Stigmatisation of People with Deviant Sexual Interest: A Comparative Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article under review confirms both popular intuitions and the results of other research concerning social attitudes (at least in the Western cultures) towards people with pedophilia in comparison with the attitudes towards hepersexuality and fetishism. Attitudes towards people with pedophilia, compared to those who display fetishism or hypersexuality, can be easily explained, because in the case of pedophilia, we are dealing with potential harm (or at least in the public opinion, pedophilic tendencies are associated with potential harm to a child). In contrast, in the case of fetishism and hypersexuality, there is no obvious association with potential harm to another person. The authors have adequately analyzed the literature. The studies were designed correctly and their statistical analysis is exhaustive. There is a significant predominance of women in the research sample and that may have an impact on the results. The research would be more interesting and original if the authors compared social attitudes towards pedophilia and attitudes towards sadism or zoophilia. In the discussion concerning the results it hasn’t been pointed out that the results could be different in non-Western cultures.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript I reviewed for the journal Sexes was entitled “Stigmatisation of People with Deviant Sexual Interest: A Comparative Study”.  This study examined people’s perceptions of those with deviant sexual interests, including pedophilia, hypersexuality, and fetishism.  The writing and data analysis were well executed for the most part. I have a few suggestions for the authors which they should consider before attempting to publish.

1)      A discussion on consent and coercion is needed

a.       There is little to no discussion of sexual consent and coercion in this manuscript. This is odd, especially given the focus on pedophilia. As someone who used to supervise a juvenile facility which housed pedophilic offenders, the key issue with this population was the fact that they coerced victims who could not possibly have given consent, even if they seemed willing or “played along”.  The findings of this manuscript seem to bear this out.  The authors would do well to discuss the highly central matters of consent and coercion in the intro, literature review, and discussion.  

2)      Pedophilia associated with crime

a.       The authors state that pedophilia is associated with crime.  While a state of mind is not usually considered a criminal offense, the behavior associated with this state of mind is certainly criminal. This is one of the ways that pedophilia is distinct from other deviant sexual interests which do not necessarily have a criminal component so closely linked with a state of mind. This should be acknowledged in the manuscript.

3)      Missing data analysis

a.       Eighty-five participants were removed due to missing data on the survey. The authors should indicate whether these respondents were significantly different from those who completed the survey. Such biases, if they exist, can produce misleading results that cannot be replicated.

4)      Variables

a.       Age of the respondents’ dependents and place of residence was included in the analysis, but it is not clear why. A brief explanation should suffice.

b.       Reliability for PWP was reported as 0.31.  This is not acceptable. I would recommend that the authors conduct an exploratory factor analysis of these items.  It may be that instead of using a composite measure, individual items may be preferred here given the weak reliability.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall comments

Drs. Combridge and Lastella provide an evaluation of the attitudes towards paraphilias and hypersexuality, especifically on the Dangerousness, Deviance, Intentionality, and Punitive attitudes on a sample of students/adults. They demonstrated that people hold lower attitudes towards pedophilic people than to people that have fetishes or those with hypersexuality, as well as determine that the former group are perceived to be more as deviant and dangerous.

The authors do a good job describing the literature on this topic. There are, however, several minor issues throughout the manuscript that need major revisions. There are more concerning revisions to be made in the method and result sections. These concern to the validity of the scales used, which  all except one appear not to be validated. These undermine significantly the validity of the results. However, I believe conducting an exploratory analysis could help the readers know what the scales really measure. Furthermore, the bonferroni correction does not appear to be well conducted, or at least, it is not clear how the authors reached the conclusion as to how to perform the correction. Related to this, the authors conduct repeated measures anova's without a sound rationale. This analysis assess 2 or more means measured in different moments. However, the design does not to appear to justify that. Instead, the authors may only need to simply conduct regular anova's for each of the dependent variables, across the different groups to be compared.

Other minor details can be corrected without much effort. These comments are mentioned below in the specific comments.

I believe, overall, the authors require to do major changes to the results sections, that will require another round of revisions.

Specific comments

Title

-          Should the title be “stigmatization” when attitudes are being measured?

Abstract

-          Authors should clarify the sample’s nationality in the abstract.

-          The abstract begins with deviant sexual interest, then goes over pedophilia, then says other sexual interests have not received as much attention as them. Furthermore, they say they will measure pedophilia, fetishism, and hypersexuality, to only mention results about the latter, and conclude about the three of them. I think the authors need to make the story more cohesive.

-          The key word “punitive” attitude and “public” stigma may yield different results than just the public and attitude by themselves. Authors may consider that. This is just a suggestion.

Introduction

-          The first paragraph does a good job defining the concepts. However, I torn between thanking not assuming that some reader may not be familiar with the definition, and that the reading flows rather slowly for a scientific journal. I believe the 2nd paragraph does a more concise job in delivering definitions that are necessary, as well as more reading and evidence on the matter.

-          Line 49, I believe the word is “intense” and not “extreme”.

-          The authors make a simile between paraphilias and sexual deviant interest (SDI). Further, they mention that SDI relates to sexual activities that are either unlawful or abnormal, to finally mention that SDI would represent paraphilic sexual interest. This is problematic into confusing sexual interests with paraphilias. Moreover, deviant may represent a difference from what is established, yet it also carries a negative connotation, as well as the “non-positive” side of what may be normality. Furthermore, and more concerning, paraphilias are different from paraphilic disorders, which are the ones more often related to unlawful behaviors. I do not agree these terms should be combined into one, even less of the very terms being combined.

-          “People with pedophilia” is not a recognized term, nor an accurate one. Pedophilia is not something person ‘has’, but part of that person’s sexual orientation, particularly its chronophilic aspect. Whereas “people attracted to minors” could be an alternative, it is inaccurate to describe the different terms used to described the different levels of maturation to which some people are sexually attracted. If authors would like to replace the term, they may use “P” for pedophile or “PP” pedophile people.

-          I believe the authors should include a discussion as to the differences between a sexual interest and orientation, especially when the article includes in their simple pedophile people

-          I did not see any gender analysis in most, if not any of the cited literature in the introduction. I believe the evidence has shown gender differences, particularly in the SDI population the authors use (e.g., women cannot be pedophiles - https://bit.ly/3UniM4f).

-          Line 218, individuals who have one of the studied conditions may not necessarily be “affected” by it. Having a fetish, for instance, is not an inheritably bad thing.

Method

-          Line 243, begins awkwardly

-          I believe the paragraph in line 258 is best suited to being the Method section. Also, given that knowing who may hold the measured attitudes, there should be a more detailed description of the sample in terms of descriptive statistics (e.g., M and SD of age, groups of ages, religion, and any other variables that may have measured). Finally, the sample needs to be said whence (city and country) it is from.

-          Who reviewed the ethics for this study? If there is no ethical evaluation, and the journal allow for supplemental material, the authors should upload their ethical consent form.

-          Line 284, the authors should provide an exploratory factor analysis of the scales measuring stigma and punitive attitudes, at least, as a supplementary material. The lack of this analysis affects tremendously the validity of the results.

-          Line 292, the authors present a definition of “dangerousness” that includes all characteristics of three different conditions which is highly inaccurate, at least, for the reference used. Maybe, they may say that “in this case, the definition of dangerousness would pertain to…”.

-          It is considered common practice to provide not only the alpha, but also McDonald’s Omega coefficient for the reliability for all scales and subscales. Furthermore, the authors should mention if the scale has been validated.

-          Using the bonferroni correction is a good practice. Yet, there seems to be disagreement as to how to use it when it comes to establish the number of comparisons, to determine for how much (i.e., denominator) alpha should be divided. In this case, it seems the authors divided alpha by 2. However, they performed four 3x1 ANOVA’s. There is no agreement if in this case one should use the 3 comparisons as a criterion to establish the bonferroni correction or the total of 12 (3x4 comparisons). In either case, the authors seems to have use only 2 which does not match either of the two alternatives. Yet, it is clear they used a less conservative bonferroni correction.

-          The authors do not mention anything about the ANOVA assumption of homogeneity of variance.

-          Assumption analysis should be provided as supplementary material.

-          I have gone over the rationale of using repeated measures ANOVA, and I cannot understand. The authors conducted 4 of them. There is one dependent variable in each (i.e., dangerousness, deviance, intentionality, and punitive attitudes, separately), and three groups (i.e., pedophilia, fetishism, and hypersexuality). Thus, why are these not just 4 separate ANOVA’s? What is the repeated measure?

Results

-          The ‘p’ in the partial eta squared should be a subscript.

-          It is confusing to see different groups of ages being described for the first ANOVA and not analysed their differences.

-          Figure 2 is blurry

-          Table 2 requires a legend to explain the statistical symbols used

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors' revisions to the literature review and methods were sufficient for addressing my concerns. I have no further recommendations. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I reply to a few of your responses provided in your word document in the form of comments. I believe the authors provide satisfactory comments and amends regarding the suggestions and comments made.

I do however, believe the lack of psychometric evaluation of the latent construct for the scale used. The authors provide only one citation from a reputable journal. Nevertheless, this publication is not a psychometric study of the latent construct or factor structure of the scale. A psychometric scale may lack an assessment of its reliability, yet not its validity. Whereas it may not be the scope of the manuscript, I believe if the authors cannot provide another publication that, at the least, explores the psychometric validity of the scale in question, the authors are in required to provide an exploratory factor analyses for their scale in order to validate their findings. 

I do hope the authors understand this is no unreasonable request, as it is common practice to report the instruments psychometric's properties. Furthermore, this ultimately improves replicability, something our field desperately needs.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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