Sexual preference for child and aggressive stimuli: Comparison of rapists and child molesters using auditory and visual stimuli

154 Ss were tested using penile plethysmography as part of intake into a voluntary inpatient sex offender treatment program. The testing protocol included slide stimuli of nude males and females in four age categories ranging from age 1 to adult; audiotaped descriptions of sexual activity with children of both genders which included fondling, sexual contact with no resistance, coercive sexual contact, sexual assault, nonsexual assault, and consensual sexual contact with an adult; videotaped depictions of rape of an adult woman, nonsexual assault of an adult woman and consensual sexual involvement with an adult woman, and audiotaped descriptions that paralleled the videotapes. The results indicated that child molesters (male victim) show a decidedly more offense related arousal profile than either child molesters (female victim) or rapists, and that the profiles of child molesters (female victim) and rapists are remarkably similar, although statistically significantly different from each other. Rapists respond significantly more to rape and nonsexual assault than either of the two child molester groups, with child molesters with female victims responding more than those with male victims. In all three groups, the highest level of noncoercive adult responding was to women, with differences among offense groups present for visual stimuli, but not in response to auditory stimuli. Overall, the patterns of results are similar whether they are based on composites across stimulus modality or on the individual stimuli.