Male sexual attraction to children is central for understanding and preventing sexual offending against children. The current research aimed to examine conceptual and empirical issues in how we understand, treat, and measure pedohebephilic interests in men with histories of sexual offences. Chapter 2 and 3 presents a taxometric analysis of phallometric measures of pedophilic interest. The results of the taxometric analysis indicated that pedophilic interest is distributed as three latent categories. In post-hoc analyses, the three categories were characterized as having non-pedophilic, non-preferentially pedophilic, and preferentially pedophilic interest. Chapter 4 presents a meta-analysis of research examining the effect of interventions in reducing pedophilic arousal in men with histories of sexual offences against children. The results of the meta-analysis suggest that behavioural and pharmacological interventions were associated with significant decreases in sexual arousal. Some of these interventions showed magnitudes of change that were greater than estimated natural history processes and men in some of these interventions showed posttreatment levels of arousal comparable to non-offending men. Men with the highest levels of pretreatment pedophilic arousal demonstrated the greatest amount of change over the course of treatment. In contrast, no intervention approaches were associated with increases in arousal to adults. Chapter 5 examined convergent and predictive validity in three measures of pedophilic interest. The results indicate that a phallometric test and the Violence Risk Scale-Sexual Offense version’s (VRS-SO) Sexual Deviance factor showed convergence, while the Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interest (SSPI) demonstrated somewhat less convergence with the other measures. Similarly, the phallometric test and the Sexual Deviance factor of the VRS-SO were predictive of sexual recidivism and the VRS-SO remained a significant predictor after controlling for static risk. The SSPI was not predictive of sexual recidivism. Within the phallometric test, the predictive validity of different latent structural models of pedophilic interest were examined. Across the models, a dimensional model and a trichotomous model received the most support, with the latter remaining predictive of sexual recidivism after controlling for static risk. Taken together, the results identify the need for replication studies examining latent structure in pedophilic interest, demonstrate the potential for treatment to help improve men’s ability to regulate their sexual arousal, and provide further validity evidence for measures of pedophilic interest
