From Fantasy to Reality: Self-Reported Aggression-Related Sexual Fantasies Predict Sexually Sadistic Behavior beyond Indirect and Direct Measures of Sexual Preference

ABSTRACT

Aggression-related sexual fantasies (ASF) have been related to various forms of harmful sexual behavior in both sex offender and community samples. However, more research is needed to fully understand this relation, particularly whether ASF is associated with harmful sexual behavior beyond hostile sexism against women and a sexual preference for violence and sexual violence. In the present study, N = 428 participants (61.9% women) between 18 and 83 years of age (M = 28.17, SD = 9.7) reported their ASF and hostile sexism. They rated their sexual arousal by erotic, violent, and sexually violent pictures as a direct measure of sexual preference. Response latencies between stimulus presentation and arousal ratings were used as an indirect measure of sexual preference. ASF and the directly and indirectly assessed sexual preference for violent and sexually violent stimuli were positively correlated. They were unrelated to hostile sexism against women. ASF showed the strongest associations with self-reported sexually sadistic behavior and presumably non-consensual sexual sadism beyond these preferences and hostile sexism in the total group and separately among men and women. The findings indicate that ASF and sexual preference are not equivalent constructs and further underscore the potential relevance of ASF for harmful sexual behavior.

Availability Of Data And Material & Code Availability

Synthetic data sets (mirroring the statistic properties of the original data) and analysis scripts are available at https://osf.io/gkrmt/

Ethics Approval

The questionnaire and methodology for this study were approved by the ethics committee of the University of Potsdam.

Consent To Participate

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

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Funding

The authors have no funding to report.