Understanding Psychopathy
Psychopathy is an interesting construct and not classified as a mental disorder. It relates to antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), which is a cluster B personality disorder in the DSM. Psychopathy is essentially a set of personality traits measured on a continuum, meaning there isn’t a specific score that defines someone as a psychopath. Instead, psychopathy has both subclinical and clinical components, with higher scores showing a stronger relationship with ASPD.
Psychopathy is divided into two types, factor 1 (primary) and factor 2 (secondary):
- Factor 1: Includes traits like superficial charm, grandiosity, callousness, unemotionality, pathological lying, manipulation, and a lack of remorse or guilt.
- Factor 2: Includes traits more closely aligned with antisocial behavior like impulsivity, irresponsibility, and criminal behavior.
Psychopathy in Adolescents
In adolescents, psychopathy manifests as callous unemotional traits. These traits in young males are linked to frequent, violent, and planned sexual offenses, a greater number of sexual partners, unprotected sex, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections.
Sexual Fantasies and Psychopathy
Sexual fantasies are common in the general population, with men often fantasizing about multiple partners and women more about submission, committed partners, and romantic settings. However, in individuals with psychopathic traits, there is a marked difference:
- Psychopathy is linked to varied, uncommitted sexual behavior.
- Increased sexual aggression, coercion, deception, and deviant sexual behaviors, particularly sadism, are strongly associated with psychopathy.
- Psychopathy is also linked to non-romantic sexual fantasies and those involving anonymous, uncommitted partners. High levels of psychopathic traits correlate with a higher likelihood of acting out these fantasies.
Pornography and Psychopathy
There is a relationship between psychopathy and greater use of pornography, but this doesn’t necessarily predict real-life sexual behavior. The role of pornography in psychopathy remains unclear.
Gender Differences
The study found no significant difference between males and females with psychopathic traits in terms of engaging in fantasized sexual behaviors.
Clinical Implications
A critical point is that individuals with psychopathic traits prefer cold, distant sexual relationships, not necessarily because they can’t form committed ones but because they choose not to. This is important in clinical settings, where partners of individuals with psychopathic traits might hope that engaging in their fantasies will uncover a caring, loving demeanor. However, this is often not the case, and the underlying psychopathic traits might not change.