MACHO PERSONALITY, SEXUAL AGGRESSION, AND REACTIONS TO GUIDED IMAGERY OF REALISTIC RAPE

To relate the macho personality constellation to men''s reports of sexual aggression, 175 nineteen-year old, middle-class, college sophomores anonymously completed the Hypermasculinity Inventory and a newly constructed Aggressive Sexual Behavior Inventory. A majority of the men used force or exploitation to gain sex from dates. As hypothesized, the macho personality, r(173) = .33, p < .001, and specifically the Calloused Sex Attitudes subscale, r(173) = .53, was correlated with a history of sexual aggression. To study the effects of macho personality, a history of sexual aggression, and the treatment variables of rapist-force and victim-resistance of men''s subjective sexual arousal and emotional experiences during the guided imagining of a realistic, noneroticized rape, 125 men returned for a second session in which they were randomly assigned by groups to four conditions, two levels of rapist-force .times. two levels of victim-resistance. Macho personality was related to experiencing less affective disgust, anger, fear, distress, shame, contempt, and guilt as the men imagined committing a rape, confirming a portion of the hypothesis. Men with a history of sexual aggression experienced more interest and subjective sexual arousal, as hypothesized, but they also, contrary to expectations, experienced more affective anger, distress, fear, shame, and guilt. These results were discussed as evidence of the construct validity of the macho personality constellation and as reflecting the revivification of mood-congruent, state memories in the men with a history of sexual aggression.