This study evaluated the rape fantasies of female undergraduates (N = 355) using a fantasy checklist that reflected the legal definition of rape and a sexual fantasy log that included systematic prompts and self-ratings. Results indicated that 62% of women have had a rape fantasy, which is somewhat higher than previous estimates. For women who have had rape fantasies, the median frequency of these fantasies was about 4 times per year, with 14% of participants reporting that they had rape fantasies at least once a week. In contrast to previous research, which suggested that rape fantasies were either entirely aversive or entirely erotic, rape fantasies were found to exist on an erotic-aversive continuum, with 9% completely aversive, 45% completely erotic, and 46% both erotic and aversive.
. Rape fantasies are not uncommon (Bivona & Critelli, 2009;Grubb & Tarn, 2012;Joyal, Cossette, & Lapierre, 2015). Joyal, Cossette, and Lapierre (2015) found within their sample, 28.9% of female participants and 30.7% of male participants, reported having fantasized about being forced to have sex. ...
... In this study, we asked participants to rate their sexual interest in terms of how arousing a theme was to them, ranging from very repulsive to very arousing. A problem with our operationalization is that someone could find a theme highly sexually arousing yet not be interested in the behavior, as in the case of women who report sexual fantasies about rape with no wish to experience rape (Bivona & Critelli, 2009). Another problem is that someone could simultaneously find a theme both very repulsive as well as very arousing. ...
