Sexual arousal to nonsexual violence and sadomasochistic themes among rapists and non sex-offenders.

Twenty heterosexual rapists, 10 non-sex-offender patients from the same maximum security psychiatric institution, and 10 men with low socioeconomic status recruited from the local community were presented with audiotaped narrations while their penile tumescence was measured. The story categories were as follows: female victim/partner (neutral situation, consenting sex, rape, nonsexual violence, consenting bondage and spanking, masochistic bondage and spanking, and nonconsenting bondage and spanking) and male victim/partner (neutral situation, consenting sex, rape, and nonsexual violence). There were no differences between the two non-sex-offender groups, and they were combined. Rapists showed more sexual arousal to rape descriptions and less to consenting sex stories than the control subjects. As predicted, rapists were sexually aroused by stories involving nonsexual violence with female but not male victims. Surprisingly, there were no differences between rapists and control subjects in their responsiveness to the spanking and bondage stories. It was concluded that the amount of violence in the rape descriptions is critical in differentiating rapists from non-sex-offenders.