Genital exhibitionism: Courtship disorder or narcissism?

Abstract
The present study contrasted the courtship disorder and narcissism hypotheses of genital exhibitionism. Two offender groups-34 "persistent" exhibitionists and 20 nonviolent nonsex offender controls-were compared on measures of gender identity and sexual and criminal history. The results revealed various things. (I) A surprising number of exhibitionists (41%) were transvestitic but, overall, (2) gender identity was masculine and not significantly different from controls. (3) In partial support of Freund et al.''s (1983) theory of the courtship disorders, exhibitionists also engaged in a variety of other sexually anomalous behaviors, namely, voyeurism (71%), obscene telephone calling (32%), frottage (38%), toucheurism (26%), and attempted rape (18%). However, the majority of these sexual outlets were not associated with orgasm. (4) The highest correlation of exhibiting frequency was with voyeurism and, with the hope that the female would be impressed by penis size during exhibiting. Frequency of exhibiting was uncorrelated with desire for resulting intercourse with the victim. Nearly all exhibitionists (94%) hoped the unsuspecting female would enjoy the experience and 19 (56%) of the men would have gone with the complainant, if invited to do so. (5) A noteworthy 20% of exhibitionists had a history of violence-related offences. The composite sexual behaviour of the exhibitionist involving under-age victims, transvestism, voyeurism, and behaviour during exhibiting, were interpreted as best supporting the narcissism hypothesis.

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