Question: Is penile plethysmography (PPG), accompanied by slides showing various types of pornography, ethically justifiable for the assessment of sex offenders?
Please see below the top responses from Carleton students.
Thoughts by JJM (2022)
PPG is not widely used and has received much criticism for being unethical. However, it has proven to be an accurate sexodiagnostic tool with guidelines in place to counter most of these ethical concerns, with the only problematic one having a solution readily at hand….
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Thoughts by CD (2022)
Penile Plethysmography is a tool that can and should be used at a patient’s request if they are able to give complete informed consent; however, PPG should not be the sole determinant of the diagnosis of sexual paraphilias or of sexual orientation, and should be combined with other evaluations….
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Thoughts by RB (2021)
PPG can sometimes be a helpful supplemental tool in diagnosis but should not be used in isolation to measure treatment progress or make court decisions due to the ethical issues…
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Thoughts by SL (2021)
The PPG test has been developed in the Czech republic as a somewhat objective method of measuring and determining the presence of paraphilias in sexual offenders. Thus, it is instrumental…
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Thoughts by NDH (2018)
One ethical issue with PPG is the intrusive and degrading nature of the treatment. As the EU Commission stated in 2011, “The practice of phallometric tests constitutes a strong interference with a person’s private life and human dignity.”…
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Thoughts by CD (2018)
The methods for obtaining photographs of minors for use in the PPG assessment of sexual offenders are morally questionable..
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Thoughts by MB (2016)
With regard to preserving a patient’s integrity, penile plethysmography is disconcerting because it is so invasive. In the past, people have viewed it as a “humiliating” type of diagnosis…
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Thoughts by EA (2016)
While penile plethysmography is considered to be an objective method of measuring male sexual arousal, its use in psychiatric care brings into question a number of ethical issues…
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