The Observation of Rare, but Strong Individual Increase of Self-Reported Sexual Arousal while being Confronted with Experimental Sexual Stimuli – an Issue for Forensic Research?

Abstract Confronting persons with sexual stimuli to measure sexual interest is common practice in experimental forensic research. In own projects, the presentation of such stimuli resulted in strong individual increase of subjective sexual arousal in some participants and premature study termination for one forensic inpatient due to increased emotional lability and decompensation. It cannot be excluded that the confrontation with sexual images could have increased the risk for (sexual) recidivism in these few patients. Thus, we exploratively analyzed individual, self-indicated sexual arousal of 241 forensic inpatients, outpatients and non-forensic participants before and after being confronted with sexual stimuli in three different experiments. We found moderate, but significant increase in experienced subjective sexual arousal after all experiments. Looking at individual cases, up to 14% of participants indicated high sexual arousal values. The patients among them were more likely to be diagnosed with paraphilia (pedophilia) or affective disorders, and to receive anti-depressive treatment. We assume a higher emotional lability or/and reduced emotion regulation abilities in those patients. By means of this data analysis, we want to sensitize researchers to potentially dangerous consequences of sexual stimulus presentation. A careful weighing up of anticipated scientific knowledge gain and a potentially increased risk of recidivism or decompensation seems indispensable.