Understanding Sexual Violence

• Sexual violence, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), includes any sexual act, attempts to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic or otherwise directed against a person's sexuality using coercion, regardless of the perpetrator's relationship to the victim or the setting

Nature of of Sexual Violence

• Instrumental sexual violence is invoked when an individual wants something possessed by another
• Expressive sexual violence is a reaction to anger or provocation, intending to inflict pain on the victim

Risk Factors: Childhood Maltreatment (Chan 2018)

• Childhood maltreatment experiences are linked to somatic and pain disorders, psychosocial problems, psychopathy, and delinquent and violent behavior
• Early traumatic experiences can impair serotonergic functioning, increasing the potential for impulsive and aggressive behavior, according to animal and human research
• Maltreatment experiences cause physical, psychological, and developmental problems, increasing the likelihood of engaging in similar behavior
• Adult sexual offenders are 3.4 times more likely to have experienced childhood maltreatment compared to nonsexual offenders
• The sexual abuser hypothesis (Seto 2008) suggests that those victimized in childhood are more likely to perpetrate abuse against children, including illicit drug use, violent offending, and generalized antisocial behavior

Deviant Sexual Fantasies

• Children not attached to their parents are more likely to have low self-control, be introverted, isolated, and lonely
• Isolated and lonely individuals may use erotic fantasies to alleviate sexual frustration and enhance pleasure in the absence of partners
• Bartels and Gannon (2011) propose sexual fantasies regulate affect, enhance arousal, cope with issues, and simulate offenses
• Many sexual offenders report engaging in deviant sexual fantasies before attacks

Functions of Sexual Fantasies (Gee et al., 2003)

• Alleviate negative affect
• Elevate ambivalent mood
• Enhance a preexisting positive mood/affective state
• These sexual fantasies, often deviant, provide emotional closeness, relief, and social achievement, but overuse can lead to a lack of control over impulses

Pornography Consumption

• Erotica involves sexually explicit material depicting consenting adults in nonviolent, nondegrading, and pleasurable interactions
• Pornography depicts sexual activity where a participant is nonconsenting and powerless, with or without physical violence or threats
• Violent pornography portrays sexual aggression, often by males against females
• Degrading pornography involves sexually explicit materials depicting females as submissive or hypersexual, experiencing pleasure in humiliating or degrading conditions
• Pornography consumption is linked to violent sexual offending, potentially serving as a training manual
• It also compensates for social isolation and emotional loneliness

Alcohol and Drugs Consumption

• Alcohol abuse increases the likelihood of violent, criminal, or aggressive sexual behavior
• Abbey et al. (2006) suggest heavy drinking relates to a desire for sexual dominance, associated with positive attitudes toward casual relationships and peer pressure
• Effects of substance use on sexual offending are mediated by substance expectancies and cognitive myopia
• Substance use before a sexual offense predicts the criminal's aggressiveness, injury extent, and likelihood of penetration
• Alcohol abuse increases recidivism

Paraphilias

• Di Lorenzo et al. (2018): DSM-5 defines a paraphilic disorder as a paraphilia causing distress or compromising sexual functioning, or involving personal damage or risk to others
• Paraphilias are deviant sexual behaviors with recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, urges, or behaviors involving inhuman objects or non-consenting partners for at least 6 months
• A diagnosis requires acting on urges or being distressed by them

Exhibitionism

• Exhibitionism involves men showing their genitals to strangers for sexual interest
• Ehibitionism may or may not involve masturbation
• Exhibitionism involves specific behaviors with a purpose of exposing one's genitalia, without contact with the victim.
• Exhibitionism disorder involves the persistence of these fantasies or impulses for at least 6 months

Paedophilia

• Paedophilia is when men prefer children or prepubescent adults
• The diagnosis requires recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child
• Paedophilia requires such over a period of at least 6 months
• Individuals who are guilty of child molestation may not necessarily have the disorder

Voyeurism

• DSM-5 distinguishes is as an expression of a sexual preference that is not pathological
• Voyeurism involves recurrent, intense sexual arousal from observing unsuspecting people naked, getting naked, or engaging in sexual activities
• Voyeuristic disorder causes significant clinical discomfort or dysfunction in social and occupational areas for at least 6 months

Sexual Sadism

• To diagnose sexual sadism disorder ( per the DSM-5), there must be intense and recurrent sexual arousal that manifests through fantasies, desires, or behaviors related to the physical or psychological suffering of another person
• Sadism requires acting on these fantasies with a non-consenting person, or the fantasies must cause significant clinical discomfort
• Sexual sadism is found among individuals who enjoy sadomasochistic sexual practices, either in a dominant or submissive role, and those who like to control people

Frotteurism

• Frotteurism is a sexual paraphilic behavior where an individual, usually male, experiences a strong, intense compulsion
• Frotteurism is a need to touch and rub against non-consenting persons in public
• Frotteurism includes frottage (rubbing genitals on an unsuspecting victim's body), toucherism (rubbing parts of one's own body on an unsuspecting victim), and grabbage (grabbing intimate parts from behind)
• It typically occurs in crowds like public events or buses
• A frotteur is rarely aggressive and doesn't act like a typical sex offender

Fetishism

• Fetishism is a form of recurrent and intense sexual arousal from nonliving objects or non-genital body parts
• Forms of varies from infantilism (dressing up in diapers) to using female undergarments for arousal
• Fetishism is combined with masochistic fantasies and acts
• It may also be associated with transvestic disorder, where men like to dress as women

Sexual Masochism

• Masochism is characterized by intense, recurrent sexual arousal manifested through fantasies, desires, or behaviors involving the need to be humiliated, bound, beaten, tied, or made to suffer in a way or another
• Forms of masochism are bonding, genital tying, cigarette burning, biting on various body parts, autoflagellation and anal stimulation with dildos
• Those with masochism find partners to act out fantasies, occasionally reversing roles

Transvestic Disorder

• Transvestic disorder is characterised by the discomfort individuals experience that is relieved only by acting out fantasies, usually cross-dressing
• 88% of men with transvestic disorder
• The shades of cross-dressing are individualized and interpreted based on 3 elements of sexual identity: gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation
• Transvestites can get aroused even by simply wearing female clothing or lingerie, or by putting on an act of gender transformation
• Usually involves sexual fantasies and arousal patterns only when cross-dressing is done by a persons of male gender

Other Paraphilias Specified (Beech & Harkins, 2012)

• Coprophilia: Arousal from defecating on another person, or being defecated upon
• Klismaphilia: Arousal from giving or receiving enemas
• Necrophilia: Sexual arousal to dead bodies
• Partialism: Sexual arousal to exclusive parts of the body that are not traditional erogenous zones
• Telephone scatologia: Arousal from making indecent phone calls
• Urophilia: Arousal from being urinated on, or urinating on another person
• Zoophilia: Bestiality (sexual arousal to animals)

Rational Choice Approach (Cornish, 1993)

• The most important dimension is the presumption of rationality of human action, regardless of whether it is criminal or noncriminal
• Criminals typically minimise costs and maximise benefits
• This approach acknowledges that perfect rationality is unobtainable in real life, thus it is either "limited" or "bounded".
• An offender's rationality can be influenced by drugs or alcohol
• Bounded rationality often occurs as a result of time, effort, and available information
• Criminal decisions are made over a split second due to the urgency of the situation requiring action
• Many decisions during an offense are time-constrained, and time is a critical factor

Routine Activity Approach (Cohen and Felson, 1979)

• The possibility of crime occurring in a community or society relies on the convergence of 3 key elements: motivated and potential offenders, attractive and suitable targets, and the absence of a capable guardian
• The lack of any of those elements reduces the probability
• The victim selection process involves a rational decision
• A criminal-opportunity structure is created through patterns of routine activities and through contact between two given subjects
• The selection of a specific victim is determined by the offender's subjective value of the victim
• An individual's risk of victimization is a function of lifestyle and/or patterns of routine activities

Key Tenets of the Routine Activity Approach

• Increased guardianship reduces likelihood of victimization and criminal behavior
• More attractive targets are more likely to be victimized
• Participating in deviant lifestyles increases victimization
• Greater exposure to potential offenders risks both victimization and offending