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JOURNAL OF INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE / September 1986 aversion or inhibition :o sexual activity with peers, the affirmative response of 26 offend +s is not surprising. Of these 26, 1] were sexually abused as children and 15 were not (see Table 3). Results indicate that there is no difference in aversion to sexual activity in childhood for sexually versus nonsexually abused murderers (9% versus 7%). Murderers who were sexually abused in childhood are more likely than their nonabused counterparts to report aversion to sex in adolescence (73% versus 27%) and in adult- hood (73% versus 33%; p = 0.05). Mutilation of murder victim. The results of assessing the relation- ship between sexual abuse in childhood and the mutilation of murder victims after death show a positive relationship (see Table 4). Mutila- tion is defined as the deliberate cutting, usually after death, of the sexual areas of the body (breasts, genitals, abdomen). Sexually abused murderers are more likely to mutilate victims than are those offenders not sexually abused (67% versus 44%). We also see a positive relation- ship between adolescent sexual victimization and the mutilation of the murder victim (78% versus 42%; p = .07). DISCUSSION Sexual Interests and Behaviors In our examination of sexual interests and behaviors we find some association in our population between early sexual abuse and the development of sexual deviations or psychosexual disorders (DSM IIL, 1980). As described by the DSM III (1980), the essential feature of psychosexual disorders is that unusual or bizarre imagery or acts are necessary for sexual excitement. Additionally, the acts tend to be involuntarily repetitive and the imagery necessary for sexual arousal must be included in masturbatory fantasies. In the murderer sample, those sexually abused offenders were more likely to have the para- philia of zoophilia and to begin to experience rape fantasies earlier than the nonabused group. The complexity and bizarreness of the offender's fantasy life needed to obtain and sustain emotional arousal suggest that the ultimate expression of his perversion is in the mutila- tion of the victim. There are many significant differences of behavioral indicators comparing across developmental levels of childhood, adolescence, 89