The Czech Republic is being criticized for still testing gay male asylum seekers by monitoring blood flow to their penises while they watch straight porn. Arousal gets you sent back to wherever you’re being persecuted. Unsurprisingly, this is deeply problematic.
The BBC reports that an EU agency, the Fundamental Rights Agency, is criticizing the practice, saying it might violate the European Convention on Human Rights “since this procedure touches upon a most intimate part of an individual’s private life.”
The Czech Republic’s response is not exactly reassuring: They say less than 10 people have been subjected to the test and that they all consented.
It turns out that the Czech Republic pioneered penile phallometry. In the 1950s, Kurt Freund developed the device to test whether conscripted men were actually gay or whether they were lying to get out of service. (Nobody tell John McCain about that.) The device was later used to assess sex offenders. Several U.S. courts have found it to be an unreliable tool.