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Ray Blanchard

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Ray Blanchard
Ray Blanchard, 2008
Born
Ray Milton Blanchard

(1945-10-09) October 9, 1945 (age 79)
Hammonton, New Jersey, U.S.
CitizenshipUnited States, Canada
Alma materUniversity of Pennsylvania
University of Illinois
Known forPhallometry, paraphilias, gender dysphoria, sexual orientation
Scientific career
FieldsPsychology, sexology
InstitutionsCentre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto

Ray Milton Blanchard (born October 9, 1945) is an American-Canadian sexologist, best known for his research studies on pedophilia, gender dysphoria, and sexual orientation. He has also published research studies on phallometry and several paraphilias, including transvestism and autoerotic asphyxia.

Education and career

Blanchard was born in Hammonton, New Jersey. He received his A.B. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1967 and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1973. He conducted postdoctoral research at Dalhousie University until 1976, when he accepted a position as a clinical psychologist at the Ontario Correctional Institute in Brampton, Ontario, Canada (a suburb of Toronto). There, Blanchard met Kurt Freund, who became his mentor. Freund was conducting research in chemical castration for sex offenders.[1] In 1980, he joined the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry (now part of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health).[2] In 1995 Blanchard was named Head of Clinical Sexology Services in the Law and Mental Health Programme of the CAMH, and he serves as a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He served on the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders[3] and was named to the DSM-5 committee. According to the Web of Science, Blanchard's scientific articles have been cited more than 1800 times, with an h-index of 27.[4]

Fraternal birth order effect

Blanchard has conducted research on factors that influence the development of sexual orientation, including biological factors. He has proposed a theory known as a fraternal birth order effect or "older brother effect". This theory is that the more older brothers a man has, the greater the probability is that he will have a homosexual sexual orientation. The number of older sisters has no effect, however. The same is not true for lesbians—neither the number of older brothers nor the number of older sisters appears to be related to the sexual orientation of women.[5][6][7] The fraternal birth order effect is the strongest known predictor of sexual orientation,[8] with each older brother increasing a man's odds of being gay by about 33%.[9] Blanchard goes on to state that "A man's chance of being gay is pretty low to begin with --perhaps as low as 2%..." So having one older brother ups the chance to only about 2.6%."[10]

Blanchard hypothesizes that the older brother effect is caused by interactions between a male fetus and the immune system of the mother: Because certain proteins (called H-y antigens) are produced by male and not by female fetuses, the mother's immune system reacts only to male fetuses and is more likely to produce a reaction with each successive exposure to a male fetus.[11]

Autogynephilia and the taxonomy of male-to-female gender dysphoria

Blanchard coined the term "autogynephilia" (ill formed, because Greek “γυνη” actually has a stem “γυναικ-”[12][13]) to describe men with an erotic desire to be women and provided evidence that the previously described types of gender dysphoria in biological males were actually all variants of only two types: homosexual gender dysphoria and non-homosexual gender dysphoria.

Within the transsexual community, there has been much controversy surrounding Blanchard's ideas.

Blanchard supports sex reassignment surgery as an appropriate treatment for transsexual people whom he considers to have a mental disorder.[14][15] For example, in 1998, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan ceased funding all sex reassignment surgeries in the province.[16] Blanchard strongly supported Michelle Josef's lawsuit to get funding restored as being medically necessary.[citation needed]

The term teleiophilia

Blanchard coined the term teleiophilia to refer to sexual interest in adults.[17] Unlike the terms referring to sexual interest in other age groups, such as pedophilia (sexual interest in prepubescent children) and hebephilia (sexual interest in pubescent children), teleiophilia is not considered a paraphilia. The term was formalized in order to forestall neologisms, such as "adultophilia" or "normophilia," that were occasionally used, but had no precise definition. The term is used primarily by professional sexologists in the scientific literature.

DSM-5

Appointment

Blanchard served on the gender dysphoria sub-working group for the DSM-IV and served as Chair of the paraphilia sub-working group for the DSM-5. Some activists protested the latter appointment.[18][19] The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued a statement questioning the APA's decision to appoint Blanchard.[18][20]

Paraphilias

In 2008, Blanchard was the lead author of an influential paper proposing the introduction of hebephilia in the DSM-5.[21] The paper, coauthored mostly with colleagues from CAMH and the University of Toronto, triggered a number of reactions, many of them critical on the basis that it pathologizes reproductively valid behavior in order to uphold current social and legal standards. Critics include Richard Green,[22] Michael First[23] (DSM-IV editor), Karen Franklin,[24] and Charles Allen Moser,[25] while others including William O'Donohue argue that the proposal does not go far enough.[26] Blanchard also wrote the literature review paper for the DSM-5 committee regarding pedophilia, in which he summarizes and attempts to address the criticism over the DSM-IV-TR definition of pedophilia.[27] The proposed DSM-5 replacement for the pedophilia diagnosis, called pedohebophilic disorder, largely reflects Blanchard's proposals.[28] The naming also reflects the more general distinction proposed between paraphilia and paraphilic disorder in DSM-5, also proposed by Blachard in his review paper on pedophilia.

Blanchard noted that both Richard Green[29] and William O'Donohue[30] remarked that a so-called "contended pedophile"—an individual who fantasizes about having sex with a child, but does not commit child sexual abuse, but just masturbates fantasizing it, and who does not feel subjectively distressed afterward—does not meet the DSM-IV-TR criteria for pedophilia, because he does not meet Criterion B. Whereas Green proposed to solve the problem by removing pedophilia from the DSM, and O'Donohue proposed to remove criterion B for pedophilia, Blanchard proposed a general solution applicable to all paraphilias, namely a distinction between paraphilia and paraphilic disorder. The latter term is proposed to identify the diagnosable condition, which meets both Criterion A and B, whereas an individual who does not meet Criterion B, can be ascertained, but not diagnosed, as having a paraphilia. (Blanchard acknowledges Kenneth Zucker and James Cantor for discussions about this distinction.)[31] Interviewed by bioethics professor Alice Dreger, Blanchard explained: "We tried to go as far as we could in depathologizing mild and harmless paraphilias, while recognizing that severe paraphilias that distress or impair people or cause them to do harm to others are validly regarded as disorders."[32]

See also

References

  1. ^ Freund K (1980). Therapeutic Sex Drive Reduction. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 62 (s287), 5–38 DOI:10.1111/j.1600-0447.1980.tb10433.x
  2. ^ Laws RD, O'Donohue WT (eds.) Sexual Deviance: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment. Guilford Press ISBN 1572302410
  3. ^ Bradley SJ, Blanchard R, Coates SW, Green R, Levine SB, Meyer-Bahlburg HFL, Pauly IB, Zucker KJ (1991). Interim report of the DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders. Archives of Sexual Behavior Volume 20, Number 4 / August, 1991
  4. ^ Web of Science, accessed March 18, 2010
  5. ^ Blanchard, R., & Bogaert, A. F. (1996). Homosexuality in men and number of older brothers. American Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 27–31.
  6. ^ Blanchard, R., & Bogaert, A. F. (1996). Biodemographic comparisons of homosexual and heterosexual men in the Kinsey interview data. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 25, 551–579.
  7. ^ Blanchard, R., Zucker, K. J., Siegelman, M., Dickey, R., & Klassen, P. (1998). The relation of birth order to sexual orientation in men and women. Journal of Biosocial Science, 30, 511–519.
  8. ^ Bogaert, A. F. (2006). Biological versus nonbiological older brothers and men's sexual orientation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 10777-10774.
  9. ^ Cantor, J. M., Blanchard, R., Paterson, A. D., & Bogaert, A. F. (2002). How many gay men owe their sexual orientation to fraternal birth order? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 31, 63–71.
  10. ^ http://www.nowpublic.com/world/big-brother-effect-or-biological-error
  11. ^ Blanchard, R., & Klassen, P. (1997). H-Y antigen and homosexuality in men. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 185, 373–378.
  12. ^ Smyth, Herbert Weir; Greek Grammar §285.
  13. ^ Smyth, Herbert Weir; Greek Grammar §870.
  14. ^ Blanchard R. (2000). Part II: The case for publicly funded transsexual surgery. Psychiatry Rounds, 4(2), 4–6. Also available at http://individual.utoronto.ca/james_cantor/index_files/Blanchard2000.pdf
  15. ^ http://www.egale.ca/index.asp?lang=E&item=1086
  16. ^ Palmer, K. (2002, Dec. 7). "Sex-change delisting 'prejudiced' ; Probe finds OHIP bias against transsexuals Tribunal to decide on issue of coverage." Toronto Star, p. A8.
  17. ^ Blanchard, R., Barbaree, H. E., Bogaert, A. F., Dickey, R., Klassen, P., Kuban, M. E., et al. (2000). Fraternal birth order and sexual orientation in pedophiles. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 29, 463–478.
  18. ^ a b Chibarro, Lou Jr. (May 30, 2008). Activists alarmed over APA: Head of psychiatry panel favors 'change' therapy for some trans teens. Washington Blade
  19. ^ Rau, Krishna (July 7, 2008). Trans activists infuriated by doctors in charge of gender identity definitions. Xtra
  20. ^ National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (May 28, 2008). Task Force questions critical appointments to APA’s Committee on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders.
  21. ^ http://www.springerlink.com/content/7j127536573h5q8t
  22. ^ http://www.springerlink.com/content/c646726371w74576/
  23. ^ http://www.thefreelibrary.com/DSM-V+work+on+paraphilias+begins+in+earnest-a0215844762
  24. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1002/bsl.934, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi=10.1002/bsl.934 instead.
  25. ^ http://www.springerlink.com/content/l928880754373266/
  26. ^ http://www.springerlink.com/content/w236h718kn40k4j2/
  27. ^ [1]
  28. ^ http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=186
  29. ^ Green, R. (2002). Is pedophilia a mental disorder? Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 31, 2002.
  30. ^ http://www.springerlink.com/content/x29808w856183157/
  31. ^ http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/Sex%20and%20GID%20Lit%20Reviews/Paraphilias/DSMV.PEDO.pdf
  32. ^ Alice Dreger (19 Feb 2010) Of Kinks, Crimes, and Kinds: The Paraphilias Proposal for the DSM-5, Hastings Center

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