Transcript Paraphilias: The Extremes of Sexual Behavior

Society’s criteria for judging paraphilias
Clinical criteria for paraphilias
Coercive and Non-coercive paraphilias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paraphilias
Introduction
 Paraphilias are more complex than just strange love acts or
abnormal love
 Mental health professionals have their own criteria for
diagnosing paraphilias
 A sexual activity may be considered a paraphilia if all three
of the following are met:
1. The behavior is engaged in for the purpose of sexual
arousal or gratification
2. The behavior tends to be compulsive
3. A clear majority of people in a given cultural setting would
consider the behavior to be strange, deviant, or abnormal
Compulsive behavior
 Any behavior, sexual or not, may become compulsive
 A compulsive behavior is one that controls the person
instead of the other way around
 Usually it is a behavior the person would like to stop
doing but feels powerless to control
 The compulsive component is manifested in the
inability to stop the undesirable behavior
 They may vow to themselves that they will never do it
again, but the obsessive thoughts creep back , the
desire and need escalate, and they are drawn back to
the behavior once again
Compulsive behavior
 Paraphilias are sexual behaviors that would strike most
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people as strange or abnormal
This may sound subjective – what is strange to one
person is mainstream to another – who’s to say what is
abnormal or normal?
If you ask 100 people about any of the paraphilias
discussed the vast majority will agree that they are
strange or abnormal
Zoophilia?
Necrophilia?
Society’s criteria for judging paraphilias
 We constantly make judgments about our behavior and that of
others
 A paraphilia will be more likely to be judged negatively by a society
when it is seen as meeting one or more of the following criteria:
1. The behavior is harmful or destructive to the person engaging in it –
for example a person who participates in extreme sexual masochism to
the point of serious injury , scarring, or broken bones, etc.
2. The behavior is illegal – if it involves behavior that is against the
formal, written laws of the state, it is usually judged more harshly
3. The behavior interferes with the person’s ability to form and
maintain loving, intimate, and sexual relationships with others
4. The behavior involves another person without that person’s consent
Clinical criteria
 Formally diagnosing a psychological
disorder is a more rigorous process
 The DSM-V lists specific criteria for the
diagnosis of certain paraphilias
 Google: clinical criteria DSM-V paraphilia
 Discussion is divided into two categories:
 Coercive and non-coercive
Coercive paraphilias
 Coercive paraphilias: Involve unsuspecting,
nonconsenting, or unwilling victim who is
the target of the compulsive behavior
 Due to the coercive nature of these
behaviors most states in the US have
enacted laws against them
Voyeurism
 Refers to the paraphilias of secretly watching ohers
undress or engage in sexual activities without their
knowledge or consent
 Commonly referred to as a peeping tom
 If someone is sexually aroused watching his partner
undress prior to having sex, this act would not qualify
as voyeurism
 The true voyeur’s experience is defined by the
nonconsensual nature of the act
Exhibitionism
 Focus for sexual arousal and gratification is displaying
one’s genitals to others without their consent
 Part of the arousal is the shock value of the behavior
on the victim
 Most exhibitionists do not engage in other predatory
or violent acts such as rape and usually desire no
physical contact with the victim
Frotteurism
 The compulsion to rub one’s genitals against a
nonconsenting person for reason of sexual
gratification and arousal
 Perpetrator usually fantasizes that he has a close
relationship with the victim
 Most involved are between 15 and 25 and tend to
decrease and stop the behavior as they age
 It is considered a form of sexual assault
Sexual sadism
 The inflicting of pain and humiliation for sexual gratification is named
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for the Marquis de Sade
He spent most of his adult life imprisoned for engaging in and writing
about his violent form of sexual expression
Sadism takes many forms: dominating, restraining, tying up,
blindfolding, beating, cutting, whipping, strangling, mutilating, and
even killing another person – usually during sexual activity
Seen in the pattern of some serial rapists
Sadomasochism is a combination of sadism and masochistic behavior
Some people are aroused by bondage, discipline (dominating and
humiliating and being dominated or humiliated), or giving and
receiving pain
These acts are done as sexual play, usually with strict rules and are not
considered paraphilic
Pedophilia
 Refers to the exploitation of prepubescent children for
an adult’s sexual purposes
 No single profile of a typical pedophile exists
 One of the most notable characteristics is that they
themselves were sexually abused as children
Non-coercive paraphilias
 These are often considered victimless,
unless you believe that the person engaging
in the behavior is victimizing himself or
herself
 These acts do not compel others to
participate against their will which is why
most authorities refer to them as victimless
and noncoercive
Sexual masochism
 Sexual arousal and gratification associated with acts or
fantasies of being hurt, humiliated, or made to suffer
 The masochist engages in the acts voluntarily and
often seeks them out
 These acts are carried out by adults with the consent of
all involved and typically are not illegal
Fetishism
 A sexual preference intensifies to the point that a person
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obsesses almost exclusively on a nonhuman object or a
body part that most members of a culture do not find sexy
Sometimes the line between a normal sexual preference
and a fetish may seem blurred
Most are not particularly harmful, it is defined as
noncoercive, but it may become a psychological or social
problem
Most common: shoes, women’s underwear, rubber or latex
objects, and feet and toes
Anything can become a sexual fetish, but the definition is
in meeting the criteria
Transvestic fetish
 Cross-dressing is not a paraphilia – it is not the same
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as transvestism
A transvestite is a man who obtains sexual gratification
by wearing female clothing
A myth about transvestites is that they are gay men
This is incorrect
Most transvestites (70 to 90 percent) are heterosexual
men – not gay, and not bisexual
Autoerotic asphyxia
 Involves depriving the brain of oxygen through
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strangulation or hanging, during masturbation
Motivation for this behavior is the belief that oxygen
deprivation enhances the arousal and orgasmic sensations
during masturbation
It is more common than most people think
It can be deadly- often fatal
The most physically and personally dangerous of all of the
paraphilias
Usually the first sign the family has that this behavior is
occurring is the discovery of the body
Vorarephilia
 Often shortened to vore
 A paraphilia wherein sexual arousal occurs in response to the idea of
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someone/something/yourself eating or being eaten by
someone/something/yourself
The fantasy sometimes involves the victim being swallowed dead or alive
and may or may not include digestion
It is most often enjoyed through pictures, stories, videos, and video games
Other examples to this are being eaten whole
Armin Meiwes was a cannibal who acted out his fantasy with a willing
victim
After reports of the "Rotenburg Cannibal" appeared in the media, websites
began appearing in which people advertised for volunteers to be eaten
This was the result of a cannibal fetish and possibly other forms of mental
illness, he was grouped in with the vore community despite objections and
general distaste from the vore community of this grouping