Attenuation of Deviant Sexual Fantasy across the Lifespan in United States Adult Males

Abstract

Deviant sexual fantasy is identified as a risk factor for sexual offending, yet no study has examined deviant sexual fantasy across the lifespan in nonoffending adult males. To bridge this gap, this study examined the frequencies of normative and deviant sexual fantasies among 318 nonoffending adult males in the United States. Participants were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk™. Participants took two inventories that assessed demographics and types of sexual fantasies. Normality tests, means tests, Kruskal–Wallis 1-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs), binary logistic regressions, and odds ratio post hoc analyses were conducted. Deviant sexual fantasies progressively declined across all three age groups, while normative sexual fantasy did not. Results suggest that deviant sexual fantasy changes across the lifespan. Applicability of the findings to applied settings, such as sexually violent predator evaluations, is discussed. Limitations and future considerations are addressed.

Key words:

• Deviant
• fantasy
• interest
• lifespan
• males
• nonoffending
• normative
• sexual
• sexual offending
• United States

Correction Statement

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

Ethical standards

 

Declaration of conflicts of interest

Tiffany A. Harvey has declared no conflicts of interest

Elizabeth L. Jeglic has declared no conflicts of interest

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Human Research Protection Program of The City University of New York 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.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, T. H., upon reasonable request.

Author note

Tiffany A. Harvey, M.A., John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, Department of Psychology, 524 W. 59^th Street, New York, New York 10019, [email protected], https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5194-2896, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-harvey-m-a-3baa7976/; Elizabeth L. Jeglic, Ph.D., Psychology Department, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 524 W. 59^th Street, New York, New York 10019, https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-jeglic-b275a732/