Empathy for the Victim and Sexual Arousal Among Rapists and Nonrapists

Abstract

One explanation of the finding that rapists and nonrapists differ in their sexual arousal patterns is that when listening to rape stories, nonrapists, but not rapists, empathize with the rape victim and their sexual arousal is inhibited by her suffering. Fourteen heterosexual rapists and 14 men who were not sex offenders were presented with audiotaped narrations while their penile tumescence was measured. All stories described a male-female interaction and the categories included rape with victim enjoyment, rape with victim suffering, nonsexual assault by the man, and consenting sexual and nonsexual heterosocial interactions. In each category, stories were told from either the woman's or man's point of view. Overall, subjects showed higher arousal to stories described from a female perspective. Consistent with the lack of empathy account of rape, rapists were less empathic than nonrapists and deviant arousal was inversely related to self-reported empathy. The best discrimination between groups was obtained for rape stories told from the point of view of a suffering victim. However, the finding that all rapists, but no nonrapists, preferred rape stories over consenting sex stories suggested that the lack of empathy account of rape was incomplete. The present data suggest that cues of violence and victim distress contribute to sexual arousal among rapists.