Dimensions of sexual aggression

• Main Author: Bishopp, Darren Charles Francis
• Published: University of Surrey 2003
• Subjects: 616.8583
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.402377

This thesis explores sexual aggression in men, focussing primarily on the bases and manifestations of rape in western society. A multivariate, meta-theoretical approach is adopted, given the diversity, and complexity of the phenomenon drawing on general, and specific literature, both ancient and modem. There are many seminal and classic pieces of work which are often overlooked when doing contemporary research on redefined constructs and ambiguous concepts which have their basis in much older theoretical considerations of human constructs; concepts which have puzzled philosophers and scientists for millennia. It offers a critique of clinical, forensic and offender profiling approaches adopted to discriminate sexual offenders, and proposes the use of behavioural scales to characterise them. The research and discussion reflect a facet-theoretic influence with respect to methodological orientation in the study of behaviour. This work de constructs the psychological perspectives on sexual aggression and reintegrates them within the proposed multi-dimensional model of sexual aggression. The approach is necessarily general, since there is neither a definitive model of human behaviour that can be applied to sexual aggression, nor a model of sexual aggression that can fully explain the differences between sex offenders. The empirical data derives from police and clinical sources and is examined for the presence of underlying components, or dimensions, within the spectrum of sexually aggressive acts. Associations between these dimensions, and clinically identified motivations are explored, revealing intuitive associations between action and intent. Statistical analyses lend support for the constructs themselves, while the conceptual model is inevitably theoretical, because statistics only simplify reality. The resultant model is defined in terms of Context (societal and localised), Biological pre-disposition (Temperamental variation), Interpersonal style (Aggressive to Intimate and Dominant to Submissive), Motivation (Cognition and Affect), and Sexual Variation (Normal to Deviant Appetites). It is proposed that these domains are correspondent to each other within a generalised model of sexual aggression.