Stimuli eliciting sexual arousal in genital exhibitionists: a possible clinical application.

The sexually arousing effects of erotic and nonerotic slides were monitored with a penile mercury strain gauge in 14 exhibitionists, 21 normal controls, and 34 nonexhibitionist sex offenders. Responses to 60 slides, constituting 12 distinct categories, were analyzed. The exhibitionists responded sexually to scenes of fully clothed erotically neutral females, whereas the two control groups did not respond to this slide material. No other significant differences were observed between the three groups on the remaining 11 categories. The results support previous reports of sexual arousal in exhibitionists to nonerotic signals from females and are consistent with a hypothesis of exhibitionists displaying culturally unapproved sexual display signals as a consequence of cortical disinhibition.