Male Sexual Offenders' Emotional Openness With Men and Women

This study explored male sexual offenders' openness and intimacy with adult males and females. Two measures developed to examine intimacy with adults (Openness to Women and Openness to Men) were validated on sexual offenders (N = 1,857) undergoing cognitive-behavioral treatment in Her Majesty's Prison Service. Both measures had good reliability and validity, although they correlated with socially desirable responding. All offenders reported lower intimacy with men compared with nonoffenders, but child molesters also reported lower intimacy with women than nonoffenders and rapists. Openness to adults was related to risk, with higher risk offenders having greater problems with intimacy than lower risk offenders. However, the authors did not find a relationship between low openness to women and high emotional congruence with children.