Reactions of convicted rapists to sexually explicit stimuli.

Describes a study in which 28 convicted rapists and 28 controls convicted of nonsexual crimes were shown a series of slides depicting sexual themes (young couple in a romantic pose, nude female, male masturbating, heterosexual petting, heterosexual fellatio, heterosexual coitus, and sadomasochism) while measures of penile volume, GSR, and subjective ratings were obtained. Following this presentation, S rated all 7 slides on semantic differential scales. No significant differences were found between groups on the penile volume measures, but the rapists displayed greater arousal on the GSR measures and gave more negative ratings to the sexual themes than controls. This finding suggests that the stimuli were unpleasant for the rapists, supporting previous research. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)