Michael Seto on transsexualism

Michael Seto is currently working at the Clarke Institute in their Law and Mental Health Program

In 2003, he sat on a panel at the Kinsey Institute with J. Michael Bailey as part of a multidisciplinary group of researchers in sexual psychophysiology.

http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/services/psychophys.html

Seto has joined the International Academy of Sex Research and the editorial board at the journal they control, The Archives of Sexual Behavior.

home.wanadoo.nl/ipce/newsletters/nl_e_15.pdf

Michael Seto views pedophilia as a disorder, but the DSM has not defined it well. One should not define behavior as an illness. And one should define pedophilia so that it only concerns a sexual desire for sexually still immature pre- pubescents

He is cited in this article by his coworker Ray Blanchard

Pedophiles: mental retardation, maternal age, and sexual orientation.

by Ray Blanchard , Mark S. Watson , Alberto Choy , Robert Dickey , Philip Klassen , Michael Kuban , Donald J. Ferren

INTRODUCTION

Pedophilia is defined as intense and persistent sexual interest in prepubescent children (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, p. 528). In practice, observable signs of puberty (e.g., breast buds, pubic hair) do not represent a sharp boundary between those children who are attractive to pedophiles and those who are not, and many pedophiles occasionally sexually engage older children. Most clinical authorities distinguish between true pedophiles versus individuals whose basic sexual orientation is toward adults but who have molested a child in particular circumstances, for example, while intoxicated (Barbaree and Seto, 1997). Pedophilia is principally a disorder of males; it is unclear, at this point, whether true pedophilia occurs in females.

The prevalence of pedophilia is difficult to estimate. Few pedophiles come forward spontaneously to request treatment, and there is no way of knowing how many pedophiles simply resist the impulse to approach a child their whole lives, or else behave so discreetly - for example, limiting their activities to seemingly accidental touching of a child's genitals during horseplay - that they are never apprehended. It is at most, however, a tiny proportion of the adult male population.

Pedophilia appears to have a greater than chance association with two other statistically infrequent phenomena. The first of these is homosexuality. The terms homosexuality and heterosexuality, as used in this article, simply denote sexual interest in persons of one's own or the opposite anatomical sex, without regard to the age of those persons. It is customary to classify pedophiles as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, just as it is customary to classify persons attracted to adults as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual.

From the Clarke Institute site:

http://www.camh.net/research/research_psychobiology.html

Dr. Barbaree, Dr. Seto, and colleagues are developing a model of risk management that incorporates actuarial risk, institutional treatment, dynamic risk factors, and community supervision in the prediction and prevention of sex offender recidivism.

Dr. Seto chaired a committee that produced Practice Standards and Guidelines for members of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers.

Some references of published works:

Barbaree, H. E., Seto, M. C., & Langton, C. M. (2001, November). Psychopathy, treatment behavior, and sex offender recidivism: An extended follow-up . Paper presented at the 20th Annual Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, San Antonio, Texas.

Barbaree, H. E., Seto, M. C., Langton, C. M., & Peacock, E. J. (2001). Evaluating the predictive accuracy of six risk assessment instruments for adult sex offenders. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 28 (4), 490-521.

*Barbaree, H. E., Seto, M. C., Serin, R., Amos, N., & Preston, D. (1994). Comparisons between sexual and nonsexual rapist subtypes: Sexual arousal to rape, offense precursors, and offense characteristics. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 21 (1), 95-114.

Seto, M. C., & Barbaree, H. E. (1999). Psychopathy, treatment behavior, and sex offenders recidivism. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14 (12), 1235-1248.

Seto, M. C., Barbaree, H. E., & Serin, R. C. (1994). Comparison of low-fixated and high-fixated child molesters [Abstract]. Canadian Psychology 35 (2a), 51.

Seto, M. C., Khattar, N. A., Lalumiere, M. L. & Quinsey, V. L. (1997). Deception and sexual strategy in psychopathy. Personality and Individual Differences, 22 (3), 301-307.