Sexual Deviance - Term Paper Example

This essay will examine each of these, as well as looking at one particular deviancy, voyeurism, and determine how this is assessed. Assessing Sexual Deviance One way to assess sexual deviancy is a method known as penile plethysmograph (Simon et al. 1991). This is a way of measuring tumescence in response to fantasy or laboratory stimuli. According to Simon (1991), this method assumes a somewhat controversial theoretical explanation of sexual deviance. And this theoretical explanation for sexual deviance is that if there is a penile arousal, then there would be corresponding overt sexual acts.

As noted above, however, this method is considered to be controversial because many sexual deviants actually are not able to obtain erection – for instance, many pedophiles are actually impotent, and sometimes there are exhibitionists who also cannot get an erection. However, this is one method of assessment, so it should be examined further (Simon, 1991). According to Simon (1991), phallometric measures are commonly obtained by using a strain gauge or mercury in rubber gauge. Penile volume measures, by design, assess volume changes in terms of penis diameter and length.

The patient, who is the alleged sexual deviant, is then showed different erotic cues and the degree of sexual arousal is measured. The stimuli might include movies, erotic stories, nudes and audiotaped narratives. Among the stimuli are materials which are considered to be inappropriate in some way. For instance, a pedophile may be assessed by showing the individual pictures of children who are nude and gauging the penile reaction to this. Moreover, in addition to the actual tumescence of the penis, another factor is how long the stimulus is presented.

The man is then scored according to how much he was aroused in looking at different inappropriate stimuli (Simon, 1991). This is one way to assess sexual deviancy. There are other ways, and these are described by Hanson and Thornton (2000). They describe ways to conduct risk assessment of pedophiles, and these assessments are used to predict the danger of future recidivism. Hanson and Thornton (2000) describe three different kind of actuarial scales which are used to predict future behavior of pedophiles.

One is the Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offense Recidivism (RRASOR). This is a test that uses variables which are easily scored – the seven items on this scale are prior sex offenses, prior nonsex offenses, any male victims, any stranger victims, any unrelated victims, marital status and age. The variables are then correlated and calculated into seven different datasets, then averaged using meta-analytic techniques. Another is the Structured Anchored Clinical Judgment (SACJ). This is an assessment technique that uses a stepwise approach – the first step is classifying the person into low, medium or high risk, and this assessment is based upon the offenders convictions; then, in the next steps, the offenders are reclassified according to protective or aggravating factors.

In other words, the offender may be initially considered high risk, but may be reclassified as a lower risk, depending upon different factors. A third type of assessment is known as the Static-99. This is a scale that uses the previous two, and the Static-99 adds together the items from the other two assessments, by using the static factors (Hanson & Thornton, 2000). Another way of assessing sexual deviancy is through the Abel