HETEROSEXUAL AGGRESSORS VS. ADULTS: MARRIAGE
Not quite three fifths of our sample of aggressors vs. adults had married before they contributed their case histories to our research. The accumulative incidence curve indicates that by age thirty-five roughly three quarters would have married. The average aggressor vs. adults married five months after his twenty-first birthday. None of these figures are at all unusual.
On the whole, the aggressors vs. adults showed a definite tendency to marry more than once, although not to the same extent as the aggressors vs. minors. Roughly one third of them had married twice, a proportion exceeded by only two other groups, one of which is the aggressors vs. minors. Also, a relatively large number of them had had brief marriages (two years’ duration or less) that ended in divorce or separation.
The aggressors vs. adults had known their wives for a little over five months, on the average, before marriage. This seems a brief courtship, and, in fact, falls in the shortest third of a rank-order of brevity. However, the aggressors vs. adults cannot be called impetuous when compared with the other aggressors, for a hasty marriage is typical of the group as a whole.
Within this admittedly limited period of acquaintance some 65 per cent had premarital coitus with their future wives—a figure exceeded by only two groups, one being the aggressors vs. minors. Aggressiveness is a decidedly effective factor in obtaining coitus, as the success of these two groups attest; this is particularly true outside of wedlock.
Since a relatively large number of aggressors vs. adults had premarital coitus with their future wives, and presumably rather often (the total premarital coital frequency with companions is rather high), a proportionately large number (24 per cent, the second largest number) of brides were pregnant when they married.
There is nothing remarkable about the subsequent fertility of these aggressors.
Like the aggressors vs. minors, the aggressors vs. adults devoted an unusually large amount of time to petting preliminary to coitus. Thirty-seven per cent, the largest proportion recorded, ordinarily spent 30 or more minutes in this way. Again like the aggressors vs. minors, a large percentage of aggressors vs. adults included mouth-genital contact in their precoital play—an activity that, as we have observed, was also evident in their premarital lives. Only one other group had more members experienced in marital mouth-genital contact. It is noteworthy that in those cases where mutuality (i.e., both fellation and cunnilingus) was not obtained, the desire was such that the aggressors vs. adults rank second among those with only fellation and those with only cunnilingus. The aggressors vs. minors also rank high in this respect.
Up to the age of thirty-five, which is as far as our data will let us go, the aggressors vs. adults have the greatest frequency of marital coitus. The average (median) aggressor vs. adults is also unusual in twice defying the frequency-depressing effects of age: he had intercourse more often at twenty-one to twenty-five than at sixteen to twenty, and still more often between thirty-one and thirty-five than between twenty-six and thirty. Indeed, his 3.75 per week frequency between thirty-one and thirty-five is the highest recorded in any age-period. He also ranks first in age-periods 21-25 and 26-30. The tendency of aggressors vs. adults toward high coital frequencies in premarital life—despite the complaint of a large proportion that lack of opportunity seriously impeded their efforts to obtain still more coitus—is seen in retrospect as an omen of their marital coital performance.
The mean frequencies are both relatively and absolutely erratic. However, here again the frequency in age-period 21-25 exceeds that of 16-20, and 31-35 exceeds that of 26-30. Also once more the aggressors vs. adults rank first by a big margin in age-period 31-35.
We may seem to be placing too much emphasis on the coital peak of the married aggressor vs. adults during the 31-35 age-period, since only 17 individuals constitute the sample by that age. However, the coital frequencies of these 17 are so smoothly distributed that we are inclined to believe that their behavior is more typical than we would if the average frequency were high only because of one or two extreme individuals.
The proportion of total outlet derived from marital coitus was generally moderate, ranging from 82 to 88 per cent.
One quarter of the aggressors vs. adults, the second largest percentage recorded, had had anal coitus with their wives, and an additional 8 per cent had attempted it. This is not unexpected in a group which, as we have seen, had an unusual amount of heterosexual activity, was little troubled by moral restraints, and had a strong proclivity toward taboo sexual techniques (e.g., mouth-genital contact). Since anal coitus is initially almost always painful, and since many females feel humiliated by it, there is probably a sadistic component here that is in keeping with aggression.
Whereas the wives of the aggressors vs. minors reportedly reached orgasm in coitus with unusual frequency, the wives of the aggressors vs. adults were not so fortunate; in fact, if one accepts their husbands’ estimates, they made a rather mediocre showing. A moderate number reached orgasm regularly, but nearly one fifth of their married years were marred by low (less than 10 per cent) orgasm rates.
As for how they evaluated the happiness of their marriages, the aggressors are in no way unusual; their marriages were not especially happy or unhappy in comparison to those of the other groups.
*109\161\2*
