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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Are Sex Drive and Hypersexuality Associated
with Pedophilic Interest and Child Sexual
Abuse in a Male Community Sample?
Verena Klein
1
*, Alexander F. Schmidt
2
, Daniel Turner
1
, Peer Briken
1
1 Institute for Sex Research and Forensic Psychiatry, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf,
Hamburg, Germany, 2 University of Luxembourg, Institute for Health and Behaviour, Integrative Research
Unit: Social and Individual Development (INSIDE), Health Promotion and Aggression Prevention,
Walferdange, Luxembourg
* vklein@uke.de
Abstract
Although much is currently known about hypersexuality (in the form of excessive sexual
behavior) among sexual offenders, the degree to wh ich hypersexual behavior is linked to
paraphilic and especially pedophilic interests in non-forensic populations has not been
established. The purpose of the present study was to elucidate the associations between
total sexual outlets (TSO) and other sex drive indicators, antisocial behavior, pedophilic
interests, and sexual offending behavior in a large population-based community sample of
males. The sample included 8,718 German men who participated in an online study. Hyper-
sexual behavior as measured by self-reported TSO, self-reported sex drive, criminal history,
and pedophilic interests were assessed. In moderated hierarchical logistic regression anal-
yses self-reported contact sexual offending against children was linked to sexual fantasizing
about children and antisociality. There was no association between aggregated sex drive,
and sexual abusive behaviour in the multivariate analyses. In contrast, self-reported child
pornography consumption was associated with sex drive, sexual fantasies involving chil-
dren, and antisociality. Nevertheless, in clinical practice an assessment of criminal history
and pedophilic interests in hypersexual individuals and vice versa hypersexuality in antiso-
cial or pedophilic men should be considered as particularly antisociality and pedophilic inter-
est are important predictors of sexual offending against prepubescent children.
Introduction
In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of literature providing empirical evidence
for a link between hypersexuality and paraphilic interests in sexual offenders [1, 2]. Hypersexu-
ality is used as an umbrella term to describe excessive sexual behavioral pattern in research
and clinical practice. Kinsey et al. [3] coined the term “total sexual outlets/week” (TSO) in
order to assess the frequency of sexual behavior. TSO was defined as “the sum of the orgasms
derived from the various types of sexual activity in which that individual had engaged”
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730 July 6, 2015 1/11
a11111
OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Klein V, Schmidt AF, Turner D, Briken P
(2015) Are Sex Drive and Hypersexuality Associated
with Pedophilic Interest and Child Sexual Abuse in a
Male Community Sample?. PLoS ONE 10(7):
e0129730. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730
Editor: Ulrich S Tran, University of Vienna, School of
Psychology, AUSTRIA
Received: January 9, 2015
Accepted: May 12, 2015
Published: July 6, 2015
Copyright: © 2015 Klein et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original author and source are
credited.
Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are
within the paper.
Funding: This research was supported by funding
from the German Federal Ministry of Family Affairs,
Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
([3], pp. 510–511) during a week including sexual behaviors such as sexual intercourse and
masturbation. Typically, TSO is characterized by a left skewed distribution and shows a peak
for the age group between 15 and 25 years. Furthermore, TSO seems to be testosterone depen-
dent and relatively independent from the individual relationship status [4]. In earlier research,
Kafka [5] propos ed seven orgasms per week over a period of six months as a criterion for
hypersexual behavior. Further part of the definition was spending at least 1–2 hours per day
with sexual behavior.
Possible prevalence estimations used the TSO/week 7 cut-off as a behavior al indicator for
hypersexual behavior in non-clinical community samples of males. In the Kinsey et al. [3]
study 7.6% out of 5,300 men reported a TSO/week 7 over the last five years. Masturbation
was the most frequently reported sexual practice in the sample. Atwood and Gagnon [6] found
that 5% of male high-school students and 3% of male college students masturbated once a day
(N = 1,077). A large survey on sexual behavior in the United States identified daily masturba-
tion in 3.1% of the male sample (N = 3,159). Furthermore, 7.6% of the men reported sexual
intercourse at least four times a week [7]. In a population-based Swedish community sample
(N = 2,450), 12.1% of male participants were identified as being hypersexual [8]. In the latter
study high rates of impersonal sexual activity were associated with health problems such as
substance abuse and gambling as well as with paraphilic interests in terms of voyeurism, exhib-
tionism, sadism, and masochism.
In sexual offender populations paraphilic interest has been meta-analytically established as
the most important risk factor [9, 10]. Hypersexuality (or sexual preoccupation, high sex drive)
is also found among the most important risk factors for sexual offending [11] and was identi-
fied as a possible contributing risk factor for sexual and violent reoffending in sexual offenders
[12]. Furthermore, hypersexual behavior patterns seem to be more likely in sexual offenders
than in community controls [13, 14]. In addition, high sex drive has been reported to be associ-
ated with sexual coercive behavior against women [15]. Pornography consumption understood
as a behavioral pattern possibly related to hypersexual behavior was associated with recidivism
in a sample of 341 high-risk sexual offenders against children. Additionally, sexual deviant con-
tent of pornography was a risk factor for reoffending in this sample [16]. One obvious limita-
tion to most of these studies is the fact that they were based on exclusive samples of sexual
offenders. However, in a young Swedish community-sample sexual preoccupation (defined as
sexual lust almost all time) was identified as risk factor for self-reported sexual coercive behav-
ior [17]. Notably, research on sexual aggression and hypersexual behavior is not altogether
consistent. In a study by Malamuth et al [18] sexually aggressive men against females reported
a higher preference for impersonal sexual activity (e.g. masturbation frequency, attitudes
toward causal sex) but did not indicate higher frequency of orgasms per week and sexual inter-
course. Hence, high sex drive did not contribute to sexual aggression in their sample. To the
best of our knowledge, the study by Långström and Hanson [9] is the only study demonstrating
an association between hypersexuality and paraphilic interests in a communit y sample.
Present Research
Our research question connects the findings about hypersexuality among sexual offenders to
the link between hypersexual behavior and paraphilic, especially pedophilic interests, in non-
forensic populations. Therefore, the first aim is to explore the association between pedophilic
sexual interests/ sexual offending behavior and TSO/sex drive indic ators in a large population-
based community sample of males. Furthermore, due to a lack of research in community sam-
ples, only little is known about possible criminological factors and their putative associations
with hypersexual behavior in males. Therefore, the second purpose of the pres ent study was to
Sex Drive, Hypersexuality, and Pedophilic Interests
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730 July 6, 2015 2/11
elucidate the asso ciation between TSO, other sex drive indicators and antisocial behaviour
including sexual offending against children. Moreover, most studies on TSO in community
samples have neglected the amount of time spent with sexual fantasies and urges [1]. Thus, the
present study also aimed to examine the relationship between TSO and the amount of time
spent with sexual fantasizing and pornography consumption.
Materials and Methods
The reported data are part of a large population-based online study on German males’ sexual
interest in prepubescent children [ 19]. The study was part of a research project funded by the
German Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth. A German
market research institution was authorised to collect data via an online panel. Participants
were informed beforehand in an email about the topic of the study. They provided an online
consent form at the beginning of the survey by clicking the online consent form “accept” but-
ton. In addition, it was possible to withdraw from the study at any point simply by leaving the
survey´s web page. At the end of the survey an option was offered that prevented individual
data from being included into the analyses. Complete anonymity and confidentiality was
assured to potential participants. Therefore, a university server was used to store the collected
data whereas a separate server coded participation status in order to ensure participant com-
pensation via the market research institution. Furthermore, due to this procedure, it was
impossible to identify individuals in cas e legal authorities intended to prosecute men who
admitted criminal behavior. The participants were informed about this procedure so that they
might answer honestly and received a monetary reward of 20 €. The ethics committee of the
German Psychological Society approved the study protocol and the consent procedure.
In total, 17,91 7 men ( 18 years of age) were contacted by the market research institution
in order to be representative of the German male population in terms of age and education lev-
els. In consequence, the link has been accessed 10,538 times and data were collected for 10,045
participants. Because of missing data in the individual surveys the effective sample was reduced
to 8,718 participants (48.7% of the initially contacted men; 82.7% of participants actually
accessing the link). Participants’ mean age was 43.5 years (SD = 13.7, range 18–89). Concerning
their professional status most of the participants were employed (71.5%, n = 6,179) or retired
(13.1%, n = 1,143), 5.6% (n = 488) of the participants were unemployed and 9.7% (n = 836)
were in professional training at the time of data collection. The majority of participants (56.4%,
n = 4,874) had a school leaving examination taken at the end of the 13
th
year, 30.3% (n = 2,618)
finished school with a high-school diploma, 12.7% (n = 1,104) with a secondary modern schoo l
qualification, 0.3% ( n = 24) had no graduation, and 0.3% (n = 28) were still in school. Partici-
pants differed from the German male population in terms of age and education levels as there
was an overrepresentation of higher education and the age range of 30–49 whereas lower edu-
cation and men over 65 were underrepresented [19]. For detailed results concerning self-
reported prevalences of sexual interest in prepubescent children refer to [19].
Measures
TSO was measured with the following question: “Please think of a typical week in the last year:
How many orgasms did you have on average no matter how the orgasm was achieved (e.g., mas-
turbation, sexual encounters, wet dreams )?”. In addition, sex drive (“Please think of a typical
week in the last year: How strong was your desire for sexual activity?”) and the amount of time
spent with sexual fantasies, sexual urges, and sexual behavior (“Please think of a typical day in
the last year: Please estimate the amount of time you spend with sexual fantasies, sexual urges,
and sexual behavior.”) as well as with pornography consumption (“Please think of a typical day
Sex Drive, Hypersexuality, and Pedophilic Interests
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730 July 6, 2015 3/11
in the last year: Please estimate the amount of time you spend viewing pornography (e.g., naked
genitals) in order to be sexually aroused?”) were assessed. Sex drive was rated on a 100-point
slider scale. The amount of time spent with sexual fantasies, sexual urges, and sexual behavior
as well as with pornography was assessed using an open answer format (hours and minutes per
day). Sexual fantasies and behaviors directed at prepubescent children were assessed with a
shortened 12-item version of the Explicit Sexual Interest Questionnaire (ESIQ) [20]. The
ESIQ has been shown to be a reliable and valid measure of adult and pedophilic sexual interests
[20–22]. The items of the shortened version referred to four sexual target categories (prepubes-
cent boys or girls 12 years and women or men) and consisted of each three items describing
sexual fantasies (“I find it erotic to see a .. .’s body through the clothes”, “I get excited when I
imagine that a ... stimulates me”, “I find it erotic to imagine having sex with a ...”) and sexual
behaviors (“I have sexually caressed a...”, “I have tongue kissed a ...”, “I have enjoyed getting
my private parts touched by a ...”). Participants had to indicate on a dichotomous scale (true/
false) whether they had experienced the corresponding sexual fantasies and behaviors as adults
(> 18 years). The reliability (internal consistency) of the aggregated ESIQ subscales was good:
sexual fantasies involving girls (α = .81), boys (α = .86), women (α = .90), and men (α = .92).
Child sexual fantasy items were used as indicators of pedophilic interest whereas child sexual
behavior items were used as indicating sexual offenses against children. Child pornography
consumption was assessed with the following item: “Have you ever watched pornographic
depictions of children, e.g., the nude genitals of children, to get sexually aroused after you were
18 years of age?” [true/false]). Again, children were anchored to represent prepubescent stages
of sexual maturity. In order to examine participants’ antisocial behavior and criminal history
they were asked to answer the following three forced-choice questions: 1. Have you ever been
convicted of an offense against property (etc. larceny, burglary)?;2.Have you ever been convicted
of a violent offense (etc. bodily injury)? ;3.Have you ever been convicted of a sexual offense (etc.
sexual coercion, rape, sexual abuse)?
Statistical Analyses
In order to robustly identify outliers the median absolute deviation (MAD) [23] was calculated
for TSO, amount of time spent with sexual fantasies, urges, and behavior as well as amount of
time watching pornography. The MAD analyses yielded cut-offs for outliers of TSO 10,
165 minutes for daily sexual fantasies, urges, and behaviors, as well as 95 minutes for daily
pornography consumption. Correlational analyses were conducted to verify the association
between absolute TSO (i.e., as a dimensional construct), subjective sex drive, amount of time
spent with sexual fantasies and viewing pornography. Further correlations were calculated to
examine the relationship between TSO or sex drive indicators and pedophilic interests, sexually
offending behavior, and criminal history. In order to elucidate the impact of the categorical
cut-off for hypersexuality, participants were divided in two groups: low and high self-reported
hypersexuality as based on the proposed cut-off value TSO 7 by Kafka [5]. Because frequency
of sexual activity and sex drive on average declines with age in so far as younger individuals
report more sexual outlets per week [7] we conducted additional analyses utilizing partial cor-
relations controlled for age. Finally, we conducted moderated hierarchical binary logistic
regression analyses [24] to test for possible interaction effects of sex drive indicators, antisocial-
ity, and child-related sexual fantasies on contact child sexual abuse and child pornography use.
Results
Overall, the mean TSO/week was 3.46 (SD = 2.29). On average the participants spent 45.2 min-
utes/day (SD = 38.1) with sexual fantasies and urges. The mean score of sex driv e was 59.7
Sex Drive, Hypersexuality, and Pedophilic Interests
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730 July 6, 2015 4/11
(SD = 21.4) and the reported daily duration for consuming pornography was 13.1 minutes
(SD = 19.3). The non-hypersexual group consisted of 7,339 males (87.9%), whereas 1,011
males (12.1%) were classified into the hypersexual group according to the classical cut-off
value TSO 7. Sex drive and TSO positively correlated with time consuming sexual fantasies
and urges. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation occurred between TSO and sex drive
with the amount of time spent with pornography consumption. Partial correlations corrected
for possible age and education effects showed a very similar pattern of results (see Table 1). As
all measures indicating sex drive were positively intercorrelated we calculated an aggregated
sex drive index consisting of z-standardized TSO/week, subjective sex drive ratings, as well as
amount of time spent viewing pornography and fantasizing about sexual content (α = .66). In
addition, an antisociality index was determined by aggregating self-reported preconvictions
(violent, property, sexual). As sexual preconvictions could overlap with self-reported sexual
victimization of children we also calculated an aggregated antisociality index leaving out sexual
preconvictions.
Zero-order correlations
In order to verify the relation between TSO and pedophilic interests, correlation analyses were
conducted. Sex drive, TSO, and TSO 7 were positively associated with sexual fantasies
involving children and child pornography consumption. Additionally, aggregated sex drive
positively correlated with self-reported sexual offending behavior in the past. Concerning anti-
social behavior, TSO and TSO 7 were positively related to a history of property and violent
offences in the past, whereas no association with sexual offending was found. Aggregated sex
drive showed a positive correlation with all offending categories. However, effect sizes were
small (Table 2).
Logistic regression analyses
Hierarchical logistic regression analyses revealed that self-reported contact sexual offending
against prepubescent children was associated with child sexual fantasies and antisociality
(without sexual preconvictions). In addition, a significant interaction between antisociality and
sexual fantasies involving children emerged corroborating a moderation effect (Fig 1): For men
who reported no preconvictions in the sample no link between sexual fantasizing about chil-
dren and contact sexual offending against children emerged. However, the likelihood to report
Table 1. Overview of sex drive intercorrelations (above diagonal zero-order correlations, below diagonal partial correlations corrected for age and
education).
123456
Age -.28 -.14 -.15 -.12 -.15 -.24
Education
a
.06 .02 .06 -.02 -.02 .02
1. TSO (absolute value) - .74 .42 .30 .25 .72
2. Hypersexuality Group
b
.72 - .21 .15 .15 .47
3. Sex Drive .41 .19 - .37 .24 .74
4. Time spent with sexual fantasies .27 .13 .36 - .39 .74
5. Time spent with pornography consumption .23 .15 .21 .37 - .68
6. Aggregated Sex Drive Index .69 .43 .72 .72 .64 -
Note
a
Higher values indicate at least high-school diploma level;
b
Higher values indicate TSO 7 (Hypersexuality). Bold correlation coefficients p < .05.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730.t001
Sex Drive, Hypersexuality, and Pedophilic Interests
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730 July 6, 2015 5/11
contact sexual abuse of children significantly increased for men who had reported prior convic-
tions for criminal offences from two different categories (violence, property). Notably, aggre-
gated sex drive showed no association with contact sexual abuse and no further interaction
effects emerged ( Table 3). Similar logistic regression analyses with self-reported child
Table 2. Overview of zero-order child sexual abuse risk factor intercorrelations.
123456789
Age .01 -.02 -.01 -.01 -.00 -.02 -.05 -.04 .40
Education
a
-.09 -.09 -.01 -.11 -.11 -.02 -.01 -.01 -.07
TSO (absolute value) .03 .03 .01 .04 .04 .00 .07 .08 -.10
Hypersexuality Group
b
.03 .03 .01 .04 .02 .00 .07 .07 -.08
Sex drive .02 .04 .02 .04 .04 .04 .06 .10 -.01
Time spent with sexual fantasies .05 .07 .04 .08 .08 .07 .06 .08 -.02
Time spent with pornography consumption .06 .02 .03 .06 .05 .08 .12 .14 -.12
Aggregated Sex Drive Index .06 .06 .04 .08 .07 .07 .11 .15 -.09
1. Prior conviction violent offending (n = 304) - .26 .21 .74 .74 .14 .07 .07 .00
2. Prior conviction property offending (n = 193) - .13 .82 .84 .08 .07 .05 .01
3. Prior conviction sexual offending (n = 36) - .42 .21 .32 .22 .23 .00
4. Aggregated Antisociality Index - .98 .20 .13 .12 .01
5. Aggregated Antisociality Index (w/o sex. offences) - .14 .09 .08 .01
6. Contact sexual offending against children (n = 132) - .36 .44 -.03
7. Child pornography (n = 209) - .50 -.06
8. Aggregated Pedophilic Fantasies (Maximum) - -.06
9. Ever lived with a lover for at least two years (n = 7115) -
Note. Bold correlation coefficients p < .05.
a
Higher values indicate at least high-school diploma level;
b
Higher values indicate TSO 7 (Hypersexuality).
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730.t002
Fig 1. Probability of contact child sexual abuse as a function of self-reported amount of child sexual fantasies (+ 1 SD vs.-1SD) and antisociality
(aggregated non-sexual preconvictions; average of the sample [low] vs. two different preconvictions [high]).
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730.g001
Sex Drive, Hypersexuality, and Pedophilic Interests
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730 July 6, 2015 6/11
pornography consumption as criterion identified three independent links to sex drive, sexual
fantasies involving children, and antisociality excluding sexual preconvictions. No further
interactions were revealed.
Although, the moderation explained statistically significant shares of criterion variance the
net increments were practically irrelevant as they accounted for only a 1% increase in explained
variance. However, the independent multivariate main effects ranged between odds ratios from
1.1 to 2.0 (Table 3) for antisociality, sexual fantasies involving prepubescent children, and sex
drive (the latter only in case of self-reported child pornography use).
Discussion
The present study provides clinically relevant insight into the actual paraphilic and criminolog-
ical correlates of hypersexual behavior in a large non-clinical male community sample. Etiolog-
ical models and theories on sexual offending against children consider paraphilic sexual
interest and antisociality as import contributing risk factors for sexual abusive behavior [9, 25].
The present results are in line with this notion. In multivariate statistical analyses antisocial
behavior and sexual fantasies involving children, an indicator for paraphilic interests, were
associated with contact child sexual abuse. Moreover, the significant interaction between anti-
sociality and sexual fantasies involving children in logistic regression analyses may indicate
that the probability of contact sexual abuse markedly increases in men with particularly high
Table 3. Summary of hierarchical logistic regression analyses for child sexual abuse as a function of sex drive, antisociality, and sexual fantasies
involving children.
Contact Child Sexual Abuse Child Pornography Use
Predictor R
2
ß Exp(ß) CI
95%
R
2
ß Exp(ß) CI
95%
Step 1 .37*** .37***
Sex Drive (SDR) .11 1.11 0.91–1.36 .35*** 1.41 1.20–1.67
Antisociality (AS) .39*** 1.47 1.33–1.63 .21*** 1.24 1.12–1.37
Sexual Fantasies Children (SFC) .67*** 1.96 1.83–2.10 .69*** 2.00 1.88–2.13
Step 2 .38*** .38***
SDR .24 1.27 0.96–1.67 .43*** 1.53 1.25–1.87
AS .29*** 1.34 1.16–1.55 .18* 1.20 1.03–1.39
SFC .69*** 1.99 1.84–2.15 .71*** 2.03 1.88–2.18
SDR x AS -.10 0.90 0.79–1.03 -.11 0.90 0.79–1.02
SDR x SFC -.04 0.97 0.91–1.03 -.03 0.97 0.92–1.03
SFC x AS .12** 1.13 1.04–1.22 .06* 1.07 1.00–1.14
Step 3 .39*** .38***
SDR .23 1.26 0.96–1.66 .43*** 1.53 1.25–1.87
AS .28*** 1.33 1.13–1.56 .18* 1.20 1.04–1.37
SFC .69*** 2.00 1.84–
2.16 .71*** 2.03 1.88–2.18
SDR x AS -.04 0.96 0.83–1.11 -.12 0.88 0.77–1.02
SDR x SFC -.04 0.96 0.90–1.32 -.03 0.97 0.92–1.03
SFC x AS .17** 1.19 1.07–1.32 .05 1.06 0.98–1.14
SDR x AS x SFC -.06 0.93 0.88–1.01 .01 1.02 0.95–1.08
Note. N = 8595;
*** p < .001;
** p < .01;
* p < .05
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730.t003
Sex Drive, Hypersexuality, and Pedophilic Interests
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rates of self-repor ted amount of sexual fantasies involving children and antisocial behavior in
the past. In contrast, neither sex drive as such nor in combination with pedophilic fantasies
showed an association with contact sexual abuse. Hence, the present results indicate that the
effects of sex drive in general and specifically hypersexual behavior as measured by the TSO on
self-reported contact sexual abusive behaviour with children are rather small on the level of
zero-order correlations and completely vanish once entered into multivariate analyses.
Current research provides evidence for child pornography consumption as predictor for
sexual interest in children [26]. Among pornography users, Ray et al [27] found that child por-
nography users were also more likely to report interest in sexual contact with children. Further-
more, an association between child pornography consumption and sexual coercive behavior
was identified in a sample of young Scandinavian men [28]. Consistent with previous results,
in the present sample child pornography consumption was positively related to contact sexual
offending against children and sexual fantasies involving children. In addition, aggregated sex
drive, antisocial behavior, and sexual fantasies involving children were identified as risk factors
for child pornography consumption. Hence, for all three constructs there seem to be substan-
tial independent links to child pornography consumption. In the literature several explanations
for child pornography consumption are discussed. The underlying motivational aspects to
engage in the consumption of child porn ography seem to be sexual interests in children and/or
thrill-seeking behavior as a result of habituation to mainstream pornography [27, 28]. Pornog-
raphy dependence is a common sexual behavioral pattern in hypersexual men [1, 2]. Therefore,
the association between sex drive and child pornography consumption may be explained by
the fact that frequent pornography consumption and a wide-spread interest in all sorts of (a)
typical pornography can be seen as indications of increased sex drive. Accordingly, in a sample
of male juveniles, Svedin et al [29] identified a relationship between frequent pornography use
and child pornography consumption. Hence, it seems possible that persons who frequently
engage in pornography consumption have an increased risk of getting in contact with child
pornography [30]. Similarly, in a further study the variable frequent sexual lust predicted child
pornography use [28]. Still, it remains unclear whether sex drive leads to pornography use, or
vice versa. Also a circular reinforcing process in which the availability of pornography on the
internet serves as a strong reinforcer for hypersexual behavior seems possible. Therefore, a
non-correlative (i.e., ideally longitudinal) examination of the causal extent to which hypersex-
ual behavior/sex drive impacts the use of atypical pornography use should be aimed for in
future research.
The known association between antisocial behavior and testosterone [31] has not been
investigated in its relationship with sexuality related aspects. In the present study a relation
between high TSO and indicators for antisociality were found. However, these findings are lim-
ited by small effect sizes. Future research should therefore examine more closely the interplay
between the level of testosterone, TSO, and antisociality.
Limitations and Outlook
There is a lack of research on the association between the amount of time spent with sexual
fantasies and urges with TSO in community samples [1]. In the present study, TSO and sex
drive were associated with higher rates of time consuming sexual fantasies and pornography
use. This finding was expected and suggests that the amount of time spent with sexual activities
may be important for the definition of hypersexual behavior [5]. Nevertheless, for the defini-
tion of a clinical disorder not only symptomatic behavior but psychological distress and/or
maybe also the criterion of causing harm to non-consenting others should be taken into con-
cern. In the consequence, the present study is limited by the lack of information on clinically
Sex Drive, Hypersexuality, and Pedophilic Interests
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0129730 July 6, 2015 8/11
relevant characteristics caused by hypersexual behavior or high sex drive, even if the potential
criterion causing harm to non-consenting others was considered. Further research on hyper-
sexual behavior should address clinical distress as criterion beside the amount of orgasms and
time spending with sexuality-related issues.
Several limitations of this study need to be acknowledged. First of all the data are based on
self-report and results are limited to the German population. Moreover, the effect sizes in sta-
tistical analyses particularly in the interaction terms were rather small. This study was also lim-
ited by its cross-sectional correlational design. In addition, it is important to note that in the
present study hypersexual behavior and sex drive were based on self-report and should not be
confused neither with constructs which are used in sexual offender risk assessments such as
sexual preoccupation in the Stable-2007 [32] nor with the diagnostic criteria of hypersexual
disorder [1]. Furthermore, quest ions about total sexual outlets, sex drive, and sexual fantasies/
urges were asked in the form of "a typical week or typical day in the past year". This kind of for-
mulation could be more vulnerable to recall bias than asking about the past week, where the
week is "randomly selected" and thus might be construed as more representative of the past
year. Also the operationalization of antisocial behavior as preconvictions can be deemed a
rather conservative criterion. Further studies could measure antisocial behavior by asking if the
person had ever stolen, committed assault, or other antisocial acts. Another aspect to be added
to future research is the distinction between intercourse/sexual activity within relationships
and impersonal sexual activity. This can be hypothesized to be particularly important, because
sexual activity in a stable relationship on average is associated with positive mood whereas high
rates of imperson al sexual activity are often related to negative mood states [7, 8]. In order to
examine possible intimacy problems that may correlate with hypersexuality, further studies,
which take the proposed distinction between sexual outlets into account, will need to be under-
taken [2].
The results of the present study suggest that the association between hypersexual behaviour
as measured by the TSO, sex drive, and contact sexual abusive behaviour in our community
sample of men was lower than expected. In contrast, an association occurred between sex drive
indicators and child pornography consumption. An implication of these findings is that in the
assessment of hypersexual individuals atypical pornography consumption should be taken into
account. Nonetheless, in clinical practice (and particularly in forensic populations) an assess-
ment of criminal history and pedophilic interests in hypersexual individuals and vice versa
hypersexuality in antisocial or pedophilic men should still be considered.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: PB AFS VK DT. Analyzed the data: AFS VK. Con-
tributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: VK AFS DT PB. Wrote the paper: VK AFS DT PB.
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