Exhibitionists are adult males who have deliberately exposed their genitalia to females in situations where exposure was inappropriate. This definition rules out cases in which the exposure occurred in the course of petting or coitus, or during undressing immediately before engaging in either activity. It also excludes a diversity of other cases in which the exposure was appropriate to the circumstances, as in nude swimming, attending a nudist camp, etc. As in all our definitions of sex offenders, the activity constituting the offense must have been, in part at least, for sexual gratification. However, in the case of the exhibitionists there are some who are not conscious of any sexual pleasure when exhibiting; this is true of certain neurotic compulsives and of some persons who were extremely intoxicated at the time. Nevertheless, we feel that these cases should be included on the logical assumption that the motivation, conscious or not, was largely sexual.
Theoretically there are homosexual exhibitionists, but we have excluded these from our exhibitionist category. Genital exhibition is a common method of homosexual solicitation in toilets, public baths, and other places where genital exposure is socially appropriate. Moreover, while a homosexually inclined male may derive some gratification from exhibiting his penis to another male, the gratification is only a byproduct of the solicitation, and he should no more be counted a true exhibitionist than a male who derives some pleasure when his female coital partner displays an appreciative interest in his genitalia.
Our concept of the exhibitionist is a male for whom the exhibition is a desired end in itself. True, some exhibitionists hope that their display will sexually arouse the female and result in some mutual sexual activity, but this is only a subsidiary motivation. The exhibitionist himself recognizes that it is a hope rather than an expectation, and would continue his activity for its own sake even if he knew (as most do) drat the odds against any mutual sexual activity were a thousand to one.
Just as with voyeurism, there is a bit of the exhibitionist in nearly all males and in many females as well. All adult humans want to be physically sexually attractive; it is psychologically important to them. Society expects and encourages a certain display of physical charms. Except that they do not expose their genitalia, many a male and female on a public beach could be called exhibitionists: they receive some sexual gratification from displaying their anatomy. In numerous instances the display is not a form of solicitation—they are not seeking sexual activity, but wish to enjoy die knowledge that they are sexually desirable.
There is, however, aside from the question of genital exposure, a subtle but important difference between such socially sanctioned exhibitionists and the exhibitionist in our restricted sense of the term. In the former there is a strong narcissistic element: they are the men who make muscles before their mirrors and the females who also preen and admire themselves; they are the people who have (or fancy they have) some unusually attractive physical attribute. We have no data to indicate that the genital exhibitionist is similarly narcissistic, or that he feels his genitalia are especially worthy of admiration. Indeed, the average exhibitionist’s estimate of the length of his penis was in no way unusual.
Since genital exhibition is neither an expression of vanity nor basically a sexual solicitation, what is the motivation? The answer, or rather we possible answers, to this question are better saved until after presentation of data that gives one a picture of exhibitionists.
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