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Arch Sex Behav (2014) 43:12471252 DOI 10.1007/s10508-014-0373-4
COMMENTARY ON DSM-5
DSM-5 Pedophilic Disorder: Are the Age and Number of Victims Signicant Variables?
Valrie Mongeau Joanne-Lucine Rouleau
Published online: 3 September 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Along withthework surroundingtheelaborationof theDSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2010), many changes to the criteria for pedophilic disorder were proposed. However,nonemadethecut.Wewillreviewthemainchangesthat were proposed and give our opinion supported by results of our recent work on this matter.
Minimum Victim Count
In DSM-IV-TR, a person with pedophilia was dened as an individual who has a sexual attraction towards prepubertal children, whether he has acted on this urge or not. The problem arises with individuals who have had sexual interactions with young children but who deny having sexual interest towards them and when phallometric testing is either invalid or not available at all or in cases where it shows a non-deviant prole although the person has multiple young victims. Behavioral indicators of sexual attraction towards children were proposed for this matter.
One of the early DSM-5 diagnostic proposals for pedophilic disorder was to establish a minimum victim count and to diagnose as pedophilic a person who had at least two prepubertal victims (aged 10 or younger) or three early pubertal victims (aged 1114). These criteria were later rephrased to reectthevictimsdevelopmentalstage(Tannerstages)instead of their age, but this issue will be discussed later. The proposition of a minimum victim count stood mostly on studies by
Blanchard, Klassen, Dickey, Kuban, and Blak (2001) and Blanchard (2010, 2011), in which it was stated that having at least three victims 14 years old or younger was a valid indicator of sexual interest in children (as measured with penile plethysmography and self-report), with a degree of specicity of 90 % and a degree of sensitivity of 54 %. Seto and Lalumire (2001) also showed that a victim count of two or more contributedtopredictdeviant sexualinterest,especially when the victims were boys, 12 years old or younger, and unrelated to the offender. However, Seto and Lalumires study showed that if the victims were female, only 32 % (if the victims were related to the offender) and 41 % (if the victims were unrelated) of the offenders with two or more victims 12 years old or less showed a deviant prole of...