Validation of a multifactorial model of sexual sadism

Longpré, Guay & Knight (2018) developed a multi-trajectory model of childhood, adolescence and adulthood problems and lifestyles in sadistic sexual aggressors. They identified three paths leading to sexual sadism: the schizoid, the disinhibition and the narcissistic-meanness paths. Although these paths share common ground in early childhood, nevertheless they diverge later on in life. The aim of the current study is to replicate and extent their study with a sample Canadian sexual aggressor of woman. In fact, in our analysis, we included additional variables as to the sexual and the general lifestyle of the offenders. The total sample consisted of 180 extra-familial sexual aggressors of woman (at least over sixteen years old). Among the offenders, 59 killed their victims. On the basis of latent class analysis, we identified two developmental paths. The first one, the schizoid avoidant path, is characterized by severe sexual and physical victimization in childhood and also social isolation, low self-esteem and sexual sadistic fantasies in adulthood. The second, the antisocial path is also characterized by severe victimization in childhood, but also polymorphic criminal behaviours as well as sensation seeking activities and a festive lifestyle in adolescence and adulthood. These two path share similarities with the results of Longpré et al. (2018). More specifically, our avoidant schizoid path largely corresponded to their schizoid path and the antisocial path shared several features with both the disinhibition and narcissistic path. The theoretical implications of those results as to the development of a model of sexual sadism will be presented.