Guided imagery of rape: Fantasy, reality, and the willing victim myth

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Abstract
Two hypotheses were tested which demonstrated that, although women may be sexually aroused and experience positive affects during the guided imagining of an erotic “rape” fantasy, women respond to guided imagery of a realistic rape with negative affects and no sexual arousal. The affective and subjective sexual responses of 104 undergraduate women were assessed as a function of sex guilt and random assignment to conditions: (a) erotic fantasy of “rape,” (b) realistic rape with ambiguous responsibility, and (c) realistic rape with unambiguous responsibility. In comparison to women in the realistic rape conditions, women who imagined an erotic fantasy of “rape” were significantly more sexually aroused and experienced more interest, enjoyment, and pleasure. Women imagining realistic rape reported significantly more affective disgust, fear, anger, pain, shame, and depression. In comparison to low sex guilt women, high sex guilt women were significantly lower on sexual arousal across scenarios, and they found the erotic fantasy of “rape” less pleasurable, enjoyable, and interesting. Ethical issues are discussed at some length, and the importance of not mixing erotic and realistic cues in research on rape is stressed.

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