Doctors come into seminars hoping to learn how to help people with contraceptive or psychosomatic difficulties. Their thinking is concerned with, ‘Was my action right or wrong?’ or ‘How could I have done better?’ Gradually they learn to think differently, and to wonder, ‘What was it about the patient that made me act in that way?’ Or to put it another way, ‘What sort of doctor was I to that patient?’ Such questions can lead to a re-examination of the patient’s problem, often providing clues to unconscious forces that had not previously been recognized. For instance, a doctor may become much more of a didactic teacher than usual.

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The operation of sterilization is often surrounded by powerful fantasies of what it may do to the self or to the partner. A man may hope that vasectomy will improve his own sexual performance.

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In spite of these differences in interparental adjustment there appear to be no significant differences between the groups with regard to the proportion whose parental home was broken by divorce, separation, or death. Similarly we found nothing worth comment regarding their ages when the home broke up or their subsequent living arrangements.

The adjustment of the future offender with his parents proved to be a significant item. In three groups the incidental offenders bad definitely better mother relationships, and this same tendency is visible in a fourth group. Of the remaining two groups, the patterned incest offenders seemed to have the better relationship and among the aggressors no meaningful differences between the incidental and patterned offenders exist.

The situation with regard to adjustment with the father is similar: with but one exception (the incest offenders vs. children) far more incidental offenders got along well with their fathers than did the patterned offenders.

Evidently a good relationship with one’s parents is, except for incest offenders, a factor in the prevention or inhibition of patterned offense behavior.

When asked whether they got along with both parents equally well or whether they got along better with one or the other, consistently more incidental offenders than patterned offenders reported they got along equally well with both. This lack of preference is a “healthy” sign and it is gratifying to find that here it is a characteristic of the incidental rather than the patterned offenders.

Examination of the ratio of brothers to sisters revealed no consistent trends, and in most groups no appreciable differences. However, in rank-order of birth there is a tendency for the patterned offenders to be the only child (true in five of the six groups) or the eldest (four of six groups).

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The sex offenders in general become involved with the law later than the members of the prison group. Only in the prison group and two sex-offender groups did the average individual experience his first adult conviction before age twenty. Among the sex offenders there is a gap of from about three to 12 years between their first criminal conviction and their first conviction for the offense for which they are named.

About half to two thirds of most sex-offender groups had purely sex-offense convictions. Taking all convictions into account, for most groups between half and three fifths were for sex offenses.

Half of the sex-offender groups had more convictions per capita than the prison group and half had less; the range is 2.4 to 5.5. Those who use force and those whose sexual objects were children tend to have been convicted most often.

The commonest nonsexual crimes of the sex offenders are those loosely labeled as vagrancy or disorderly conduct: from one fifth to one half of the nonsexual convictions are for offenses of this nature. Crimes against the person are significantly numerous only for the aggressors. Other sex offenders tend to be nonviolent.

Specificity, the repetition of sex offenses of the same type, is rather high among most sex offenders. The incest offenders and the homosexual offenders vs. adults are particularly apt to confine their offenses to those which earned them their labels. Among the latter, about eight out of ten of their sex offenses were against other adult males. The aggressors and the homosexual offenders vs. children are the least inclined to repeat. Only about half of the offenses of the aggressors vs. children and minors were specific as to type.

Our data concerning recidivism are seriously deficient in that our sampling generally was confined to offenders currently in prison—i.e., the men who were not recidivists (sexual or otherwise) were men still serving their first sentence. Nevertheless it appears that the aggressors (especially aggressors vs. children), exhibitionists, and peepers are the most recidivistic both for sex offenses and total offenses, and the incest offenders are the least recidivistic. Those whose sex offense involved a child tend to be more recidivistic than those whose offenses involved a minor or adult.

In general there is no evolution from minor to serious offenses. There is a pronounced tendency among most sex-offender groups for the second offense to be of the same type as the first. In cases where more than two offenses have been committed there is a tendency for the use of force or threat to become less common in the third or subsequent offenses.

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Examining this calculation, it is at once obvious that the great majority of sex offenders had (according to their reports) unusually responsive wives. All but two sex-offender groups reported that in over half of their married years their wives readied orgasm nine times out of ten or better. Those reporting the most responsive wives were the peepers, the aggressors vs. minors, and aggressors vs. children; for three quarters or more of their married lives the wives of these men had a high orgasmic response.8 These figures exceed those which married women reported and which we published in our volume on female sexual behavior.” It is unfortunate that these three groups are the three smallest in terms of ever-married males: 25, 14, and 18 respectively. At the other end of the range one finds the control group (47 per cent), exhibitionists (46 per cent), and lastly the homosexual offenders vs. adults (39 per cent).

About all one can say is that by their own reports the sex offenders cannot ordinarily claim lack of sexual responsiveness in their wives as a factor contributing importantly to their offense. Before closing this subject, we must call attention to the fact that the three groups claiming the most responsive wives were groups which sought gratification outside of marriage by the most extreme methods—violence (the aggressors ) and stealth (the peepers). The aggressors are also notable for their ability to develop ego-gratifying errors in judgment as to the responses of their sexual partners: their victims eventually enjoy their rape and their wives nearly always have orgasm.

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Height

The height distributions show little of interest. The range of median height is from 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 10 inches. The prison and control groups are centrally located in this range. Curiously enough the one group in which tallness would be an advantage in the modus operandi of the offense is the tallest of our groups: the average peeper stood 5 feet 10 inches.

Weight

The range of median weight is from 154.1 to 171.1 pounds. Since the great majority of the sex offenders and the prison group were incarcerated at the time they reported, their weights may have been increased to some degree by a combination of starchy institutional diet and little exercise. The control and prison groups are in the middle of the weight range, the average individual weighing 156-157 pounds. The three incest groups are the heaviest, the average incest offender vs. adults tipping the scales at 170, the incest offender vs. children at 166, and the incest offender vs. minors at 164. For the first and last mentioned, the weight may be a by-product of age (they are the two oldest groups). No other significant trends were noted.

Health and physical defects

About 88 per cent of the control group and 85 per cent of the prison group reported being in good health and having no gross physical defect. Eight other groups were similarly fortunate, bringing to a total of ten the number of groups in which 80 to 89 per cent (the maximum recorded) of their members were healthy and physically quite functional. The remaining six groups with poorer health include all of the homosexual offenders, of whom only 73 to 78 per cent were classed as healthy. One will recall the homosexuals were also less healthy than other groups in childhood. The least healthy group is our oldest group, the incest offenders vs. adults, of whom only 64 per cent were healthy. Otherwise there seems no relationship between health and average age.

Penis length

Every male was asked to estimate the length of his penis, when it was fully erect, on the ventral (upper) surface from the abdomen to the tip of the glans. Unfortunately, we have no data on whether the subject thought his penis to be small, average, or large.

The average (median) individuals of a dozen groups estimated their penis lengths as from 6.3 to 6.5 inches. Of the remaining four comparative groups, the median estimated penis lengths of three (including the control group) were below this general norm, being from 6.1 to 6.2. Only one group estimated an above-average length penis: the aggressors vs. minors claimed 6.75 inches. Contrary to expectation, the estimated penis length of the exhibitionists was not unusual.

Testicular injury

A question concerning testicular swelling was asked from the earliest days of our interviewing since we had some interest in fertility. While originally designed to cover possible testicular sequelae of mumps, venereal disease, and physical trauma, the question also elicited responses concerning testicular pathologies, injuries, and surgery regardless of whether swelling resulted. These responses were recorded. Taking all instances of injury, surgery, and pathology, one finds the incidence figures surprisingly large among many groups. The range is from 11 per cent (the peepers) to 44 per cent (the aggressors vs. children) with the control group having the third smallest percentage (15 per cent). In 11 groups over 20 per cent reported some injury or disease of the testes. Age seems a factor only with our two oldest groups, the incest offenders vs. adults and minors, who had the second and third largest proportions (about one third) of men with histories of testicular trouble. No other trends were noted, and about all that one can say is that the cultural milieu of the prison group and of most sex offenders seems to favor injuries and pathologies of the testes.

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The exhibitionists had the third largest proportion of men who had had coitus with prostitutes (78 per cent), and judging by the accumulative incidence, they would eventually add another 10 per cent to this number. By age sixteen a low-intermediate percentage (44 per cent) was experienced, but year by year the exhibitionists rise in rank-order, achieving a high-intermediate status by age twenty and thereafter. In age-specific incidence the exhibitionists are noteworthy only in that after age thirty more men were involved with prostitutes than with companions.

Frequencies of premarital coitus with companions were always moderate: about 34 times a year (among those having coitus) between puberty and fifteen, and about 20 times a year thereafter.

The importance of premarital coitus with prostitutes is seen in the frequency data. The average (median) exhibitionist’s frequencies at various age-periods are always to be found in the upper half of the rank-orders, increasing from about 5 a year to about 25 by the fourth decade of life. More striking, however, is the mean frequency: here the exhibitionists rise from fourth rank (age-period 16-20) to third (to age twenty-five), and finally to second rank in age-periods 26-30 and 31-35 when during the latter period the frequency reaches its maximum of nearly once a week. Until age thirty-six the exhibitionists usually exceed die control group in frequency of premarital coitus with prostitutes, both in terms of median and mean, although the differences are usually small. This relative emphasis on prostitution is again clearly seen in the average (median) number whose first postpubertal coitus was with a prostitute: 30 per cent, the second largest percentage. This same phenomenon is once more observed in a count of number and type of coital partners; the exhibitionists rank third in the number of prostitutes (17) with whom coitus was had in premarital life. The average number of nonprostitutes was 11, a moderate number exceeding that of the control group but much less than that of the prison group. The proportion of total outlet afforded by premarital coitus with companions is always moderate, ranging from 16 to 31 per cent. In their teens the exhibitionists derived more of their total outlet in this way than did the control group, but after age twenty the situation was reversed.

The proportion of total sexual outlet derived from premarital coitus with prostitutes is moderate to age twenty-five, but relatively large thereafter. The exhibitionists rank second in age-period 26-30 with 16 per cent of their orgasms derived from this source, and second again in age-period 31-35 with 26 per cent. In the latter period the proportion of outlet with prostitutes exceeds that with companions—an unusual situation that emphasizes the role of prostitution in the lives of these men.

Examination of the percentages of exhibitionists who reported various restraints on premarital coitus (lack of opportunity, morality, fear of disease, etc.) as having been important inhibiting factors does not show them to be outstanding in any way; just as in their coital histories, they seem to gravitate toward the average.

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