Turner-Moore, T and Waterman, M orcid.org/0000-0003-0168-0426 (2023) Deconstructing “Sexual Deviance”: Identifying and Empirically Examining Assumptions about “Deviant” Sexual Fantasy in the DSM. The Journal of Sex Research, 60 (4). pp. 429-442. ISSN 0022-4499
Abstract
We identify and examine three assumptions underpinning “sexual deviance” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders: (1) the “sexual deviant” – often, “the male sex offender” – prefers “deviant,” and has limited (if any) “non-deviant,” sexual fantasies; (2) this differentiates them from the non-sexual-/non-offending “norm”; (3) preferred fantasies are “deviant” or “non-deviant.” Adult volunteers (N = 279; equal numbers of sexual offending [SO], non-sexual offending [NSO] and non-offending [NO] men) provided anonymous descriptions of their favorite sexual thought and responses to a revised Wilson Sex Fantasy Questionnaire during a wider computerized survey of 6,289 men from prison and the community. Latent class analysis identified five types of favorite sexual thought; vaginal/oral sex with 1+ woman was commonest for SO men and the WSFQ findings supported this – challenging the first assumption. Both SO and NO men were over-represented for thought types considered “deviant” by the DSM – tempering the second assumption – although SO men were over-represented for thoughts involving children specifically. All thought types were multidimensional; none included solely elements considered “deviant” by the DSM – contesting the third assumption. Notions of the “sexual deviant” as “different”/“other” may underpin these assumptions, potentially negatively impacting research, therapy and understanding sexual crime.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 14 Nov 2022 13:30 |
Last Modified: | 08 Nov 2023 15:05 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor and Francis Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/00224499.2022.2109568 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:193186 |