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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Rajeev Syal and Faisa Mohamed

Chemical suppression: why the UK is exploring libido control drugs to treat sex offenders

Silhouette of a male prisoner looking out of the window of his cell
‘Without the drugs, these images were going around his head all the time’: some medications are already used to treat PSA in the UK. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

For some prisoners with problematic sexual arousal (PSA), “images of sex flood their minds” all of their waking hours, according to Prof Belinda Winder, a leading forensic psychologist who has evaluated the use of drugs to control libidos.

“I remember talking to one guy a few weeks after he started taking the medication. He said: ‘It’s amazing. I followed a film plot. I wasn’t just looking for when I could see bra straps, when I could see nipples, when someone’s going to bend over so I could see their bum.”

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