The Sexual Addiction Screening Test (SAST) is designed to assist in the assessment of sexually compulsive or "addictive" behavior. Developed in cooperation with hospitals, treatment programs, private therapists, and community groups, the SAST provides a profile of responses which helps to discriminate between addictive and nonaddictive behavior. To complete the test, answer each question by circling the appropriate yes or no answer.

Yes     No   1. Were you sexually abused as a child or adolescent?

Yes     No   2. Have you subscribed or regularly purchased sexually explicit magazines like Playboy, or Penthouse?

Yes     No   3. Did your parents have trouble with sexual behavior?

Yes     No   4. Do you often find yourself preoccupied with sexual thoughts?

Yes     No   5. Do you feet that your sexual behavior is not normal?

Yes     No   6. Does your spouse (or significant other(s)) ever worry or complain about your sexual behavior?

 Yes     No   7. Do you have trouble stopping your sexual behavior when you know it is inappropriate?

Yes     No   8. Do you ever feel bad about your sexual behavior?

Yes     No   9. Has your sexual behavior ever created problems for you or your family?

Yes     No  10. Have you ever sought help for sexual behavior you did not like?

Yes     No  11. Have you ever worried about people finding out about your sexual activities?

Yes     No  12. Has anyone been hurt emotional because of your sexual behavior?

Yes     No  13. Are any of your sexual activities against the law?

Yes     No  14. Have you made promises to yourself to quit some aspect of your sexual behavior?

Yes     No  15. Have you made efforts to quit a type of sexual activity and failed?

Yes     No  16. Do you have to hide some of your sexual behavior from others"

Yes     No  17. Have you attempted to stop some parts of your sexual activity?

Yes     No  18. Have you ever felt degraded by your sexual behavior?

Yes     No  19. Has sex been a way for you to escape your problems?

Yes     No  20. When you have sex, do you feel depressed afterwards?

Yes     No  21. Have you felt the need to discontinue a certain form of sexual activity?

Yes     No  22. Has you sexual activity interfered with your family life?

Yes     No  23. Have you been sexual with minors?

Yes     No  24. Do you feel controlled by your sexual desire?

Yes     No  25. Do you ever think your sexual desire is stronger than you are?

Sex-Magazine Circulation. Interesting as the work of Kutchinsky and Court is, we have had the benefit of receiving a body of correlation evidence of far greater power. The research of Baron and Strauss (1984. 1985) supplemented by others, has shown a strong statistical relationship between state-by-state reported-rape rates. That relationship persists even when every other factor theoretically associated with rape is controlled for: indeed, they found that the Sex Magazine Circulation Index has a consistently stronger statistical relationship with rape rates than any other factor tested. (21) Further, in the model developed by Baron and Strauss other variables theoretically expected to be related to rape rates in fact met expectations: those factors (e.g. percent urban, percent poor) together with the Sex Magazine Circulation Index explain 83 percent of state-to-state variation in rape rates. (22) Two independent studies, by Scott (1985) and Jaffee and Strauss (1986) have not only replicated the Baron and Strauss results for different years, but have cast doubt on potential "third factors" which would make the sex-magazine/rape association spurious. Baron and Strauss offered two such factors as possibilities: (1) a cultural pattern emphasizing "compuis: ** masculinity"; and (2) the degree of "sexual openness" within states. The first of those suggestions was undercut by Scott's finding that circulation of men's "outdoor magazines" is not associated with state-by-state rape rates. In addition, Baron and Strauss found that controlling for the "index of legitimate violence" and the general violent-crime rate -- both seemingly plausible measure of a culture of "compulsive masculinity" -- in no way lessened the sex magazine/rape correlation. Nor did controlling for measures of the status of women -- a plausible inverse measure of the degree of "compulsive masculinity" within a given state. Finally, the recent work of Check (1984) and Zillman and Bryant (1984. 1985) indicates that under experimental conditions, massive exposure to mainstream pornography may cause male viewers to become more callous and domineering in their attitudes toward women. Thus pornography may itself be a causal factor in creating a culture of "compulsive masculinity," and even if a correlation could be shown between such a culture and the incidence of rape, the association of the latter with sex-magazine circulation would still not be proved spurious.

As for the other "third factor" suggested -- the degree of "sexual openness" -- the recent study of Jaffee and Strauss (in press) measured the impact of the Sexual Liberalism Index of the Baron and Strauss formulae. While finding that sexual openness and tolerance is correlated, to a small but significant degree, with increases in reported rape rates, Jaffee and Strauss discovered the inclusion of the new index had no effect at all on the sex-magazines/rape association. While continuing to hold out hope -- against all the evidence mentioned in the previous paragraph -- that a relationship between "hypermasculine gender roles" and rape rates would render the sex-magazine correlation spurious, they felt compelled to conclude that their research "suggests that there may be more to the pornography-rape linkage than originally expected. This is, the type of material found in mass circulation sex magazines may, as claimed by critics of such material, encourage or legitimate rape." (23)

Rape is not natural to men. If it were, most men would be rapists and they are not. None the less, the answers given by the male college students who participated in the Ms. Study delineate a sobering incidence of sexual aggression and assault in a predominantly middle-class, educated population....About 8 percent of the men surveyed had raped or attempted to rape a woman sometime since the age of 14. Of those questioned, 75 percent said they had never forced any unwanted sexual act on a woman.
     The rapists differed from the nonassaultive males in several ways. They drank one or two times a week and became drunk one to three times a month--more than the rates for non-rapists--and were more likely to describe their family backgrounds as quite strict, with family violence (parents hitting children or each other) occurring once or twice a month.
     Sexual values also differed. The rapists said they talked daily with their friends about "how a particular woman would be in bed" and they rated as "very frequently" how often they read Playboy, Penthouse, Chic, Club, Forum, Gallery, Genesis, Oui, or Hustler magazines.

I Never Called it Rape, "Men Who Rape Women They Know", Chapter 6... (AUTHOR)