The Sexual Life of Men with Psychopathic Traits

Purpose: This paper explores the sexuality of individuals with psychopathic traits. Sexuality is not only a physiological need, it is a way by which people connect to others. According to a Darwinian perspective, psychopathic traits are seen as adaptive responses to environmental conditions, and as a nonpathological and reproductively viable life history strategy, although superficial emotionality and a detached interpersonal style characterise individuals who are high on psychopathic traits. Methodology: Data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development are analyzed. This is a prospective longitudinal study of 411 London males, with face-to-face interviews from age 8 to age 48. Findings: Men who are high on psychopathic traits were likely to drift from one relationship to another, without a particular attachment to any of them, to be sexually promiscuous, and they never used contraception, which increased their likelihood of having several children from different partners. Practical implications: Findings provide: an insight into the non-criminal sexual behaviour of males with high psychopathic traits; evidence on a pattern of unsafe/risky sexual relations by males with high psychopathic traits; information on targeting risk factors to prevent the intergenerational transmission of psychopathy. Originality: These findings are significant in highlighting the impact of psychopathic traits upon interpersonal and family dynamics in community samples, since detecting the impact of problematic intimate relationships is difficult in the absence of evident criminality. Rather than completely neglecting their children, men with psychopathic traits spent time with their sons but not with their daughters.