A self-report questionnaire designed to assess abusive childhood environments and exposure to animal cruelty was administered to 314 inmates in a prisoner classification center. Although high rates of physical punishment characterized the entire sample, persons charged with violent, but nonhomicidal crimes reported more severely punitive childhood histories than those charged with homicidal cri...

Sexual behavior is directed by a sophisticated interplay between steroid hormone actions in the brain that give rise to sexual arousability and experience with sexual reward that gives rise to expectations of competent sexual activity, sexual desire, arousal, and performance. Sexual experience allows animals to form instrumental associations between internal or external stimuli and behaviors th...

Over the last 130 years, research has established that (a) sexual selection exists and is widespread in the plant and animal kingdoms; (b) it does not necessarily entail sexual dimorphism; even hermaphrodites have it; (c) it does not require intelligence or a sophisticated sense of esthetics; even tapeworms and plants choose mates; and (d) it does not require brawn or even mobility for competit...

The roles of gender and the sexual motives of Love, Pleasure, Conformity, Recognition, Dominance, and Submission in numerous usual and unusual sexual behaviors were investigated. In a survey of 191 college undergraduates it was found that Love, Pleasure, Conformity, and Recognition motives, often in interaction with gender, were all important predictors of sexual behavior. Gender was the best p...