Canadian 'peter meter' youth program halted; tester charged with sexual assault

I've covered Canadian psychology hijinks before, and how a handful of them are leading the push to expand which sexual interests are mental illnesses.

Now comes another scandal that's like something out of Clockwork Orange.

Late last month, Youth Forensic Psychiatric Services in Burnaby, British Columbia was forced to shut down a decades-old program where troubled youths had a device placed on their penises while they were subjected to media depicting stuff like rape and child pornography. The final straw was when one of the test administrators was arrested for a sexual assault allegedly committed during leisure time.

The whole sordid story follows.

Canada has had a long, hard fixation with catching people getting aroused over things Canadian "experts" consider mental illnesses. One program in the mid-20th century, nicknamed the "fruit machine," led to over 9,000 Canadian citizens being investigated as suspected homosexuals, with some even being tested and drummed out of government jobs.

In the wake of the fruit machine program, the fine folks at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health developed and still promote penile plethysmography (PPG). The device, nicknamed a peter meter, is supposedly a lie detector for male genitalia. It's not admissible in court cases as evidence for the same reason as a polygraph: the data can be manipulated by both subject and tester, and there's little standardization in equipment or stimuli.

Because the whole concept is based on the premise that the subject is a "non-admitter" who needs to be caught, sometimes they jam another sensor up the subject's butt to ensure he is not clenching his sphincter to alter the blood flow into his penis. Males in general and teenage boys in particular can get spontaneous erections for any number of reasons that may or may not be related to the stimulus presented. They might even chub up just because of the test itself (the stress, touching, humiliation, etc.).

According to those who learned how to game the device, it's also pretty easy for other subjects to suppress tumescence by thinking of something decidedly unsexy. In case you are wondering, they've also created one for young ladies that gets inserted in the vagina, but the testers are much, much, much more interested in teen peen.

PPG evangelists have fanned across North America, using their device in all kinds of questionable ways for decades. Then a 2009 article, ironically published in the journal Sexual Abuse, reported on the long-running practice of hooking up penile plethysmographs to minors charged with sex offenses in British Columbia. That got the attention of civil rights groups. The sexual assault arrest of one of the testers was the last straw for local lawmakers, who finally pulled the plug on the abusive plethysmograph for kids program.

The current guy in charge of Sexual Abuse is, unsurprisingly, a CAMH employee, so he is a huge proponent of penile plethysmography. In fact, you can often find him on Wikipedia altering articles on sexuality to promote theories and devices his coworkers developed via the CAMH Phallometry Lab (an actual tax-funded Toronto lab). Anyone interested in measuring penises should consider an internship or even a career as a Canadian psychologist. Perhaps you can even be part of history by developing the next-gen fruit machine or peter meter...

To learn more about how high-tech penile plethysmography is, you can visit this major manufacturer's cutting-edge website (complete with 1995-style Under Construction sign and email gif). The Skeptic's Dictionary has a good overview of PPG, too.

B.C. permanently halts sexual arousal testing [ctv.ca]

Sex charge prompts expanded probe of youth-offender penile test [theprovince.com]

B.C. used penile teen sex test for decades [cbc.ca]

Andrea James is a writer, director, producer and activist based in Los Angeles. Her work often focuses on consumer activism, the free culture movement, exogenous mysticism, humor, and LGBT rights.

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knoxblox

With my luck, the tech would look like the porn star Jamie Lynn, and I’d sprout a boner and be committed for sure.
Anonymous

America is far worse when it comes to torturing youth in the name of reforming/helping them. My girlfriend is a victim of that torture.

Young people can be kidnapped and incarcerated without due process at the behest of their legal guardians, at any moment, and perhaps for the rest of their lives in America.

Police who witness the kidnap will do nothing to protect the young victim. Kidnap is currently accepted as legal in America.

http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2004/feature_labi_julaug04.msp.

Victims are offered no legal representation, no access to any due process to challenge thier incaceration. Through-out the subsequent period of incarceration in these “teen programs,” victims are tortured and brainwashed so commonly, torture within any “residential treatment center is almost certainty. That’s partly because these gulags are all spin off of the Synanon cult

http://motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/cult-spawned-tough-love-teen-industry

Its also partly because no official authority takes responsibility for what goes on in these institutions, claiming that they have no jurisdiction because they are “private” organizations, and are actively corrupt.

http://www.nospank.net/ashcroft.htm

To understand how bad these gulag cults are, peruse these survivor sites:

http://www.heal-online.org/childtortureusa.htm
http://www.thefamilyschooltruth.com/
http://www.mormongulag.com/

These sites only hint at how terrible torturous life is in these gulags. The penis torture described here is a best case scenario in the cults of the American Gulag: CEDU, Elan, Desisto School, Straight inc, et al have claimed tens of thousands of victims. RIP
McLuhanesque

CAMH in Toronto is filled with dubious treatment modalities and dubious research. (It is, for example, the leading institution – and I use that term advisedly, if not ironically – that still performs coerced electroconvulsive therapy (i.e., patients are told they will not qualify for discharge or any other treatment modality if they do not consent to ECT).

But to the topic at hand. There is a current study being done that attempts to correlate penis engorgement measures with MRI studies on “normal” men and incarcerated child sex offenders by showing non-sexual but naked photos of male and female adults, teens, and children. The premise of the research is completely wrong on so many levels, and the testing process is flawed five ways to Sunday (I was a subject – in the “normal” category, btw – because it paid really well; the researcher was surprised that my “arousal” was minimal and he couldn’t understand why none of the relatively boring images aroused me. If they can’t get passed the idea that simple nudity does not equal sexual stimulation, there is no hope). Of course, the results will be written in such a way as to pass muster with so-called peer reviewers, and be published in a so-called scholarly journal that happens to be edited by the PI, and hence will enter the literature as “valid research.”

That the research is funded by federal funding agencies is an example that bureaucrats can be fooled into funding something that will supposedly prevent child sex offenders by being able to “discover” them through brain scans. This is extremely dangerous pseudo-science, funded under the auspices of federal agencies, and is completely reminiscent of the terrible mistakes made in the infamous Milgram experiments, the Stanford prisoner experiments, and Cameron’s LSD experiments on behalf of the CIA at Montreal’s Allan Institute.

There really needs to be an in-depth, arms-length investigation of CAMH, and its current and historical abuses. Sadly, it is protected by strong and powerful political and academic associations as well as powerful lobby interests among the psychiatric faculty at University of Toronto (who come out guns ablazing at any critique of psychiatric abuse or bogus research).
Sxe

My friend currently in CAMH was supposed to take one of those tests, even though his confinement was based on violent outbursts having nothing to do with sexuality. Him to me on the phone: “They want to hook up electrodes to my dick and force me to watch child porn for three hours straight.”

For a whole week, they browbeat him into “consenting”, and when he continually refused, punished him by strategically delaying or rescheduling him so that he missed meals, time with the doctor processing his case appeal, and time with his lawyer.
fnc

Do they control for patients with a penile plethysmography fetish?
Ugly Canuck

No no no… actually I try to keep my ugly parts well out of public view….and they’re not ugly to MY eyes, but to the eyes of others – or so some have advised me.
Beauty is after all in the eye of the beholder…as is ugliness.
A thought which gives me some comfort.
Teller

Well spoke. Back to the PPG for me.
murrayhenson

What would happen if you took some viagra right an hour or so before the test?
Anonymous

In Mexico the United States is “el Norte” when it’s not Estados Unidos.

Educated Mexicans know they are Americans (although they understand the common usage in the USA because of US media) and most Mexicans actually have some idea of the locations of North, South and Central America.

In the USA, most people probably can’t even locate their own state capitols on a map. Saying a bunch of people who can’t grasp first-grade geography get to decide who is called an American seems like pure idiocracy to me. But it certains fits the image of the Ugly American – all assertion and no comprehension.
- Brainspore
  
  We don’t really care what other people call us as long as they remember that we have a bunch of nuclear weapons.
simonbarsinister

Having authority figures strap devices to my penis and put devices in my butt sounds pretty much like rape to me.

Can’t believe this has been going on and no-one is screaming mad about it.

I’m with Tom Cruise on this one: Psychiatry is one crazy pseudo-science. (Not that alien spirits trapped in a volcano is any better, Tom)
draconoth

this does not make much sence there are tones of variables. you could get a boner from the nurse touching you or the landscape pictures. theres some odd things people like im all for it like what you want to i will stick to my fetishes. oh and what about images of the mind some times you dont even have to have pictures you just have to think of something. these tests cant be vary acurate with so many variables
kevinsky

Lots of great science is done in Canada, you can’t judge the whole country by this stupid thing and the Fruit Machine.

Besides, Penile plethysmography is practiced widely in both Canada AND the US, and is not admissible in court in either country. At least BC had the good sense to suspend it, albeit after a sexual assault case.

As for Canada having a “long, hard fixation” with catching people getting aroused about things, this was developed by a Czechoslovakian who emigrated to Canada. You also use the Fruit Machine as an example, a project scrapped in the Mid-sixties. Nice methodology, has Boing Boing been bought by Fox news? Perhaps you should compare it against the dismal treatment of gays in the US today (civilian and military) and the battles they have to go through to defend what few rights they’ve managed to piece together in your country. Who’s fixated on other people’s sexuality now?

If we always judged other countries based on some bizarre bit of sensationalized news without any context, then just imagine what your Tea Party maniacs are doing for your global image… assuming you care. We might use the same questionable techniques on sex offenders that YOU do, but at least we’re not raving lunatics!
- Nadreck
  
  Lots of great science is done in Canada
  
  Like what? Any of the research scientists here I know are getting out while the getting’s good. You can’t get a government grant unless you fill out a form explaining what it is you’re going to discover, when you’re going to discover it, and how much money it will make after you discover it.
  
  I was just talking to a cancer researcher here who’s quitting to go into law because that will involve fewer ethical compromises. Cancer research here means avoiding any talk of preventing or curing cancer and only talking about symptomatic “treatments” because that’s where the Big Bucks are.
  
  Another example: the squirrel population in Canada is crashing and this may because of pollution from plastics and/or residues from non-stick frying pan manufacturing is interfering with their reproductive cycle. The research into this was cancelled because some Hill Billy MP stood up and decried the Waste Of Taxpayer’s Money on a study of “the sex life of squirrels”. (Good thing we humans are purely spiritual beings and our reproductive cycles can’t be affected by anything that affects the animal world.)
  
  This follows on the heels of the cancellation of research into whether various no-knock gasoline additives we use here are frying little kids’ nervous systems because it might interfere with oil companies’ quarterly profits.
  
  This is the country that threw away its virtual world-wide monopoly on the manufacture of radioactive medical isotopes because we’re too stupid to build or maintain nuclear reactors. When the chief nuclear plant inspector tried to shut down that last remaining reactor producing these isotopes because of worries that it might go BOOM! she was told to STFU and then fired by the PM. How dare the safety inspector affect profits in the name of safety!
  
  Let’s face it: this country is run by a PM who, as ultra-right-wing pundit Andrew Coyne recently complained in his MacLean’s column, is an ignorant know-nothing and proud of it. He’s PM because of this, not despite it, as it plays to the widespread Canadian seething hatred of “elites” who use crap like “facts” and “logic” instead of “feelings in our bellies”.
  
  Or, as the alcoholic illiterate who used to be Premier of Ontario famously said “but your facts contradict my intuition!”
  - Kieran O’Neill
    
    You know, I’m not Canadian, but I am doing my PhD at a Canadian cancer research centre. And I really do have to call BS on this.
    
    “Cancer research here means avoiding any talk of preventing or curing cancer and only talking about symptomatic “treatments” because that’s where the Big Bucks are.”
    
    Here’s a list of research programs carried out by the BC Cancer Agency.
    
    http://www.bccancer.bc.ca/RES/ResearchPrograms/default.htm
    
    Basic research features highly, including a world-class genome sequencing centre. Detection and prevention are prominent in there as well. Research into palliative care is a small (but important) part of that. It is by no means the exclusive “Big Bucks” (have to use capitals, eh?) focus.
    
    I really hate responding to ill-informed conspiracy-theory style rants, but this was too close to home.
- GrumpySteen
  
  Pointing out that other countries do freaky stuff isn’t going to make everybody suddenly say “oh, I guess shoving a sensor up some teenager’s butt and attaching electrodes to his peener before showing him a gay porn and woman being raped was okay after all.”
  
  Calm down, stop reading the comments if they piss you off so much and go enjoy life. Raging on the internet about stupid shit like this isn’t going to improve your or anyone else’s life.
  - Anonymous
    
    Uh, kind of sounds like you need to calm down as well, GrumpySteen.
  - kevinsky
    
    My objection is to classifying an entire country’s scientific and psychological obsessions based on one freaky story about an objectionable procedure that is practiced in multiple countries.
    
    It’s poor science and it’s poor journalism.
- Anonymous
  
  Wrong. “Phalometric testing” is routinely done in Ontario in criminal cases involving sexual assaults and child pornography, but also sometimes in dangerous offender hearings involving “psychopaths”. I can’t tell you how many court cases I covered and had to hear about the gory details of this ridiculous pseudo-science. The shrinks do an assessment of cognitive distortions and other theoretical markers. In the DO hearings they administer the SORAG and the VRAG and Psychopathy checklist Revised PCLR. But they also do the phalometric testing. And judges definitely consider it as evidence.
Kieran O’Neill

Just reading this article in Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review (paywall, sorry).

Excerpts:

“Despite numerous constitutional challenges, courts routinely uphold PPG as a condition of parole, probation and supervised release.”

That’s in the US. It’s also become a required part of compulsory treatment programs within state prisons. Although not admissible as evidence in court, it’s happily used as evidence in other contexts. I would guess it would also allow for singling out of individuals for “special treatment” by prison guards.

Here’s a slightly more subjective, but very informative magazine article from 2002. Apparently the technique gets used in the UK, and its use was upheld by the Court of the Council of Europe.

It’s mind-boggling.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Once you’ve been convicted of a crime, you have to put up with many many things which would otherwise be gross violations of your rights under the Law.
  
  That you may find such to be a bad thing is all part of the grand (but hardly secret) design to get you to obey the Law.
  
  And there are many places and situations in which information, which does not otherwise rise to the standards of proof nor satisfy the rules of evidence required by and in our Courts, may be justifiably used by the public authorities as a foundation for further action.
  - Kieran O’Neill
    
    First, please note my exception to your condescending tone.
    
    That aside, the issue has a lot more to do with the trade-off between the extreme intrusiveness of the technique, and the value of the information it provides. If the information is so unreliable that it cannot be used in court as evidence, is it justified to subject anyone to it for any other purposes?
    
    And if it is so unreliable, can you justifiably use it to make decisions about things like parole?
    
    As for prisoner’s rights, some are retained, and some are not. Restrictions to a prisoner’s freedom of movement are hardly the same thing as strapping devices to his penis (and, it would seem, sticking them up his rectum in some cases). Personally, I would place this somewhere between strip searches and digital body cavity searches in terms of intrusiveness. There are certainly limitations in more ethically developed nations as to the use of such measures. (e.g. look at page 47-50 of this document).
BDrew

I agree that the device itself is not-bogus, just the application…

And why has no one trademarked the obvious name for this device?

Chubby Checker!
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Maybe because it’s already taken?
  
  Although it is a great name for this thing.
ill lich

I wonder if the tests were double-blind, did they also show photos of (presumably) non-sexual things like I dunno, eggplants and toads and cacti, to see if they got a rise out the subject? “Subject shows a marked sexual interest in photographs of Italian foods like spaghetti and lasagna. The cafeteria has been instructed to no longer serve him these entrees.”
- IWood
  
  Mmmmm…eggplant…
UncaScrooge

Variations on this device, coupled with electroshock-aversion, have been used to identify and “cure” homosexuality by religious organizations in the US.
Anonymous

I have a proposal for a new frontier in mental health treatment:

“The Psycho-Therapist”

The patient sits down on the couch. Instead of a Freud wanna-be a disturbed mental patient emerges wearing his long dead mother’s dress and wig and holding a knife as he gibbers about his “Taxidermy” hobby. The patient then runs for their life.

Later, they think “All I was was bullied at work and too chicken to find another job then quit then perhaps sue the boss just to get Judd in Accounting fired or smacked down… But I am NOT crazy, I KNOW that now!!!”
Teller

Decades?!
- Cowicide
  
  Well, as someone who lives in a society that freaks over gay people because they think an invisible sky wizard can’t deal with gay sex… I think just about anything retarded like this can be expected from said society.
  
  Alcohol legal, but pot is illegal? Trying to get affordable medical care is equated to fascism, but going into wars based on lies that heavily profit privatized interests with offshore tax-havens is patriotic? Evolution is full of holes and hard to believe, but the Bible makes perfect sense?
  
  I could go on forever. Society is… well… dumb.
  - Teller
    
    Uh, think my Bible gag was in the previous post.
- pidg
  
  No really…
  
  DECADES??
Flaminica

Did the province charge $76,000.00 for a test? No? I’ll still choose Canadian health care, thank you.
cakenggt

I’m a student studying to become a psychologist in America, and ….wow. This is the kind of stuff you would hear about in the “stuff people phased out 50 years ago” part of research ethics class, and that’s just research, which has a little leeway with crazy practices, but this was a Canadian psychology practice?!?!? I’m just glad to be studying…..IN AMERICA!
- astrochimp
  
  I hate to break it to you, but… this is even more common in the US.
  - Anonymous
    
    Yeah, I read something that sounded similar happening at some research institute at Indiana University. It sounded voluntary though and everyone was an adult.
    - Ryanwoofs
      
      Indeed, they do have similar devices at Indiana University, at the Kinsey Institute. I took a class on Media and Society, and we took a tour of the facility.
      
      http://www.kinseyinstitute.org
      
      Basically, it’s a small room with a comfy leather chair, a couple of tv screens, the device in question, and (I think) a camera aimed at the subject’s face. The person in charge of controlling and monitoring the experiment sits in another room.
      
      I never signed up for any of the experiments there, but we did have to take a couple of media psychology experiments in a different department.
      
      One involved rating depictions of violence and/or sexuality within the context of other similar or dissimilar depictions. Most of it was fairly benign (fields of horses, followed by a western shootout), but there was an extremely jarring scene of rape/murder that I still can’t unsee.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        Your description, and this topic as a whole, reminds me of this scene from A Clockwork Orange:
        
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NMzepSePD4&NR=1
      - Ryanwoofs
        
        Basically, only instead of a straight jacket and eye clamps, they use a percentage of your eventual grade to keep you sitting there watching.
    - baberman
      
      Well, Indiana University is home to the Kinsey institute, so that’s not surprising. Their sex research is very above the board, though, and extremely respected by the research community.
- AirPillo
  
  As if the US is any better. Philip Zimbardo (Stanford prison experiment) is still authoring psychology textbooks to this day.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m just glad to be studying…..IN AMERICA!
  
  What, Canada broke off the continent and floated away? Why didn’t anyone tell me?
  
  In other news, Hawaii is part of the United States but is not in either America. The natives of that state (accurately) call the American parts of the USA “the mainland”.
  
  Perhaps you are studying here in the United States of America, where geography is largely unknown.
  - Rindan
    
    What, Canada broke off the continent and floated away? Why didn’t anyone tell me?
    
    In other news, Hawaii is part of the United States but is not in either America. The natives of that state (accurately) call the American parts of the USA “the mainland”.
    
    You seem confused by English. Let me help you. In English, there is North America and South America. Both continent together can be called either the Western Hemisphere or the the Americas (plural). Central America is the isthmian portion of the North American continent. America (singular) means the United States of America which is a nation that includes all 50 states, not all of which are on a continent.
    
    Canada isn’t in America. It is in North America, the Western Hemisphere, and the Americas, but it isn’t in “America”, which in English only refers to the United States of America.
    
    Perhaps you are studying here in the United States of America, where geography is largely unknown.
    
    Perhaps English isn’t your first language so the nuances which can be more than little confusing are catching you? Either that, or you are being willfully ignorant and want to pretend that when anyone says “America” (singular), they mean the the entire Western Hemisphere and the Americas (plural).
  - Anonymous
    
    This is a good topic to clarify for people who live outside the US/Canada: in these two countries, the word “America” is widely used to mean “the United States.”
    
    In fact, it is essentially unheard of for a citizen of either nation to refer to the unit of Mexico, Canada, and the US as “America.” The commonly used phrase in this context is “North America.”
    
    For instance, if you went to Canada and told a Canadian that he was a citizen of America, he would entirely disagree. And a US citizen would confirm this.
    
    And Hawaii is a US state, thus definitely part of America, as we Americans and Canadians use the word.
    
    I can’t speak to Mexico, Latin American countries may have very different connotations for the word.
    - Ugly Canuck
      
      That’s right: I correct them, to “North America”.
      To me, it seems more polite than to say “No, you’re wrong”, and then go on to correct them.
      Although they ARE wrong, when they ask if I am, or call me, “American”, I’ll say “NORTH American, yes. Canadian, actually.”
      I add that, because I look like a Mexican.
      - Teller
        
        So NOW I get it. The UGLY part is the Mexican part and then the “okay” part is CANUCK. Well, I’m 50% Mexican and I find this semi-offensive to half my people. I would’ve thought better of you, principled commenter that you are. Another shattered icon.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        Also, please do not be cutting me up like that…I am a unified whole.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        My grandparents were Newfs. Can I call myself an Atlantic Islander?
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        All off-topic:
        
        Considering how recently Newfoundland and Labrador joined our Confederation, it may well be that your grandparents were not Canadians (ie if they emigrated “away” from Newfoundland prior to 1949): IIRC, the Rock and Labrador joined up in March 1949.
        Prior to that, it was a colony of mother England.
        
        All that being said, I have friends who live in St.John’s, and they have often asked that I take the time to visit, and check out the action down on Water Street in their company.
        I suppose I really ought to make the time to visit. My brothers, who have been there, tell me that I’d be certain to greatly enjoy the place, the people, the icebergs, the whales, the moose, the cod’s tongues, and the Screech.
        And IMHO I think that any Americans who make the journey would also enjoy the place.
        
        But our “Atlantic Islands” include PEI and Cape Breton as well, so “Newfoundlander” would perhaps be a better, more specific, appellation.
        If you should care to adopt it.
        
        PS Today’s whale story from Newfoundland:
        
        http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2010/08/16/Watercooler-Stories/UPI-13581281954600/
        
        Visit Newfoundland and Labrador!
      - Brainspore
        
        We get to use that abbreviation because we’re the only country with “America” in its name. However we are NOT the only country with either “United” or “States” in its name, so it makes less sense to used either of those words as abbreviations for “United States of America.”
        
        If there was a continent named simply “America” (or even referred to informally as “America”) then that would be confusing, but there isn’t.
        
        Let it go, you’ll be happier in the long run.
      - Anonymous
        
        I don’t think ugly canuck has anything to “let go of”; he was just saying that as a Canadian, he wouldn’t consider it accurate to be called an American. I’m sure we all agree on that.
        
        Let’s not blend him in with the guy I responded to earlier in the thread, who seemed to think that Canada was part of America, and that Hawaii was not part of America.
        
        (btw I am the anon who posted #30, before ugly canuck.)
      - Brainspore
        
        You’re right, I addressed that to the wrong person. Sorry ‘Canuck!
      - Anonymous
        
        Haha, I love it, the Mexican-looking Canadian mistaken for an American. It’s like a sit-com about NAFTA.
        
        I’m curious though, as a word junkie: it’s my impression that Canadians will most often use “the US,” or “the States,” when talking about the United States, as opposed to “America.”
        
        Agree?
JaxS

Not only is this idea an violation of human rights, but a profoundly sexist one at that! Where is the moisture monitoring vaginal device to detect female arousal at the sign of perverse imagery? Ludicrous.
astrochimp

On an unrelated note, the YFPS’s phrenology program is alive and well.
Phlip

let me help you put that on
igzabier

further creepinesses: the parents of test subjects had to sign consent for said tests.

In Holland there are places for youth to become socialized, in North Amerika, we vilify our youth, so unsocialized (ICP riot maybe example)
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/07/30/bc-penile-testing-charges-turpel-lafond.html

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/07/29/bc-penile-testing-young-offenders-halted.html
Anonymous

I took part in one of these tests in the 90′s in Montreal. Great for a few laughs, 20 bucks and a funny story to tell. Administered by a attractive university student.
Rhonan

Well, given Canadian customs’ habit of searching laptops for pr0n, and seizing gay and lesbian pr0n that is otherwise legal under Canadian law just because the customs department’s procedures allow them to, this does not surprise me one bit. Canada may do some things better than the States do, but alas, not all.
Raj77

Psychiatrists, not psychologists. There’s a difference. Go after the bloody ridiculous end of evo-psychology if you like (and Andrea, I know you do) but this sort of crap is generally (but not exclusively- stand up, HJ Eysenck)- perpetrated by trick cyclists.
Anonymous

Whilst I understand the concerns about such programs, I’d like to point out that penile plethysmography is not quackery and is strongly supported by research. There are many papers on the subject, including many meta-reviews.

One of the most interesting of these by the way, was a paper linking homophobia to homosexual arousal.

Whilst this kind of involuntary assessment is disturbingly Orwellian, that doesn’t mean it isn’t sound science.
cymk

Ah, psychiatry
“Chasing ‘the gay’ out of your son since 1808″
Fee

Saw this on twitter and couldn’t believe it! It seems unbelievably awful and intrusive. The “whole story” mentioned at the beginning didn’t begin to explain in what circumstances this was thought to be an appropriate or proportional way to assess people.

I was only thinking today that it seems to me that psychiatrists ought to be subject to regulated tests… maybe blind assessment tests where normal and functioning adults are assessed along with someone with mental health problems, and the psychiatrist is charged with deciding which is the patient with problems. I’d presume they might find them difficult to isolate.
Anonymous

I am a psychologist, though not connected to this type of research in any way. While the situation described here sounds way inappropriate, I would like to point out that penile plethysmography is a valid way of measuring male arousal. How it is used and what theories can be drawn its use are totally separate questions from whether the tool can legitimately be used in research. Think of it this way: you can use a scalpel abusively by doing unethical medical procedures on people without their consent, but you can also use it ethically and legitimately. The tool is neutral. It’s all about how it is being used.

Also, when you hear about something crazy happening like this, it is often psychiatrists rather than psychologists. I’m not sure what it is, but they seem to produce more than their fair share of shock stories.
Anonymous

Posting this anonymously because I don’t care to connect it with my online identities:

I’m canadian, and I went through this testing at the age of 15. My experience, however, was fairly less sensationalized; the videos depicted were baseline readings of landscapes, alternating with videos that were very clinical: Naked men and naked women, of ages from about 5 to 25, shown slowly walking towards the camera, or else just standing, always with neutral expressions.

While the entire experience was an intensely uncomfortable one, I can at least say that the videos I was shown were quite boring, and not at all titillating.
teapot

penile plethysmography + chatroulette = cannot unsee the horror
Anonymous

I am a Canadian social worker who works for an agency that assesses and treats adolescents who have committed sexual offences. We do NOT use this machine with our youth clients and strongly recommend against its use with young people, for a lot of different reasons. It is very distressing that agencies in this country (and in the USA, btw) still use this machine on young people.

However, I would like to say that some of the best, most caring, most effective research on the assessment and treatment of adolescents who sexually offend has come out of Canada. Some states in the US still put teens and children on the sex offender registry for life if they commit sexual offences. Neither country is perfect, nor should a whole country be judged on a few disturbing practices.
Anonymous

I first went to the gender identity clinic at CAMH in 1992, and the phallometer test was something I was directed to, without much explanation beforehand what to expect. I refused to do it, even though they said I might jeopardize my chances at being inculded in the program.
There are all kinds of physiological responses to sexual excitement… the penis isn’t the only one. Most of us also would be open to a candid discussion what excites us, or motivates us to pursue GRS. (BTW I had my SRS in Sept 1999).
If someone were to see something that excites them, their pulse changes, the pupils of the eyes dilate, breath would quicken… and besides, someone seeing a video of something that repulses them would also make them react quick differently.
Maybe simple technology could change, and use methods that also would remove the tester from his own voyeurism.
zikzak

One program in the mid-20th century, nicknamed the “fruit machine,” led to over 9,000 Canadian citizens being investigated as suspected homosexuals

srsly, over 9000?
- I less than three mermaids
  
  I see what you did there.
- AirPillo
  
  WHAT 9,000?!
  
  (sorry to double-post but I had to XD)
  - Camp Freddie
    
    That’s because Philip Zimbardo (Stanford prison experiment) is an expert on psychology. Seriously, watch his TED talks.
    
    The Stanford prison experiment was a very important psychology experiment. The fact that Zimbardo didn’t realise it was out of control until his (future) wife told him is one of the things that makes it so important. In fact it’s lessons should apply here. Junior psychologists in Canada are being told by senior authority figures that it’s OK to stick sensors on willies and up bums and that doing so makes the world a safer place. As a result, the junior psychologists don’t stop to question it and abuses take place.
Anonymous

At the time I also commented (in 1992) that it seemed liksomething from A Clockwork Orange.
apoxia

The child sexual offender rehabilitation programme where I was sent for a clinical psyc placement used the penile plethysmograph regularly, and then used arousal reconditioning strategies to curb sexual arousal away from unhealthy topics (think children) to more healthy topics (think adults). It’s actually pretty common in treatment programmes, I’m surprised by the negative comments here actually.
- Itsumishi
  
  arousal reconditioning strategies
  
  Even the concept of arousal recoditioning strategies is so morally fucked up that I can’t believe you’ve typed your sentence in a somewhat serious manner.
  
  If someone is a paedophile they should be removed from society and given counselling to rehabilitate, not having testing equipment strapped to their junk and have “deviant” thoughts blasted from their brain with “arousal recoditioning”.
- Tweeker
  
  “It’s actually pretty common in treatment programmes, I’m surprised by the negative comments here actually.”
  
  Its receiving negative comments because its being used in a judicial context and is really easily subject to manipulation. If it was used purely for research I doubt many would have a problem.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Thanks for the info.
  I had thought as much, but I did not know for sure.
  I think the outrage here is directed at its apparent mis-use: but it seems clear to me that this tech has some proper uses.
Aleknevicus

I recall reading an article that this test was also administered to adult prisoners as well. While the prisoners had the right to refuse to consent to such programs, doing so would classify them as uncooperative and seriously hurt their chances of being granted parole.
Desdamon

My girlfriend wants to work for CAMH, this sickens me …
blatantdisregard

I used to be the sysadmin for a state prison and they had one of these meters in the sex offender ward. It was in a creepy little closet-sized room with a La-Z-Boy and monitor to watch… stuff.
an0nymous

SO this thing measures penile tumescence while the subject is exposed to media associated with societally taboo sexual inclinations?
What if the tumescence testing machine itself is the object of my ardor and I am totally ignoring the movies?
Oh, penile plethysmograph, our forbidden love will ever be recognized by the state, but I still <3 you…
Anonymous

obsessing over someone else’s arousal is insane.
if i’m aroused by penguins, it’s private and of no
legitimate concern to anyone, unless I’m actively
seeking penguin sex or so obsessed with penguin
fantasies that is affects my behavior. perhaps the
psychiatric dollar would be wiser spent figuring
out which people lack the ability to exercise
appropriate social and moral self-control and why.

(the tester charged as a molester being a fine example of the later.)
Anonymous

Much like a CORI check – those working in this field should be required to undergo a test with the equipment of their equipment and be shown a wide variety of stimuli. Including pictures of themselves attaching the equipment to the youth they’re “testing” – with the test results made public.

Kathy
Anonymous

The most horrifying aspect of this is the idea that a thought (in this case, a thought that arouses the subject) can be somehow wrong.

Acts of violence are wrong and illegal. Merely being turned on by certain thoughts, even violent thoughts or otherwise morally wrong thoughts, should not be illegal, and should not be seen as wrong.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Anon #34:Yes, indeed we do.
  Lately, I’ve taken to using the word “Stateside”, as in “I’m going Stateside to catch a Tigers (Blackhawks) game”, or “She’s got a job, down Stateside.”
  “The States” is a common enough reference, and just as frequently, we’ll specify the specific State, rather than refer to the entire country, as in “I’m going to a party down in ‘Jersey on Labor Day, maybe I’ll take some extra time and catch a ball game in NYC while I’m close”, or “I’m off to Minnesota for some fishing”.
  But when it comes to the people who either reside in or are citizens of the great republic to our South, we refer to them all as “Americans”.
  As in “What do those Americans think they’re doing?”.
  
  OT: Don’t people think that some type of testing similar to that described might be appropriate in the monitoring of whatever treatment they provide for convicted pedophiles (ie actual pedophiles, those attracted to pre-pubescent children)?
  My understanding is that such people are considered to be, as a matter of fact, mentally ill: and if that is so, then there ought to be some way of determining the progress – or lack of such – of any treatments administered, more objectively than simply asking them if they feel aroused by children, and then assigning a probability to whether or not they are lying about that based upon the questioner’s opinions (even though such usually would be professional psychologists and/or psychiatrists).
  As I’m not involved in our corrections system, I don’t know what the actual practices in such cases may be: but it would not surprise nor outrage me, if some such tests were used in those cases.
- Anonymous
  
  I think you are right. I don’t think I want to post that with my name on it, though. Matter of fact I may just walk away.
Anonymous

A lot of people here don’t seem to’ve read the skepdic entry on the penile plethysmograph.

It is a device for measuring change in penile girth. Science does, in fact, strongly support this usage of the device.

But this is used as a proxy for sexual interest in the stimuli shown at the time of measurement.

Which is then taken as proxy for actual intent or desire to seek out and participate in the behavior shown in the stimulus (eg, rape, homosexual acts, pedophilia).

Engorgement to arousal/interest is not a very strong link. Every man who has ever had morning wood because they had to pee, or been unable to perform with their loved one can tell you this.

Arousal to desire for “deviant behavior” is also not demonstrated. The fact that the stimuli sets are non-standardized also gives any chance to demonstrate such a linkage nearly impossible in a statically meaningful sense.