A multivariate analysis of the sexual fantasy themes of college men

Abstract

Understanding sexual fantasies is important to the scientific study of human sexuality. A sexual fantasy refers to a private or covert experience in which the imagination of desirable sexual activity with a partner is sexually arousing to the individual. Prior sexual experiences of an individual appear to increase the incidence of sexual fantasies, as well as the variety of sexual themes in a fantasy, which permit a greater elaboration of the fantasy theme when compared to less sexually experienced individuals. The present study was an investigation of the factors or sexual themes that emerge in a college male population, as well as a comparison of college men with human samples obtained in other studies: a sample of men and women and a sample of sexually variant men. In this study, 116 male students, all of whom identified themselves as heterosexual, completed the Wilson Sex Fantasy Questionnaire (WSFQ). Results indicated that the present sample had significantly more exploratory, intimate, impersonal, and total sexual fantasies than sexual fantasies reported by female respondents in another study using the WSFQ and significantly more intimate, impersonal, and total sexual fantasizing when compared with a male sample in another study. The men in this study also evidenced less deviant areas of sexual fantasizing when compared with a group of sexually variant men in another study. A principal components analysis extracted four factors, which accounted for 45% of the total variance. The four sexual fantasy topic areas for the most part replicated prior findings by Wilson (1988) but are also more heterogeneous, indicating that male college students engage in a variety of sexual fantasies but seem to favor more intimate, less deviant or exploratory sexual themes that are in line with nonclinical samples and different from several clinical samples of sexually variant men.

Neurodevelopmental Correlates of Paraphilic Sexual Interests in Men

“…Interest in each theme was averaged to give scores representing four content categories established previously by factor analysis (Wilson, 1988): ''Intimate,'' ''Exploratory,'' ''Impersonal,'' and ''Sadomasochistic.'' The four factor structure of the WSFQ has been confirmed across several independent studies in culturally diverse non-paraphilic populations (the factor solutions explaining *45% of the total variance; Iwawaki & Wilson, 1983;Plaud & Bigwood, 1997;Sierra, Ortega, & Zubeidat, 2006;Wilson & Lang, 1981), non-clinical paraphilic samples (for example, in men belonging to fetishistic organizations; Gosselin & Wilson, 1980), and sexual offenders (Baumgartner, Scalora, & Huss, 2002). The averaged scores representing the four factors were used to quantify the extent of paraphilic interest by computing a variance-quotient (VQ = [Impersonal + Sadomasochistic]/ [Intimate + Exploratory]), previously shown to differentiate paraphilic from conventional heterosexual men in neurophysiological and behavioral investigations (Waisman, Fenwick, Wilson, Hewett, & Lumsden, 2003).…”

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of a Spanish Version of the Sex Fantasy Questionnaire: Assessing Gender Differences

“…A validation study of the Wilson SFQ in which principal components analysis with promax rotation was applied showed a similar but not identical structure to those found in the original sample of the English subjects (Plaud & Bigwood, 1997). In their study, Plaud and Bigwood used a sample of 116 men and also extracted four factors that explain 45% of the total variance, but with different nuances to the original Wilson structure.…”

“…On the other hand, conceptualizations of sexual fantasies have largely assumed that cognitions are positive when they are experienced as agreeable and pleasurable (Leitenberg & Henning, 1995;Plaud & Bigwood, 1997). However, images of disagreeable situations or events may activate a kind of sexual fantasy that has an inhibiting effect on sexual response (Fisher, 1986).…”

“…Also, sexual fantasies constitute a central component in the maintenance of sexual desire (Kleinplatz, 1992); a positive relationship has been shown between the absence of sexual fantasy and sexual desire disorders (Nutter & Condron, 1983Sierra, Zubeidat, Carretero-Dios, & Reina, 2003). Equally, diverse studies have emphasized that fantasies are related to sexual excitation responses in men and women (Dekker & Everaerd, 1988;Heiman, 1980;Meuwissen & Over, 1990;Smith & Over, 1987Plaud & Bigwood, 1997). Likewise, the imagination in sexual fantasies is employed in pursuit of an increase in sexual satisfaction.…”

The Content of Sexual Fantasies for Sexual Offenders

“…Four overarching content categories of sexual fantasy have been observed (Arndt et al, 1985;Crepault, Abraham, Porto, & Couture, 1976;Meuwissen & Over, 1991;Plaud & Bigwood, 1997;Smith & Over, 1987Wilson & Lang, 1981): conventional homosexual or heterosexual imagery with past, present, or imaginary lovers who are usually known to the person; scenes expressing sexual power and irresistibility; fantasies involving somewhat varied or "forbidden" sexual imagery; and submission-dominance scenes. Although there is uniformity in themes between the genders, males tend to endorse most fantasies at a higher rate than females (for a review see Leitenberg & Henning, 1995).…”