EXHIBITIONISTS: AGE OF COITAL PARTNER
With regard to the age of their first coital companions after puberty, the exhibitionists fluctuate erratically in the various rank-orders, and nothing meaningful can be deduced. However, they rank third, with 29 per cent, among those whose first coital partners were twenty-one and over. In brief, there seems a mild predisposition toward more mature females. This is also evident in the answers given to the question about the age of the females they would prefer: comparatively few chose girls in age-categories 12-15 or 16-17, whereas an above-average number chose females in age-categories 18-24 and 25-34.
This matter of the age preference of the exhibitionist merits greater attention. The common opinion that exhibitionists have pedophilic tendencies because they frequently expose themselves to grade or high school girls must be re-examined. Schoolgirls tend to travel in groups and hence afford males the opportunity of exposing themselves to several females simultaneously; moreover one could anticipate from these girls a more visible reaction than would be expected from adults, who tend to minimize expression of surprise or shock; lastly, and importantly, the schoolgirls by virtue of their age and habit of traveling in groups are less likely than a lone adult female to make some sexual overture in return. Some exhibitionists expose themselves without any conscious desire to provoke a sexual approach from the female and would be disturbed or embarrassed if a female responded in this fashion. Often we asked exhibitionists what they would do if a female to whom they had exhibited were to make a sexual approach. The answer was not infrequently, “Well, I don’t know. … I guess I’d run away.” There is undoubtedly truth in the psychiatric contention that some exhibitionists are painfully uncertain about their functional masculinity and expose themselves to prove to females (and to themselves) that they are males; such men would not welcome a sudden and pragmatic test of their potency.
In connection with incestuous behavior, the exhibitionists have only one noteworthy percentage: nearly 3 per cent had coitus with a daughter or stepdaughter. While this, in absolute terms, is a small number, it is exceeded only by the incest offenders.
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