Evidence That Arousal to Pedophilic Stimuli Can Change: Response to Bailey, Cantor, and Lalumière
Abstract
We thank Drs. Bailey, Cantor, and Lalumiere for their careful reviews of Muller et al. (2014), hereafter referred to as ‘‘our study’’or‘‘our article. ’’Our study reported on the results of a retrospective analysis of a group of men assessed at the Sexual Behaviors Clinic at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre between 1983 and 2011, who fulfilled the following inclusion criteria: DSM-III, IV or IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 1980, 1994, 2000) diagnosis of pedophilia, an initial penileplethysmographytest(PPT)indicativeofsexualinterest in children, and a second PPT test at least 6 months later. Because we were interested in testing the hypothesis that arousaltopedophilicstimulicanchange,weselectedmenwhose PPT at Time 1 showed a greater increase in penile circumference in response to children compared to adults. Of this group, about halfshowedagreaterincreaseinpenilecircumferenceinresponse to adults (as compared to children) at Time 2. In the article, we noted that the men who changed PPT response profiles demonstrated both a decrease of penile circumference change in response to audio tapes describing sexualinter action with children and an increase in penile circumference change in response to audiotapes describing sexual interactions between adults. In our article, we suggested that the demonstration of a statistically significant decrease in sexual response toward children (p\.001), combined with a statistically significant increase in sexual response to adults (p\.001), presents a challenge to the claim that pedophilic sexual interest is unchangeable.