Ron Langevin

The female child as a surrogate object

Because most heterosexual pedophilic offenses are committed by males who in fact erotically prefer adult females, the hypothesis was tested that males with nondeviant erotic preferences are generally prone to react in a sexual way to female children. With nondeviant subjects, penile volume changes (PVCs) were measured to stimulus slides and movie pictures of males and females, varying in age. There were significant differerences in PVCs to each of the female age groups shown, and responses were greater to all female age groups than to the male ones. PVCs to the youngest female age group (6 to 8 years) were clearly different not only from those to pictures of males but also from those to neutral slides. Reactions to certain parts of the female and male bodies at various stages of development were also assessed. Of female children, only the pubic region, and to some degree the buttocks, elicited clearly distinctive reactions.

Cerebral Damage and Dysfunction in Sexually Aggressive Men

Fifty-one men charged with or convicted of sexual assault on an adult female were compared with thirty-six controls consisting of nonviolent, nonsex offenders using the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Test Battery, WAIS and CT scans. The sexual assaulters were classified as twenty-two sadists and twenty-one nonsadists on the basis of clinical interview, criminal history and a standardized sex history questionnaire. There was 92% agreement on psychiatric and neuroradiological diagnoses. IQ scores did not differ significantly among the groups. Right-sided temporal horn dilatation was found on CT scans significantly more often in sadists than in the nonsadistic assaulters and controls. On the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Test Battery, nonsadists showed more global impairment than the other two groups. The results were unchanged when history of alcohol abuse was taken into consideration. The study was a replication and refinement of an earlier report published by the authors and, despite problems of interpretation as a result of the different instruments used to assess cerebral damage and dysfunction, it provides additional support for the hypothesis that some types of sexual anomalies are associated with subtle forms of brain damage.

Extension of the Gender Identity Scale for Males.

Our earlier Feminine Gender Identity Scale for males appeared to measure a strong single factor which was reliable and displayed substantial discriminant validity. However, the number of items was small and there was substantial overlap between items with respect to their meaning. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, in the present study the scale was extended and validated on subject samples corresponding to those on which the earlier scale had been validated. Each item of the new scale differentiated among the groups in an experimental sample and, subsequently, in a cross-validation sample. A secondary finding was the significantly higher feminine gender identity scores of homosexual patients over homosexual nonpatients.

A Study of the Psychosexual Characteristics of Sex Killers: Can we Identify them Before it is Too Late?

Thirty-three sex killers were compared to 80 sexual aggressives, 23 sadists, and 611 general sex offenders on sexual history and preferences, substance abuse crime, violence, mental illness, personality, neurological and endocrine abnormalities. Compared to other groups, sex killers started their criminal careers earlier, more often had been to reform school, were members of criminal gangs, set fires, and were cruel to animals. They tended so show more sadism, fetishism, and voyeurism. They more often collected pornography, but they did not use it in their offenses. They more often abused drugs and some suffered from drug induced psychoses. Their most common diagnosis was antisocial personality disorder, but only 15.2% met criteria for psychopathy. Sex killers showed most signs of neuropsychological impairment, grades failure, and learning disabilities. Results suggest that greater emphasis be placed on studying adolescent sex offenders and conduct disordered children which may help identify potential sex killers.

Studies of Brain Damage and Dysfunction in Sex Offenders

Pedophiles, sexual aggressives and incest offenders were examined for brain damage and dysfunction using computer tomography (CT) scans, the Halstead-Reitan (HR) Neuropsychological Test Battery, including the Weschsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R), the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS), and the Space Relations Test (SRT) of the Differential Aptitude Test. Results suggest that the groups of sex offenders examined did not suffer from memory or spatial (imaging) deficits. Subgroups of pedophiles, however, showed different patterns of neuropsychological deficits. Heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles showed verbal deficits and apparent left hemispheric brain dysfunction whereas bisexual pedophiles did not but rather showed right hemispheric visual-spatial deficits. An examination of problems surrounding typology of sex offenders and measurement issues in studying brain damage and dysfunction are discussed.

Neuropsychological Impairment in Incest Offenders

Ninety-one incest perpetrators were compared to 36 nonviolent nonsex offenders for the presence of neuropsychological impairment. The WAIS-R, Halstead-Reitan battery, and CT scans of the brain were used. The sex offenders were also examined for the presence of substance abuse, violence, pedophilia, and biological relationship to the victim. Incest offenders had significantly lower IQ scores than controls but generally were within normal limits. One in eight incest offenders was neuropsychologically impaired on the Reitan battery and one in four showed some CT abnormality, usually in the temporal lobe areas. Incest and offender control groups, however, did not differ significantly in this respect. Neuropsychological impairment among incest offenders was associated with violence and nonbiological relationship to the victim but not with substance abuse or pedophilia. Overall, 3 in 10 incest offenders showed some neuropsychological finding. Results suggest that neuropsychological assessment of incest offenders clinically is worthwhile.

Comparison of two penile measures of erotic arousal

Abstract The phallometric test, which makes possible measurement of penile responses to various stimulus configurations, was originally devised as a volumetric method (description of details: Freund. 1965: Freund et al. , 1965). However. Bancroft et al. (1966) replaced volume measurement by circumference measurement, using basically a Whitney (1949) type strain gauge. A similar device for circumference measurement had already been used by Fisher et al. (1965) for the assessment of erectile activity cycles during sleep. Other strain gauges for penile circumference measurement have been designed by Jovanovic (1967a, b). Johnson and Kitching (1968) and Barlow et al. (1970) and with the exception of McConaghy (1967) and Barr (1973), apparently all the authors who currently work with the phallometric test of erotic preference use circumference measurement instead of volume measurement. This substitution seems to imply that penile volume changes are closely parallelled by circumference changes, an assumption which may be warranted for gross penile responses but which may not hold at all for responses in the range of mild sexual arousal. Under these circumstances direct comparison of both kinds of measurement appeared to be necessary.

The Prevalence of Sex Offenders With Deviant Fantasies

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, and contemporary psychological theory have assigned a central role to deviant sexual fantasy in the genesis, maintenance, and treatment of sex offenders, but empirical studies to support that role are few in number. In this article, 201 male admitting sex offenders and controls were compared on the Clarke Sex History Questionnaire Fantasy Scales. Almost all respondents reported having fantasies of adult females, but only one third of the sex offenders reported having deviant fantasies. The frequencies of deviant fantasies for all groups tended to be low, and controls had more fantasies in general than sex offenders. Results were not influenced by response set, naive lying, age, education, or intelligence. The results suggest that the number of sex offenders reporting deviant fantasies is too low for fantasy to have etiological significance, and it only has limited utility in diagnosis and treatment in general.

A Double Blind Trial of Sex Drive Reducing Medication in Pedophiles

A sample of 100 men accused of sexual assault on a child and referred to a forensic clinic were approached for assessment and treatment in a double blind study of MPA (Provera). A total of 48 men completed assessment and 18 agreed to participate in the drug trial. Only 11 completed a 3-month course of MPA or placebo therapy. Those refusing treatment were less intelligent and less impaired on the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Test Battery but were more impaired on the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery. Dropouts differed only in reporting more frequent sexual fantasies of children. Of a possible 27 side effects for MPA, only two were statistically significant. MPA led to more depression and excess salivation than did the placebo, although the frequency of fatigue was noteworthy. MPA appeared as a useful sex drive reducing medication with few side effects but compliance in taking the drug was seen as a major obstacle in its use with pedophiles.

Brain Density and Symmetry in Pedophilic and Sexually Aggressive Offenders

Brain area and optical density were computed for each hemisphere and for 4 sections within the hemispheres at the level of the temporal horns for 18 pedophiles, 12 incest offenders, 34 sexually aggressive offenders of adult females and 12 nonviolent nonsex offender controls. Brain length and width was also computed, using the pineal gland as reference. From the width measures, an index of brain symmetry was computed. Results showed that the brains of sex offenders were relatively smaller in the left hemisphere compared to controls, but there were no significant group differences in optical density. There were no subgroup differences in brain area but the segments corresponding to the left frontal and temporal areas were smaller in sex offenders than controls. There were no significant differences in brain length but sex offenders had smaller widths in both hemispheres than controls. Analysis of symmetry showed that 66.7% of pedophiles and 53.1% of sexual aggressives had asymmetric brains compared to 8.3% of incest offenders and 20.0% of controls. Pedophiles showed smaller left hemispheres than right whereas sexual aggressives were equally split between left and right asymmetry. These results support earlier findings of temporal hom dilatation in pedophiles and sexual aggressives.