Among the most common reasons cited for the scarcity of research on female sexual perpetrators has been the relatively small number of adjudicated female sex offenders, socio-cultural factors, and lack of gender specific diagnostic criteria. These issues are magnified when sub-categories of sex offenders are examined such as sexual sadism which is considered one of the rarest paraphilias. This paper examined: if the Cumulative Scale of Severe Sexual Sadism distinguished female sexual sadists from nonsadistic sex offenders and if sadistic behaviors were comparable for male and female sexual sadists. The coding of these items was done using archival data such as criminal complaints, police reports and sexual offender assessments. The criterion was a clinical diagnosis of sexual sadism which was present for 5 individuals. Using a cut-off of 4 points, the total score of the scale identified all female sexual sadists correctly whereas only two of the presumably nonsadistic female offenders were false positive cases. Upon closer inspection of their case files, however, these two cases could also be diagnosed with sexual sadism. The relative frequencies differed strongly from the corresponding values for males which may indicate gender-specific differences in the expression this disorder. The sadism scale thus appeared to be a viable aid for diagnosing sadism in female sexual offenders. Implications for further research were discussed.