Read more about this disease, some with Classification – Types – Signs and symptoms – Genetics – Pathophysiology – Diagnosis – Screening – Prevention – Treatment and management – Cures and much more, some including pictures and video when available.
Paraphilia (in Greek para pa?? = besides and -philia f???a = love) refers to powerful and persistent sexual interest other than in copulatory or precopulatory behavior with phenotypically normal, consenting adult human partners.[1]
The term was coined by Wilhelm Stekel in the 1920s[2] and popularized by John Money in the 1960s. Psychologists and psychiatrists codified paraphilias as disorders in the 1980 version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). The current version of the DSM (DSM-IV-TR) describes paraphilias as conditions which “are characterized by recurrent, intense sexual urges, fantasies, or behaviors that involve unusual objects, activities, or situations and cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning,” (p. 535).[3] Sexual arousal in association with objects that were designed for sexual purposes is not DSM diagnosable (DSM, p. 570).[3] Some people diagnosed with paraphilias undergo voluntarily or involuntarily intervention to alter their behavior.
The view of paraphilias as disorders is not universal. Charles Allen Moser, a physician and advocate for sexual minorities, has argued that the diagnoses should be eliminated from diagnostic manuals.[4] Groups seeking greater understanding and acceptance of sexual diversity have lobbied for changes to the legal and medical status of unusual sexual interests and practices. Psychiatrist Glen Gabbard writes that despite efforts by Stekel and Money, “the term paraphilia remains pejorative in most circumstances.” [5]
It is important to distinguish the differences between paraphilial psychopathology and psychologically normative, adult human sexual behaviors, sexual fantasy and sex play, because these terms have historically and terminologically been used in interchangeable manners that are sometimes ambiguous and misconstrued, which can allow for cognitive and clinical diagnostic misjudgment to occur. Consensual adult activities and adult entertainment that may involve some aspects of sexual roleplay, novel, superficial or trivial aspects of sexual fetishism, or may incorporate the use of sex toys are not necessarily paraphilic.[3] The adult entertainment and adult novelty (or sex toy) industries are multi-billion dollar industries.[6][7]
It has long been argued that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) system of classification makes unjustified categorical distinctions between disorders, and between normal and abnormal. Although the DSM-V may move away from this categorical approach in some limited areas, some argue that a fully dimensional, spectrum or complaint-oriented approach would better reflect the evidence.[8][9][10][11]
There is scientific and political controversy regarding the continued inclusion of sex-related diagnoses such as the paraphilias (sexual fetishes) and female hypoactive sexual desire disorder (low female sex drive) in the DSM.[12][13] The APA’s decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM has been cited by some researchers as evidence that the APA incorrectly referred to these states of being or orientations as mental illnesses.[14][15]
It has also been argued that the design of the DSM and the expansion of the criteria represents an increasing medicalization of human nature, or “disease mongering”, driven by drug company influence on psychiatry.[16] The potential for direct conflict of interest has been raised, partly because roughly half the authors who selected and defined the DSM-IV psychiatric disorders had or previously had financial relationships with the pharmaceutical industry.[17] The president of the organisation that designs and publishes the DSM, the American Psychiatric Association, recently acknowledged that in general American psychiatry has “allowed the biopsychosocial model to become the bio-bio-bio model” and routinely accepted “kickbacks and bribes” from pharmaceutical companies.[18]
[tubepress mode=’tag’, tagValue=’Paraphilia’]