Kurt Freund

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Kurt Freund (17 January 1914 - 23 October 1996) was a sexologist who began studies of male sexual orientation using penile plethysmography (PPG) in the early 1950s.

Freund was born in Chrudim, Czechoslovakia. He received his M.D. at Charles University of Prague, and later a D.Sc. degree there in 1962.

Freund developed the penile plethysmograph to catch recruits attempting to evade military service by falsely claiming to be homosexual. Their military barred homosexuals from serving.

Freund fled to Canada in 1968, in the wake of the Prague Spring. Freund then began using the device at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto, where much of the research and published data using the device originated. The Kurt Freund Phallometric Laboratory at that institute is named after him.

Use of PPG followed in the wake of the "fruit machine," a slang term for another device developed in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s as part of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police campaign involving the identification and dismissal of every gay person in the employ of the public service.

The penile plethysmograph continues to be used to identify sexual minorities, especially sex offenders and pedophiles, though results are considered inadmissible as evidence in most United States courts because it doesn't meet the Daubert Standard.

Freund committed suicide at age 82 during his battle with lung cancer.

A knowledgeable biography of Kurt Freund by his daughter and a former research assistant may be found [1] here.