New scale allows researchers to study consensual sexual sadism without pathologizing it

A new study published in Psychological Assessment introduces the Index of Consensual Sexual Sadism (ICSS), a tool designed to measure sadistic sexual interests in the general population. Unlike existing measures that focus on nonconsensual or criminal behavior, the ICSS focuses on consensual acts and fantasies, allowing researchers to assess these tendencies without conflating them with pathology or risk. The findings suggest that consensual sexual sadism is psychologically distinct from everyday sadism and may not be inherently harmful or indicative of psychological problems.

The study was motivated by a gap in how sexual sadism is measured. Traditional assessments of sadism are largely based on forensic or clinical samples and often focus on nonconsensual acts. This creates two problems. First, it ignores individuals who may engage in sadistic behaviors or fantasies within consensual contexts. Second, it risks pathologizing people whose sexual preferences may not cause harm or distress.

In recent years, researchers have begun to view sexual sadism as a spectrum rather than a fixed disorder, and subclinical expressions of sadism—those that occur without distress or impairment—have been identified in nonclinical populations. However, there was no tool specifically designed to measure consensual sexual sadism in everyday contexts. The ICSS was developed to fill that need.

“Sexual sadism is often studied in clinical and forensic samples, and less empirical attention has been given to subclinical or consensual forms of sadism due to a lack of valid and reliable measurement. We wanted to develop a tool to allow researchers and clinicians to understand these behavioral tendencies while also distinguishing them from more problematic or harmful behaviors,” explained study author Charlotte Kinrade, an assistant professor of psychology at Kennesaw State University.

To test and validate the new scale, the researchers recruited two samples. One group included 1,087 undergraduate students from a university in the United States. The second group consisted of 429 adults recruited through an online platform called CloudResearch. After removing participants who failed attention checks, responded too quickly, or didn’t complete the study, the final sample included 1,391 participants, ranging in age from 18 to 85. Participants were racially diverse but predominantly White, and the majority were female.

Participants completed the newly developed ICSS along with a variety of psychological measures. The ICSS initially included 18 items, which asked participants to rate their agreement with statements about both direct engagement in sexually sadistic behaviors and vicarious engagement through fantasies or pornography. All items explicitly referred to consensual scenarios. Example items included “I fantasize about strangling or suffocating my partner and/or watch pornography involving strangulation or suffocation” and “I enjoy having rough or violent sex with my partner.” Participants rated each item on a seven-point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

Kinrade and her colleagues used statistical techniques to reduce the number of items while retaining the core content. The final version of the ICSS included nine items that reflected both direct and vicarious engagement with sadistic behaviors. Analyses showed that these items loaded onto a single factor, meaning they all measured the same underlying construct. The scale also showed strong internal consistency and worked similarly across different groups, including men and women, younger and older adults, and both student and community samples.

The ICSS was then evaluated for its relationships with various psychological traits to determine its validity. People who scored higher on the ICSS were more likely to report deriving pleasure from sadistic acts, especially in sexual contexts. They also tended to report more frequent sadistic sexual fantasies. These results supported the idea that the ICSS is tapping into a specific type of sexual interest rather than a broader or more pathological tendency.

When the ICSS was compared to measures of everyday sadism—such as enjoying cruelty or dominance in nonsexual settings—it showed some overlap but also clear differences. While both forms of sadism were related to lower levels of traits like honesty, humility, and agreeableness, everyday sadism was more strongly associated with antagonistic and pathological personality traits, such as psychopathy and chronic aggression. In contrast, consensual sexual sadism was less strongly tied to these negative traits and showed a slight positive association with openness to experience.

One important concern with self-report measures of socially sensitive behaviors is the possibility that people might give socially desirable responses. However, the ICSS was only weakly related to a standard measure of social desirability bias. This suggests that participants responded honestly and that the measure captures meaningful variation in sadistic interests, rather than simply reflecting discomfort with discussing taboo topics.

“Sexual sadism represents a spectrum of behavioral tendencies, and the ICSS assesses sexually sadistic behaviors that manifest in consensual contexts to allow researchers and clinicians to begin evaluating the full spectrum of sexual sadism,” Kinrade told PsyPost. “Additionally, our measure distinguishes consensual sexual sadism from everyday sadism and suggests that consensual sexual sadism is less pathological than everyday sadism. Our work offers a way to measure consensual sexually sadistic behaviors in a way that doesn’t pathologize them unnecessarily but still allows for meaningful research.”

Interestingly, consensual sexual sadism was weakly linked to dissatisfaction in romantic relationships. There was a small negative correlation between ICSS scores and relationship satisfaction, but this association was much smaller than the one observed for everyday sadism.

“One surprising finding was how consensual sexual sadism was related to marginally worse romantic relationship satisfaction,” Kinrade said. “This suggests that although these tendencies may be practiced consensually, they may nevertheless negatively impact satisfaction in romantic relationships or coincide with other behavioral tendencies that reduce romantic relationship satisfaction. It would be interesting for future work to explore these ideas and consider the preferences and perception of satisfaction of both partners in a romantic relationship.”

Despite these promising findings, the researchers acknowledged several limitations. Most notably, very few participants scored above the midpoint on the ICSS, suggesting that consensual sexual sadism occurs at relatively low levels in the general population. This limited the ability to detect stronger associations with other traits and may have caused the study to underestimate the strength of some relationships.

“Consensual sexual sadism appears to occur at low levels in the general population as it did in our samples, with only about 3.7% of participants scoring above the midpoint on our scale,” Kinrade noted. “Future research should oversample from communities where higher levels of consensual sexual sadism might be present, such as BDSM practitioners.”

The researchers also noted that the ICSS does not assess whether sexually sadistic behaviors cause distress or impairment in individuals’ lives. While the measure was designed to avoid pathologizing consensual sexual interests, some individuals may still experience negative consequences from their behaviors or fantasies. Future studies could incorporate clinical assessments or reports from partners to better understand when sadistic tendencies become problematic.

“We are interested in using the ICSS in future research to disentangle consensual sexual sadism and everyday sadism so that we can better understand how sadistic behaviors manifest in the general population and the implications these behaviors may have for others and broader social functioning,” Kinrade said.

The study, “The Index of Consensual Sexual Sadism (ICSS): Scale Development, Validation, Measurement Invariance, and Nomological Network Comparisons With Everyday Sadism,” was authored by Charlotte Kinrade, William Hart, Danielle E. Wahlers, Braden T. Hall, and Joshua T. Lambert.