Scientific American Mind-June/July 2007

(letters)
however, it is not a loud noise, just a
swishing back and forth when I move
them, usually at night before sleep,
when it is quiet.
So now there are three of us. Certainly
there are many more who are
just not “tuned in!”
Joan Faella
Jamestown, R.I.
Readers report on their noisy
eyeballs and other brain mix-ups.
FIELDS REPLIES: Faella is right:
Charles Limb of the National Institutes
of Health tells me that some people hear
their eyeballs not only at bedtime but all
the time. In these cases, the noise is not
imaginary but actually caused by the
tugging of eye muscles. If disease or injury
perforates the thin skull bone between
the inner ear canals and the brain,
the extra hole can act as a third ear
tuned to internal sounds.
After confessing about my grating
eyeballs, e-mails and letters began appearing
from readers around the world
admitting to all manner of bizarre brain
mix-ups. Colleen McCaffery of Almonte,
Ontario, occasionally hears a loud cracking
noise in her head as she is falling
asleep, which is a benign phenomenon
related to twitching known as an “auditory
sleep start.” And a young woman
from Belgium confi des that when she
becomes sexually aroused, she starts
sneezing! “This, of course, is a very
noisy announcement of what is going on
in me.” Now I know why Mom taught me
that a gentleman should always carry a
clean handkerchief.
I sincerely thank readers for sharing
these personal stories, which show us
how wonderful the brain is and how little
we really know about it.
DISTURBED BY DESIRE
I am the wife of a pedophile who is a
registered sex offender. In “Abnormal
Attraction,” Peer Briken, Andreas Hill
and Wolfgang Berner speak with hope
about therapy for pedophiles. I see a
clear stumbling block: our state’s laws
require all therapists to report to the
police any situation in which they believe
a child may be the target of sexual
behavior. Do the ends justify the
means here? Maybe, but the law makes
therapists akin to cops with full power
to arrest and prosecute. I frankly doubt
a pedophile would trust a therapist
and work with him or her under these
conditions. I especially doubt that anyone
who experiences pedophilic fantasies
would seek help for these impulses
before acting on them.
Name withheld
Maryland
I had to roll my eyes at the defensive
and somewhat condescending posture
of those who treat pedophiles. Yes, the
public knows that pedophilia is a disorder.
No, the public does not think that
therapists make excuses for or promote
child abuse. What we object to is that,
ultimately, the success or failure in
treating pedophiles comes down to
whether or not another child is sexually
assaulted by one of these patients.
Subjecting unsuspecting children to
the uncertain outcomes of treatment
experiments is as unacceptable as imposing
medical trials on random and
uninformed human test subjects.
Laura Wrzeski
Lakebay, Wash.
As a journalist, I was dismayed to
fi nd several mistakes in an otherwise
insightful article on pedophilia.
The authors quote a study that
found that “one in seven youngsters
aged 10 to 17 received an online sexu-
al solicitation in 2005.” This study is
not nearly as alarming as the authors
make it out to be. The statistic is misleading
because the term “sexual solicitation”
is defi ned broadly as “requests
to engage in sexual activities or
sexual talk or give personal sexual information
that were unwanted or,
whether wanted or not, made by an
adult.” Using this defi nition, an 18year-old
who asks a 17-year-old if he
or she is a virgin would be considered
to be making a “sexual solicitation.”
In fact, almost half the “sexual solicitations”
in the study came not from
“predators” or older adults but from
other teens—in many cases the equivalent
of teen fl irting. The authors’ implication
that one in seven children are
approached by pedophiles is clearly
not the case.
The article also failed to report
that most cases of child sexual abuse
are not committed by convicted pedophiles
but by trusted caregivers—relatives,
clergy and family friends.
Benjamin Radford
Managing editor
Skeptical Inquirer
A COMMUNITY ISSUE
Although I was delighted that you
included a story on hoarding—“Love
of Garbage,” by Walter A. Brown—I
was disappointed at the cursory treatment
that you gave to this complex behavior
that affects some one million to
two million Americans. Hoarding can
snowball from an individual’s struggle
to a community health concern, which
is why many cities, such as New York
and Los Angeles, have organized task
forces that bring together families, social
service providers, health agencies,
fi re departments and legal assistance
groups. Research is being done to better
understand how to identify hoarding
early and treat it effectively. I hope
that you will consider publishing additional
articles on this important
public health topic.
Monika Eckfi eld
University of California, zefa/Corbis
San Francisco
School of Nursing EMELY
6 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND June/July 2007
COPYRIGHT 2007 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.