INCEST OFFENDERS VS. MINORS: AGE OF COITAL PARTNER
The age of the first coital partners (excluding prostitutes) of the incest offenders vs. minors gives no forewarning of their subsequent offense behavior, the percentages for partners aged twelve to thirteen and fourteen to fifteen being in the middle rank-order positions. However, one phenomenon that is probably the result of sample vagary does merit notice. The incest offenders vs. minors rate second, with 35 per cent, in the number of those whose first coital companions were sixteen and seventeen; yet in the following age-category, partners aged eighteen to twenty, they occupy next to the lowest position in rank-order (6 per cent); in the subsequent age-category, 21+, the percentage “bounces back” to 25 per cent. This eccentricity in the 18-20 category cannot be explained.
When asked how old they preferred their coital partners to be not one of the incest offenders vs. minors (or incest offenders vs. adults, either) gave an age lower than sixteen. While this omission may to some extent represent deception, it may also simply be because we asked for their current age preference and, as we have noted, our sample of incest offenders vs. minors is our second oldest sample, the oldest being the incest offenders vs. adults. Large proportions of both groups expressed a preference for women of twenty-five or older. One must also recall that we asked for age preference, not an age range of acceptability; a male may prefer a woman of thirty but be willing to accept for coitus a girl of fifteen. A moderate number, 11 per cent, of the incest offenders vs. minors said they preferred girls of sixteen or seventeen.
Aside from their offenses with their daughters or stepdaughters, the incest offenders vs. minors display no salient features in other forms of incest, though they do exceed the prison- and control-group individuals in incest with sisters and sisters-in-law.
*144\161\2*
