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"Examines why some men are prone to rape, offers probable causes for this inclination, and provides a comprehensive review of scientific studies of coercive sex. The authors look at evidence from studies in developmental criminology, evolutionary psychology, psychopathology, and psychophysiology and examine the situational and social factors that influence the likelihood of rape. Theories about rape have an unfortunate history of being unconstrained by empirical knowledge, sometimes with the harmful consequence that solutions to the problem of rape are ineffectual. The authors address this situation with a fact-based exploration of this phenomenon, beginning with a review of coercive sex among animal species and an account of rape throughout history and across culture, moving through a discussion of current research on rape, and culminating with a synthesis of research findings that points toward a new explanation of why some men rape. The authors also discuss the practical implications of their research on the assessment and treatment of men who rape. This empirically exhaustive book will be the new standard text on the phenomenon of rape and will help psychologists, social workers, and legal professionals to develop a better understanding of sexual aggression"--Publicity materials. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

Among child molesters, phallometrically measured sexual interest in children is associated with having male victims, multiple victims, younger victims, and extrafamilial victims. These sexual offense history variables are also associated with risk for sexual recidivism. The present study of 1, 113 child molesters was conducted to determine if these sexual offense history variables could be used as items in a brief screening scale to identify pedophilic interests (SSPI: Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests). Using a cutoff score that classified 90% of a sample of 206 nonchild molesters as not having pedophilic interests, SSPI scores identified pedophilic interests among child molesters significantly better than did chance. In phallometric testing, individuals with the highest SSPI score were more than 5 times as likely to show pedophilic interests than individuals receiving the lowest score. The SSPI is not intended to be a substitute for phallometric testing, but it may be useful for triage and risk management when testing is difficult to conduct, or as a research instrument when phallometric data are unavailable.

Research on phallometric assessment has accumulated in recent years. This research can inform and enhance the use of phallometric measures of sexual preferences among sexual offenders. In this short essay we suggest empirical answers to common clinical questions regarding the application of this technology.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the well-established relationship between parity and birth weight is affected by the sex composition of siblings, especially for male newborns. Subjects were
856 male and 862 female newborns who weighed at least 2500 g at birth, who were born after 37 completed weeks of gestation, who obtained an Apgar score of 7 or higher, who had the same biological parents as all other children in the sibship, and who lived in the same household. Information on birth weight was collected from hospital records. Results showed that male newborns with older brothers weighed less than male newborns with older sisters. In contrast, the weight of female newborns with older brothers did not differ from the weight of female newborns with older sisters. One explanation of these results is that maternal immunoreactivity to some male-specific feature of the fetus affects prenatal development and consequently reduces birth weight in males. The relation between older brothers and birth weight may have theoretical significance for behavioural variables.

Little research has been conducted to examine paraphilic sexual interests in nonclinical samples. The little that exists suggests that atypical sexual interests are more common in men than in women, but the reasons for this difference are unknown. In this study, we explored the prevalence of paraphilic interests in a nonclinical sample of men and women. We expected that men would report greater arousal (or less repulsion) toward various paraphilic acts than women. We also examined putative correlates of paraphilias in an attempt to explain the sex difference. In all, 305 men and 710 women completed an online survey assessing sexual experiences, sexual interests, as well as indicators of neurodevelopmental stress, sex drive, mating effort, impulsivity, masculinity/femininity, and socially desirable responding. As expected, significant sex differences were found, with men reporting significantly less repulsion (or more arousal) to the majority of paraphilic acts than women. Using mediation analysis, sex drive was the only correlate to significantly and fully mediate the sex difference in paraphilic interests. In other words, sex drive fully accounted for the sex difference in paraphilic interests. The implications of these findings for understanding the etiology of atypical sexual interests are discussed.

Published typologies of sexual homicide lack theoretical grounding and empirical support. They also conceptualize the phenomenon of sexual homicide as somewhat discrete, though offenders are not typically specialists. Here, we propose a model that situates the phenomenon of sexual killing into broader categories of antisocial behavior, positing three types of perpetrators of serial sexual homicides: competitively disadvantaged, psychopathic, and sadistic offenders. Using biographical data of 82 serial sexual homicide offenders, we tested our model as well as the influential organized/disorganized model. Principal components analysis produced five components consisting of offender and offense characteristics, and cluster analysis revealed three distinct groups of perpetrators (sadistic offenders, competitively disadvantaged offenders, and slashers), as well as a fourth, heterogeneous group; this cluster solution, however, may be unstable. In summary, there is only mixed support for either model.

This study examined the predictive and concurrent validity of the Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests (SSPI) and its recent revision (SSPI-2), using a large sample of 2,416 sex offenders deemed not to be in need of civil management in New York State. Both SSPI and SSPI-2 scores were significantly and positively related to sexual rearrest, but the SSPI-2 provided greater discrimination in rearrest within 5 years across possible scores. Neither measure significantly added to the prediction of sexual rearrest provided by the Static-99R. We also found evidence of concurrent validity, as both measures were positively and significantly correlated with clinician ratings of sexual preoccupation, emotional identification with children, and sexual offense–related cognitions (convergent validity), but were not significantly related to clinician ratings of self-regulation problems, noncompliance with supervision, or antisocial personality (divergent validity). Overall, the results suggest that the SSPI-2 is a specific and useful screening measure of pedophilic sexual interests among sex offenders with child victims.

A number of studies have shown that the probability that a man is homosexual increases with the number of older brothers (but not sisters) born to his mother. This older brother effect suggests that a progressive maternal immunosensitization process is involved in producing homosexual preferences. A recent demonstration of the older brother effect in homosexual pedophilia raises the question of whether it is involved in other anomalous sexual preferences as well. In the present study, phallometric data were gathered from 29 child molesters, 38 rapists, and 11 individuals who had offended against both children and adults. In all groups, a phallometric index of sexual deviance (a relative preference for children or for coercive sex) was positively correlated with the offenders' number of older brothers (but not sisters). These results suggest that the matemal immunosensitization hypothesis may explain some variations in male sexual preferences.