Introduction
Paraphilias are sexual behaviors that differ from the society’s norms; a paraphilia is classified as a psychological disorder when the deviant fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause the individual significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas and persist for longer than six months, or when they cause harm to others. Psychologist John Money, who has studied sexual attitudes and behaviors extensively, claims to have identified about forty such behaviors.
Types of Paraphilias
Exhibitionism
Exhibitionism
is commonly called "indecent exposure." The term refers to behavior in which an individual, usually a man, experiences recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies or urges about exposing his genitals to an involuntary observer, who is usually a female. The key point in exhibitionistic behavior is that it involves observers who are unwilling. After exposure, the exhibitionist often masturbates while fantasizing about the observer’s reaction. Exhibitionists tend to be most aroused by shock and typically flee if the observer responds by laughing or attempts to approach the exhibitionist. Most people who exhibit themselves are adolescent or young adult men. They tend to be shy, unassertive people who feel inadequate and afraid of being rejected by another person. People who make obscene telephone calls have similar characteristics to the people who engage in exhibitionism. Typically, they are sexually aroused when their observers react in a shocked manner. Many masturbate during or immediately after placing an obscene call.
Voyeurism
Voyeurism is the derivation of sexual pleasure through the repetitive seeking of or intrusive fantasies of situations that involve looking, or “peeping,” at unsuspecting people who are naked, undressing, or engaged in sexual intercourse. It may also involve secretly filming or photographing the target. Most individuals who act on these urges masturbate during the voyeuristic activity or immediately afterward in response to what they have seen. Further sexual contact with the unsuspecting stranger is rarely sought. Like exhibitionists, voyeurs are usually not physically dangerous. Most voyeurs are not attracted to nude beaches or other places where it is acceptable to look because they are most aroused when the risk of being discovered is high. Voyeurs tend to be men in their twenties and may have a high sex drive along with strong feelings of inadequacy.
Sadomasochism
Sadomasochistic
behavior encompasses both sadism and masochism; it is often abbreviated S & M. The term “sadism” is derived from the marquis de Sade, a French writer and army officer who was horribly cruel to people for his own erotic purposes. Sexual sadism involves acts in which the psychological or physical suffering of the victim, including his or her humiliation, is deemed sexually exciting. In masochism, sexual excitement is produced in a person by his or her own suffering; the preferred means of achieving gratification include verbal humiliation and being bound or whipped. The dynamics of the two behaviors are similar. Sadomasochistic behaviors have the potential to be physically dangerous, but most people involved in these behaviors participate in mild or symbolic acts with a partner they can trust. Most people who engage in S & M activities are motivated by a desire for dominance or submission rather than pain. Interestingly, many nonhuman animals participate in pain-inflicting behavior before coitus. Some researchers think that the activity heightens the biological components of sexual arousal, such as blood pressure and muscle tension. It has been suggested that any resistance between partners enhances sex, and S & M is a more extreme version of this behavior. It is also thought that S & M offers people the temporary opportunity to take on roles that are the opposite of the controlled, restrictive roles they play in everyday life. Both sexual sadism and sexual masochism are considered disorders when the fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas.
Fetishism
Fetishism is a type of sexual behavior in which a person becomes sexually aroused by focusing on an inanimate object or a part of the human body. Many people are aroused by looking at undergarments, legs, or breasts, and it is often difficult to distinguish between normal activities and fetishistic ones. It is when a person becomes focused on the objects or body parts, called "fetishes," to the point of causing significant distress or impairment that a disorder is present. Fetishists are usually men. Common fetish objects include women’s lingerie, high-heeled shoes, boots, stockings, leather, silk, and rubber goods. Common body parts involved in fetishism are hair, buttocks, breasts, and feet.
Pedophilia
The term “pedophilia” is from the Greek language and means “love of children.” It is characterized by a preference for sexual activity with prepubescent children and is engaged in primarily by men. The activity varies in intensity and ranges from stroking the child’s hair to holding the child while secretly masturbating, manipulating the child’s genitals, encouraging the child to manipulate his or her own genitals, or, sometimes, engaging in sexual intercourse. Generally, a pedophile who sexually abuses a child is related to, or an acquaintance of, the child, rather than a stranger. Studies of imprisoned pedophiles have found that the men typically had poor relationships with their parents, drank heavily, showed poor sexual adjustment, and were themselves sexually abused as children. Pedophiles tend to be older than people convicted of other sex offenses. Not all pedophiles sexually abuse children, however. For a diagnosis of pedophilia, the individual should be at least sixteen years old and at least five years older than the target child or children.
Transvestic Disorder
"Transvestism" refers to dressing in clothing of the opposite sex to obtain sexual excitement. In the majority of cases, it is men who are attracted to transvestism. Several studies show that cross-dressing occurs primarily among married heterosexuals. The man usually achieves sexual satisfaction simply by putting on the clothing, but sometimes masturbation and intercourse are engaged in while the clothing is being worn. In some cases, gender dysphoria, persistent discomfort with gender role or identity, is present along with transvestic disorder.
Frotteurism
Frotteurism encompasses fairly common fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors of a person, usually a male, obtaining sexual pleasure by pressing or rubbing against a fully clothed person, usually female, in a crowded public place. Often it involves the clothed penis rubbing against the woman’s buttocks or legs and appears accidental.
Zoophilia and Necrophilia
Zoophilia involves sexual contact between humans and animals as the repeatedly preferred method of achieving sexual excitement. In this disorder, the animal is preferred despite other available sexual outlets. Necrophilia is a rare dysfunction in which a person obtains sexual gratification by looking at or having intercourse with a corpse.
Diagnosis and Treatments
A problem in the definition and diagnosis of sexual variations is that it is difficult to draw the line between normal and abnormal behavior. Patterns of sexual behavior differ widely across history and within different cultures and communities. It is impossible to lay down the rules of normality; however, attempts are made to understand behavior that differs from the majority and to help people who find their own atypical behavior to be problematic or to be problematic in the eyes of the law.
Unlike most therapeutic techniques in use by psychologists, many of the treatments for paraphilias have historically been painful, and the degree of their effectiveness has been questionable. Supposedly, the methods were not aimed at punishing the individual, but perhaps society’s lack of tolerance toward sexual deviations can be seen in the nature of the treatments. In general, attempts to treat the paraphilias have been hindered by the lack of information available about them and their causes.
Traditional counseling and psychotherapy alone have not been very effective in modifying the behavior of paraphiliacs. Some researchers believe that the behavior might be important for the mental stability of paraphiliacs. If they did not have the paraphilia, they might experience mental deterioration. Another hypothesis is that, although people are punished by society for being sexually deviant, they are also rewarded for it. For the paraphilias that put the person at risk for arrest, the danger of arrest often becomes as arousing and rewarding as the sexual activity itself. Difficulties in treating paraphiliacs may also be related to the emotionally impoverished environments that many of them experienced throughout childhood and adolescence. Convicted sex offenders report more physical and sexual abuse as children than do the people convicted of nonsexual crimes. It is difficult to undo the years of learning involved.
Surgical castration for therapeutic purposes involves removal of the testicles. Surgical castration for sexual offenders in North America is very uncommon, but the procedure is sometimes used in northern European countries. The reason castration is used as a treatment for sex offenders is the inaccurate belief that testosterone is necessary for sexual behavior. The hormone testosterone is produced by the testicles. Unfortunately, reducing the amount of testosterone in the blood system does not always change sexual behavior. Furthermore, contrary to the myth that a sex offender has an abnormally high sex drive, many sex offenders have a low sex drive or are sexually dysfunctional.
In the same vein as surgical castration, other treatments use the administration of chemicals to decrease desire without the removal of genitalia. Estrogens have been fairly effective in reducing the sex drive, but they sometimes make the male appear feminine by increasing breast size and stimulating other female characteristics. There are also drugs that block the action of testosterone and other androgens but do not feminize the body; these drugs are called "antiandrogens." Used together with counseling, antiandrogens can benefit paraphiliacs and sex offenders, especially those who are highly motivated to overcome the problem. More research on the effects of chemicals on sexual behavior is needed; the extent of the possible side effects, for example, needs further study.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of antidepressants, and some antianxiety medications have shown promise as medical treatments. SSRIs commonly have the side effect of lowering the patient's sex drive and may also reduce compulsions as they do for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Such treatments may be best suited for nonviolent paraphiliacs who have an accompanying mood disorder or other condition.
Aversion therapy
is another technique that has been used to eliminate inappropriate sexual arousal. In aversion therapy, the behavior that is to be decreased or eliminated is paired with an aversive, or unpleasant, experience. Most approaches use pictures of the object or situation that is problematic. The pictures are then paired with something extremely unpleasant, such as an electric shock or a putrid smell, thereby reducing arousal to the problematic object or situation in the future. Aversion therapy has been found to be fairly effective but is under ethical questioning because of its drastic nature. For example, chemical aversion therapy involves the administration of a nausea- or vomit-inducing drug. Electrical aversion therapy involves the use of electric shock. An example of the use of electric shock would be to show a pedophile pictures of young children whom he finds sexually arousing and to give an electric shock immediately after showing the pictures, in an attempt to reverse the pedophile’s tendency to be sexually aroused by children. Less drastic variants such as covert sensitization, which relies on an unpleasant thought of punishment as the negative reinforcer, or masturbatory satiation, which seeks to supplant the undesired paraphilic fantasy with an acceptable alternative during masturbation, have also been developed.
Often, cognitive behavioral therapies, including harm reduction, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP), are used in conjunction with other treatments. These therapies seek to reduce, not eliminate, the problematic behavior or to help the patient identify underlying emotional conditions that trigger the thoughts or behaviors and cope with them in more acceptable ways. Other techniques have been developed to help clients learn more socially approved patterns of sexual interaction skills.
In general, the efficacy of the techniques mentioned is quite variable, depending in part on the paraphilic disorder involved and the individual's motivation. Unfortunately, most therapy is conducted while the paraphiliacs are imprisoned or in a residential treatment facility, providing a less than ideal setting, and reoffending is common among paraphiliacs who have committed criminal sexual offences.
Disturbances of Courtship Behavior
Beliefs regularly change with respect to what sexual activities are considered normal, so most therapists prefer to avoid terms such as “perversion,” instead using “paraphilia.” Basically, “paraphilia” means “love of the unusual.” Aspects of paraphilias are commonly found within the scope of normal behavior; it is when they become the prime means of gratification, replacing direct sexual contact with a consenting adult partner, that paraphilias are technically said to exist. People who show atypical sexual patterns might also have emotional problems, but it is thought that most people who participate in paraphilias also participate in normal sexual behavior with adult partners, without complete reliance on paraphilic behaviors to produce sexual excitement. Many people who are arrested for paraphilic behaviors do not resort to the paraphilia because they lack a socially acceptable sex partner. Instead, they have an unusual opportunity, a desire to experiment, or perhaps an underlying psychological problem.
According to the approach of Kurt Freund and his colleagues, some paraphilias are better understood as disturbances in the sequence of courtship behaviors. Freund has described courtship as a sequence of four steps: location and appraisal of a potential partner, interaction that does not involve touch, interaction that does involve touch, and genital contact. Most people engage in behavior that is appropriate for each of these steps, but some do not. The ones who do not can be seen as having exaggerations or distortions in one or more of the steps. For example, Freund says that voyeurism is a disorder in the first step of courtship. The voyeur does not use an acceptable means to locate a potential partner. An exhibitionist and an obscene phone caller would have a problem with the second step: They have interaction with people that occurs before the stage of touch, but the talking and the showing of exhibitionistic behaviors are not the normal courtship procedures. Frotteurism would be a disruption at the third step, because there is physical touching that is inappropriate. Finally, rape would be a deviation from the appropriate fourth step.
As a result of social and legal restrictions, reliable data on the frequency of paraphilic behaviors are limited. Most information about paraphilias comes from people who have been arrested or are in therapy. Because the majority of people who participate in paraphilias do not fall into these two categories, it is highly difficult to talk about the majority of paraphiliacs in the real world. It is known, however, that males are much more likely to engage in paraphilias than are females.
Bibliography
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