, Archives of sexual behavior.

[61]  N. Malamuth,et al.  Self-reported likelihood of sexually aggressive behavior: Attitudinal versus sexual explanations ☆ , 1983 .

[62]  K. Freund.  Diagnosing homo- or heterosexuality and erotic age-preference by means of a psychophysiological test. , 1967, Behaviour research and therapy.

[63]  V. Quinsey,et al.  A Comparison of Rapists and Non-Sex Offenders' Sexual Preferences for Mutually Consenting Sex, Rape, and Physical Abuse of Women , 1981 .

[64]  A. Groth,et al.  Men Who Rape: The Psychology of the Offender , 1979 .

[65]  A. Burgess,et al.  Sexual dysfunction during rape. , 1977, The New England journal of medicine.

[66]  Eugene J. Kanin,et al.  Selected Dyadic Aspects of Male Sex Aggression , 1969 .

[67]  Leonard Berkowitz,et al.  Victim reactions in aggressive erotic films as a factor in violence against women. , 1981, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[68]  Menachem Amir.  Patterns in Forcible Rape , 1971 .

[69]  Howard E. Barbaree,et al.  Sexual offenders against female children: Sexual preferences for age of victims and type of behaviour. , 1986 .

[70]  J. Cautela.  Treatment of Compulsive Behavior by Covert Sensitization , 1966 .

[71]  N. Malamuth.  Rape proclivity among males. , 1981 .

[72]  G. Abel,et al.  Aggressive Behavior and Sex , 1980 .

[73]  R. Langevin,et al.  Comparison of two penile measures of erotic arousal. , 1974, Behaviour research and therapy.

[74]  R. T. Rada.  Clinical aspects of the rapist , 1978 .

[75]  E. Foa,et al.  Rape victims: Post-traumatic stress responses and their treatment:: A review of the literature , 1987 .

[76]  D. R. Laws,et al.  Sexual Response Faking By Pedophiles , 1978 .

[77]  S. Riger,et al.  The Fear of Rape: A Study in Social Control , 1981 .