The structural properties of sexual fantasies for sexual offenders : a preliminary model

While the phenomenon of sexual fantasy has been researched extensively, little contemporary inquiry has investigated the structural properties of sexual fantasy within the context of sexual offending. In this study, a qualitative analysis was used to develop a descriptive model of the phenomena of sexual fantasy during the offence process. Twenty-four adult males convicted of sexual offences provided detailed retrospective descriptions of their thoughts, emotions and behaviours—before, during and after their offences. A data-driven approach to model development, known as Grounded Theory, was undertaken to analyse the interview transcripts. A model was developed to elucidate the structural properties of sexual fantasy in the process of sexual offending, as well as the physiological and psychological variables associated with it. The Sexual Fantasy Structural Properties Model (SFSPM) comprises eight categories that describe various properties of sexual fantasy across the offence process. These categories are: origin, context, trigger, perceptual modality, clarity, motion, intensity and emotion. The strengths of the SFSPM are discussed and its clinical implications are reviewed. Finally, the limitations of the study are presented and future research directions discussed

‘Animals just love you as you are’ : experiencing kinship across the species barrier

This paper explores how affective relationships between humans and animals are understood and experienced. It argues that, although the context of close relationships with pets has changed, affective relationships between humans and animals have a long history. The affinities between people and their pets are experienced as emotionally close, embodied and ethereal and are deeply embedded in family lives. They are understood in terms of kinship, an idiom which indicates significant and enduring connectedness between humans and animals, and are valued because of animals’ differences from, as well as similarities to, humans. Kinship across the species barrier is not something new and strange, but is an everyday experience of those humans who share their domestic space with other animals. Rather than witnessing a new phenomenon of post-human families, multi-species households have been with us for a considerable length of time but have been effectively hidden from sociology by the so-called species barrier