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Debra Soh
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Debra Soh
Debra W. Soh is a Canadian columnist, author, and former academic sex researcher.
Soh received her Ph.D. from York University in Toronto. She has extensively researched paraphilias, suggesting they are neurological conditions rather than learned behaviors. Soh has written articles for various publications, and she once hosted Quillette's Wrongspeak podcast with Jonathan Kay. She identifies as a former feminist who became disillusioned with the term.
Soh has criticized childhood gender transitions, arguing for waiting until a child reaches cognitive maturity. She has also written against anti-conversion therapy laws that include both sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2020, she published her first book, The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society.
Soh holds a Ph.D. degree in psychology from York University in Toronto. Her dissertation was titled Functional and Structural Neuroimaging of Paraphilic Hypersexuality in Men, and her committee included Keith Schneider of York University and James Cantor of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. During her graduate studies, Soh received the Michael Smith Foreign Research Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and York's Provost Dissertation Scholarship.
While at York, she studied paraphilias. Her research indicates that these are neurological conditions rather than learned behaviours.
Soh has written articles for Quillette, The Globe and Mail, New York magazine, Playboy, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She began hosting Quillette's Wrongspeak podcast with Jonathan Kay in May 2018. Soh describes herself as a former feminist who later became disillusioned with the term.
A 2016 Cosmopolitan article highlighted some of Soh's former research findings and their implications for determining which men are likely to commit rape. A 2015 article she wrote for Salon.com spoke of how she studied a pedophile named Jacob who had come to her office after being arrested for luring what he thought was a 10-year-old minor but was actually an undercover police officer, recommended Germany's Prevention Project Dunkelfeld as a solution, and gave sympathy to Todd Nickerson, who wrote two articles for the same magazine about his experiences as a non-offending pedophile, stating "The backlash that Todd Nickerson faced upon publicly writing about his personal struggle with pedophilia is a reminder that we, as a society, have far to go in challenging the way we think about this emotionally charged subject. But our current approach is not working."
In Soh's 2026 book Sextinction: The Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy she stated "The view that nonoffending pedophiles deserve understanding is one I once foolishly supported as a result of my time in academia. It is something that I now deeply regret."
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Debra Soh
Debra W. Soh is a Canadian columnist, author, and former academic sex researcher.
Soh received her Ph.D. from York University in Toronto. She has extensively researched paraphilias, suggesting they are neurological conditions rather than learned behaviors. Soh has written articles for various publications, and she once hosted Quillette's Wrongspeak podcast with Jonathan Kay. She identifies as a former feminist who became disillusioned with the term.
Soh has criticized childhood gender transitions, arguing for waiting until a child reaches cognitive maturity. She has also written against anti-conversion therapy laws that include both sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2020, she published her first book, The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society.
Soh holds a Ph.D. degree in psychology from York University in Toronto. Her dissertation was titled Functional and Structural Neuroimaging of Paraphilic Hypersexuality in Men, and her committee included Keith Schneider of York University and James Cantor of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. During her graduate studies, Soh received the Michael Smith Foreign Research Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and York's Provost Dissertation Scholarship.
While at York, she studied paraphilias. Her research indicates that these are neurological conditions rather than learned behaviours.
Soh has written articles for Quillette, The Globe and Mail, New York magazine, Playboy, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She began hosting Quillette's Wrongspeak podcast with Jonathan Kay in May 2018. Soh describes herself as a former feminist who later became disillusioned with the term.
A 2016 Cosmopolitan article highlighted some of Soh's former research findings and their implications for determining which men are likely to commit rape. A 2015 article she wrote for Salon.com spoke of how she studied a pedophile named Jacob who had come to her office after being arrested for luring what he thought was a 10-year-old minor but was actually an undercover police officer, recommended Germany's Prevention Project Dunkelfeld as a solution, and gave sympathy to Todd Nickerson, who wrote two articles for the same magazine about his experiences as a non-offending pedophile, stating "The backlash that Todd Nickerson faced upon publicly writing about his personal struggle with pedophilia is a reminder that we, as a society, have far to go in challenging the way we think about this emotionally charged subject. But our current approach is not working."
In Soh's 2026 book Sextinction: The Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy she stated "The view that nonoffending pedophiles deserve understanding is one I once foolishly supported as a result of my time in academia. It is something that I now deeply regret."
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