Pub Date : 2024-09-10eCollection Date: 2024-01-01DOI: 10.5964/sotrap.13829
Myles Davidson, Jay Healey
Sexual sadism refers to a sexual preference for fantasies and behaviours involving the infliction of humiliation, degradation, and suffering onto others. The conceptualization of sexual sadism remains a contentious issue in the literature, with some believing sexual sadism is qualitatively distinct from other deviant sexual preferences, while others suggest it lies on a continuum of sexually aggressive behaviours. This second approach, known as the Agonistic Continuum, is a relatively novel conceptualization of sexual sadism. Its companion scale, The Agonistic Continuum Scale (TACS), was created to measure sexual sadism as a dimensional construct in both forensic and community samples. Despite several validation studies being conducted, the factor structure of the TACS has yet to be independently assessed. As such, the current study sought to assess the factorial validity and measurement invariance of the TACS in a community sample made up of primarily BDSM practitioners using a series of confirmatory factor analyses and latent profile analyses. 248 Canadian adults (65.3% females, 75.6% BDSM practitioners) completed a survey containing a demographic questionnaire and several measures of paraphilic interest including the TACS. Results of the factor analyses suggested a four-factor model provided the best fit to the data. However, incorporating sex as a multigroup analysis factor rendered this model a significantly worse fit. Further, latent profile analysis results supported the ability of the TACS to identify groups differing in sexual sadism severity but returned significantly different fit statistics across sex groups. Taken together, while the results of past studies were partially replicated, our findings call into question the appropriateness of the TACS in mixed-sex and non-community samples.
{"title":"Assessing the Agonistic Continuum Scale as a Measure of Sexual Sadism in a Sample of Community Members and BDSM Practitioners.","authors":"Myles Davidson, Jay Healey","doi":"10.5964/sotrap.13829","DOIUrl":"10.5964/sotrap.13829","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sexual sadism refers to a sexual preference for fantasies and behaviours involving the infliction of humiliation, degradation, and suffering onto others. The conceptualization of sexual sadism remains a contentious issue in the literature, with some believing sexual sadism is qualitatively distinct from other deviant sexual preferences, while others suggest it lies on a continuum of sexually aggressive behaviours. This second approach, known as the Agonistic Continuum, is a relatively novel conceptualization of sexual sadism. Its companion scale, The Agonistic Continuum Scale (TACS), was created to measure sexual sadism as a dimensional construct in both forensic and community samples. Despite several validation studies being conducted, the factor structure of the TACS has yet to be independently assessed. As such, the current study sought to assess the factorial validity and measurement invariance of the TACS in a community sample made up of primarily BDSM practitioners using a series of confirmatory factor analyses and latent profile analyses. 248 Canadian adults (65.3% females, 75.6% BDSM practitioners) completed a survey containing a demographic questionnaire and several measures of paraphilic interest including the TACS. Results of the factor analyses suggested a four-factor model provided the best fit to the data. However, incorporating sex as a multigroup analysis factor rendered this model a significantly worse fit. Further, latent profile analysis results supported the ability of the TACS to identify groups differing in sexual sadism severity but returned significantly different fit statistics across sex groups. Taken together, while the results of past studies were partially replicated, our findings call into question the appropriateness of the TACS in mixed-sex and non-community samples.</p>","PeriodicalId":520406,"journal":{"name":"Sexual offending (Trier, Germany)","volume":"19 ","pages":"e13829"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11789441/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143124270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-31eCollection Date: 2024-01-01DOI: 10.5964/sotrap.14631
Tiffany E Taylor, Andy Williams
The sexual abuse of children perpetrated by persons who gain access to the child through their roles within child serving institutions, referred to here as institutional child sexual abuse, appears underexplored within the research community despite gaining considerable attention in the media. This study is a preliminary exploration of the stigmatization of individuals labelled as institutional child sexual offenders (ICSO). We recruited 347 community-based participants for an online survey regarding their desired social distance from, and attitudes towards, people labelled as ICSO as compared to those labelled as sexual offenders (SO). We utilized the CATSO, an 18-item attitudinal scale that measures attitudes towards people labelled as sex offenders, and the Bogardus social distance scale which measures the desired level of distance from outgroups. ICSO condition scores were higher than SO scores on the CATSO and lower than SO scores on the Bogardus. Scores for both scales indicate more negative attitudes and increased social desistance towards people labelled as ICSO than towards those labelled as SO. These preliminary findings support the identification of people labelled as ICSO as unique SO subgroup.
{"title":"Exploring Community Attitudes Towards People Labelled as Institutional Child Sex Offenders.","authors":"Tiffany E Taylor, Andy Williams","doi":"10.5964/sotrap.14631","DOIUrl":"10.5964/sotrap.14631","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The sexual abuse of children perpetrated by persons who gain access to the child through their roles within child serving institutions, referred to here as institutional child sexual abuse, appears underexplored within the research community despite gaining considerable attention in the media. This study is a preliminary exploration of the stigmatization of individuals labelled as institutional child sexual offenders (ICSO). We recruited 347 community-based participants for an online survey regarding their desired social distance from, and attitudes towards, people labelled as ICSO as compared to those labelled as sexual offenders (SO). We utilized the CATSO, an 18-item attitudinal scale that measures attitudes towards people labelled as sex offenders, and the Bogardus social distance scale which measures the desired level of distance from outgroups. ICSO condition scores were higher than SO scores on the CATSO and lower than SO scores on the Bogardus. Scores for both scales indicate more negative attitudes and increased social desistance towards people labelled as ICSO than towards those labelled as SO. These preliminary findings support the identification of people labelled as ICSO as unique SO subgroup.</p>","PeriodicalId":520406,"journal":{"name":"Sexual offending (Trier, Germany)","volume":"19 ","pages":"e14631"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11789440/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143124273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}