Abstract
Twenty-nine male students, classified on the basis of questionnaire responses as sexually force oriented or non-force oriented, were randomly assigned to exposure to rape or mutually-consenting versions of a slide-audio show. All subjects were then exposed to the same audio description of a rape read by a female. They were later asked to create their own fantasies. Penile tumescence and self-reports of arousal indicated that relatively high levels of sexual arousal were generated by all of the experimental stimuli. No differences in arousal during the exposure phase were found as a function of the manipulation in the content of the slideaudio show. Sexual arousal during the fantasy period, assessed by means of self-reports, indicated that those who had been classified as force oriented created more arousing fantasies after having been exposed to the rape version of the show, whereas those classified as non-force oriented created more arousing fantasies following the mutually-consenting version. Most significantly, those exposed to the rape version, irrespective of their sexual classification, created more violent sexual fantasies than those exposed to the mutually-consenting version. The possible role of such media-elicited fantasies in the development of antisocial attitudes and behavior is considered. Also discussed are ethical issues arising from implementing or failing to implement research in this area.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abel, G. G., Barlow, D. H., Blanchard, E., and Guild, D. (1977). The components of rapists' sexual arousal.Arch. Gen. Psychiat. 34: 895–903.
Abel, G., Becker, J., Murphy, W., and Flanagan, B. (1979). Identifying dangerous child molesters. Paper presented at the 11th Banff International Conference on Behaviour Modification, Banff, Canada.
Abel, G. G., Blanchard, E. B., and Brodsky, S. (eds.),Sexual Assault: The Victim and the Rapist, Lexington Books, Lexington, Mass.
Abel, G. G., Blanchard, E. B., and Becker, J. V. (1978). An integrated treatment program for rapists. In Rada, R. (eds.),Clinical Aspects of the Rapist Grune & Stratton, New York.
Abel, G. G., Blanchard, E. B., Murphy, W. D., Becker, J. V., and Djenderadjian, A. (1980). Two methods of measuring penile response.Behav. Ther. (in press).
Abramson, P., and Mosher, D. (1979). An empirical investigation of experimentally induced masturbatory fantasies.Arch. Sex. Behav. 8: 27–39.
Barbaree, H., Marshall, W., and Lanthier, R. (1979). Deviant sexual arousal in rapists.Behav. Res. Ther. 17: 215–222.
Barlow, D. H. (1974). The treatment of sexual deviation: Towards a comprehensive behavioral approach. In Calhoun, K. S., Adams, H. E., and Mitchell, K. M. (eds.),Innovative Treatment Methods in Psychopathology Wiley, New York.
Baron, R. A., and Byrne, D. (1977).Social Psychology: Understanding Human Interaction Allyn & Bacon, Boston.
Bentler, P. M. (1968). A note on the treatment of adolescent sex poblems.J. Child Psychol. Psychiat. 9: 125–129.
Briddell, D., Rimm, D., Caddy, G., Krawitz, G., Sholis, D., and Wunderlin, R. (1978). Effects of alcohol and cognitive set on sexual arousal to deviant stimuli.J. Abnorm. Psychol. 87: 418–430.
Brownell, K. D., Hayes, S. C., and Barlow, D. H. (1977). Patterns of appropriate and deviant sexual arousal: The behavioral treatment of multiple sexual deviations.J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 45: 1144–1155.
Brownmiller, S. (1975).Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape Simon and Schuster, New York.
Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (1970).The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography Bantam Books, New York.
Davis, K. E., and Braucht, G. N. (1973). Exposure to pornography, character, and sexual deviance: A retrospective survey.J. Soc. Issues 29: 183–196.
Davison, G. C. (1968). Elimination of a sadistic fantasy by a client-controlled counterconditioning technique: A case study.J. Abnorm. Psychol. 73: 84–90.
Donnerstein, E. (1980). Aggressive erotica and violence against women.J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 39: 269–272.
Farkas, G. M. (1979). Trait and state determinants of male sexual arousal to descriptions of coercive sexuality. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Hawaii.
Farkas, G. M., Sine, L. F., and Evans, I. M. (1979). The effects of distraction, performance demand, stimulus explicitness and personality on objective and subjective measures of male sexual arousal.Behav. Res. Ther. 17: 25–32.
Gager, N., and Schurr, C. (1976).Sexual Assault: Confronting Rape In America Grosset & Dunlap, New York.
Gagnon, J., and Simon, W. (1973).Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality Aldine, Chicago.
Goldstein, M. J., Kant, H. S., and Hartman, J. J. (1973).Pornography and Sexual Deviance Univ. of California Press, Berkeley.
Herman, S. H., Barlow, D. H., and Agras, W. S. (1971). Exposure to heterosexual stimuli: An effective variable in treating homosexuality?Proceedings, 79th Annual Convention, American Psychological Association, pp. 670–699.
Herman, S. H., Barlow, D. H., and Agras, W. S. (1974). An experimental analysis of exposure to “explicit” heterosexual stimuli as an effective variable in changing arousal patterns of homosexuals.Behav. Res. Ther. 12: 335–345.
Kolarsky, A., and Madlafousek, J. (1977). Variability of stimulus effect in the course of phallometric testing.Arch. Sex. Behav. 6: 135–141.
Kostach, M. (1978). Pornography: A feminist view.This Magazine 12: 4–7.
Laws, D. R. (1977). A comparison of the measurement characteristics of two circumferential penile transducers.Arch. Sex. behav. 6: 45–51.
Malamuth, N. (1978). Erotica, aggression and perceived appropriateness. Paper presented at the Eighty-Sixth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada.
Malamuth, N., and Check, J. V. P. (1979). Penile tumescence and perceptual responses to rape as a function of victim's perceived reactions.Journal of Applied Social Psychology (in press).
Malamuth, N., Feshbach, S., and Jaffe, Y. (1977). Sexual arousal and aggression: Recent experiments and theoretical issues.J. Soc. Issues 33: 110–133.
Malamuth, N., Haber, S., and Feshbach, S. (1980a.). Testing hypotheses regarding rape: Exposure to sexual violence, sex differences, and the “normality” of rape.J. Res. Pers. 14: 121–137.
Malamuth, N., Heim, M., and Feshbach, S. (1980b). Sexual responsiveness of college students to rape depictions: Inhibitory and disinhibitory effects.J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 38: 399–408.
Malamuth, N., and Spinner, B. (1980). A longitudinal content analysis of sexual violence in the best-selling erotic magazines.J. Sex. Res. 16: 226–237.
Malamuth, N., Reisin, I., and Spinner, B. (1979). Exposure to pornography and reactions to rape. Paper presented at the Eighty-Seventh Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, New York.
Mann, J., Sidman, J., and Starr, S. (1971). Effects of erotic films on sexual behavior of couples.Technical Reports of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, Vol. 8, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
Marshall, G. J. (1976). The efficacy of vicarious extinction as a treatment for sex anxiety in women. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin.
Marshall, W. L. (1973). The modification of sexual fantasies: A combined treatment approach to the reduction of deviant sexual behavior.Behav. Res. Ther. 11: 557–564.
Marshall, W. L., and Barbaree, H. E. (1978). The reduction of deviant arousal: Satiation treatment for sexual aggressors.Crim. Just. Behav. 5: 294–303.
McGuire, R. J., Carlisle, J. M., and Young, B. G. (1965). Sexual deviation as conditioned behavior: A hypothesis.Behav. Res. Ther. 2: 185–190.
Mees, H. L. (1966). Sadistic fantasies modified by aversive conditioning and substitution: A case study.Behav. Res. Ther. 4: 317–320.
Overall, J. E., Spiegel, D. K., and Cohen, J. (1975). Equivalence of orthogonal and nonorthogonal analysis of variance.Psychol. Bull. 82: 182–186.
Rosen, R. C., and Keefe, F. J. (1978). The measurement of human penile tumescence.Psychophysiology 15: 366–376.
Schmidt, G. (1975). Male-female differences in sexual arousal and behavior.Arch. Sex. Behav. 4: 353–364.
Siegel, S. (1956).Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Smith, D. D. (1976). The social content of pornography.J. Communication 26: 16–23.
Tieger, T. (1979). Self-rated likelihood of raping and the social perception of rape.J. Res. Pers. (in press).
Time (1976). Pornography. April 5: 58–63.
Time (1977). Really socking it to women. Februry 7: 42–43.
Wincze, J. R., Hoon, P., and Hoon, E. F. (1977). Sexual arousal in women: A comparison of cognitive and physiological responses by continuous measurement.Arch. Sex. Behav. 6: 121–133.
Wishnoff, R. (1978). Modeling effects of explicit and nonexplicit sexual stimuli on the sexual anxiety and behavior of women.Arch. Sex. Behav. 7: 455–461.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Malamuth, N.M. Rape fantasies as a function of exposure to violent sexual stimuli. Arch Sex Behav 10, 33–47 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542673
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542673