Development of the atypical sexual interests (self-report) scale: the dimensional structure of paraphilia

Abstract

According to the DSM-5, an individual is diagnosed with a paraphilic disorder when there are persistent behaviours or fantasies that cause distress and/or impairment. However, there is limited research on assessing a continuum of paraphilic interest. The current study sampled 1,650 individuals (age range = 18–93 years, M = 33.64, SD = 16.1) from the general population in assessing a novel 53-item scale – Atypical Sexual Interests Scale (ASIS) – that measures six atypical interests: devotism, frotteurism, voyeurism, exhibitionism, sexual sadism, and sexual masochism. Factor analyses identified that the six-factor model was a poor fit, with the former suggesting a four-factor model; 21 poorly performing items were consequently removed from the scale, and a second confirmatory factor analysis was run. While the six-factor model was a better fit on the refined ASIS compared to unitary and four-factor models, three subscales (frotteurism, voyeurism and exhibitionism) possibly ‘tap into’ a single courtship deviation construct.

Keywords:

• Atypical sexual interest
• atypical sexual interest scale
• devotism
• exhibitionism
• fetishes
• frotteurism
• paraphilia
• scale development
• sexuality
• sexual masochism
• sexual sadism
• voyeurism

Ethical standards

Declaration of conflicts of interest

M. T. Rowlands has declared no conflicts of interest.

F. P. Morrison has declared no conflicts of interest.

E. Brock has declared no conflicts of interest.

H. Stocker has declared no conflicts of interest.

R. A. Green has declared no conflicts of interest.

D. Marks has declared no conflicts of interest.

D. Castano has declared no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

Studies with human participants.

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee [Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee] and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Funding details

None.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.