Victim blame and sexual arousal to rape cues in rapists and nonoffenders

Abstract

This study examined the effects of victim blame on sexual arousal to depictions of rape in 18 men from the community and 18 incarcerated rapists, providing the first test of the inhibition model of rape (Barbaree, Marshall, & Lanthier, 1979) using an identified population of sexually aggressive men. Rapists were expected to show a stronger effect of victim blame. It was also predicted that rapists would score as less empathic than nonrapists, and that empathy scores would be related to indices of deviant sexual arousal (Rice, Chaplin, Harris, & Coutts, 1993). Victim blame did not have an effect on sexual arousal to rape, in contrast to an earlier study using university students (Sundberg, Barbaree, & Marshall, 1991). Rapists scored as less empathic on the Hogan Empathy Scale (Hogan, 1969) but not the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy (Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972); this group difference disappeared when education was covaried. Post hoc analyses were conducted on file information for 16 rapists to identify directions for future research. Compared to men who raped women they knew (n=9), men who victimized strangers (n=7) were younger at the time of the index offense, of lower socioeconomic status, and showed relatively larger responses to rape in the high blame condition. Implications for the inhibition model of rape and future phallometric research are discussed.