Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> The sources you cite either do not support your claims, or are disreputable like the deep gaydar paper

"Measuring sexual arousal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penile_plethysmograph & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Place_for_Paedophiles" certainly seems to support the first claim: "The fruit machine was reincarnated for pedosexuals: a device attached to their genitals measures if they get sexual arousal from pictures of children. Those that do are not deemed ready for rehabilitation."




But the parent maintains that "these systems do work" when the wikipedia page says the opposite is true.


No. This is what the Wikipedia page says for measuring sexual response in pedosexuals:

> In one study, 21% of the subjects were excluded for various reasons, including "the subject's erotic age-preference was uncertain and his phallometrically diagnosed sex-preference was the same as his verbal claim" and attempts to influence the outcome of the test.[28] This study found the sensitivity for identifying pedohebephilia in sexual offenders against children admitting to this interest to be 100%. In addition, the sensitivity for this phallometric test in partially admitting sexual offenders against children was found to be 77% and for denying sexual offenders against children to be 58%. The specificity of this volumetric phallometric test for pedohebephilia was estimated to be 95%.

> Further studies by Freund have estimated the sensitivity of a volumetric test for pedohebephilia to be 35% for sexual offenders against children with a single female victim, 70% for those with two or more female victims, 77% for those offenders with one male victim, and 84% for those with two or more male victims.[30] In this study, the specificity of the test was estimated to be 81% in community males and 97% in sexual offenders against adults. In a similar study, the sensitivity of a volumetric test for pedophilia to be 62% for sexual offenders against children with a single female victim, 90% for those with two or more female victims, 76% for those offenders with one male victim, and 95% for those with two or more male victims.[31]

> In a separate study, sensitivity of the method to distinguish between pedohebephilic men from non-pedohebephilic men was estimated between 29% and 61% depending on subgroup.[27] Specifically, sensitivity was estimated to be 61% for sexual offenders against children with 3 or more victims and 34% in incest offenders. The specificity of the test using a sample of sexual offenders against adults was 96% and the area under the curve for the test was estimated to be .86. Further research by this group found the specificity of this test to be 83% in a sample of non-offenders.[32] More recent research has found volumetric phallometry to have a sensitivity of 72% for pedophilia, 70% for hebephilia, and 75% for pedohebephilia and a specificity of 95%, 91%, and 91% for these paraphilias, respectively.

These systems work! And, while scary, or invasive, or not 100% accurate, this is no argument to reason that they don't.




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: