Sexual Deviance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Sexual Deviance - Essay Example Kraft-Ebbing in Psychopathia Sexualis regarded deviance as arising out of disease processes. Freud who used the term perversion discussed sexual aberrations in Three Essays on Sexuality and he used the term perversion. Sexual perversions are conditions in which sexual excitement or orgasm is associated with acts or imagery that are considered unusual within the culture. Paraphilias differ from what some people might consider "normal" sexual activity in that these behaviors cause significant distress or impairment in areas of life functioning. They do not refer to the normal use of sexual fantasy, activity or objects to heighten sexual excitement where there is no distress or impairment. We can enumerate these forms of sexual deviance here. They are: homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, sadomasochism (s-m), masturbation, fetishism, paedophilia (pedophilia), voyeurism, exhibitionism, transvestism, zoophilia and other paraphilias. There are a lot of these listed in books and encyclopedias, but we have listed some of the common ones. Paraphilias include fantasies, behaviors, and/or urges which involve human and nonhuman sexual objects, such as shoes or undergarments, some requiring suffering or humiliation of oneself or partner, and may involve children or other non-consenting partners. There are well over 40 types of paraphilias which have been identified and defined (Money, 1986). Only eight of them are listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1987), where the remainder are subsumed under, "not otherwise specified." Given the socio-cultural-religious-political climate, some paraphilias are legally considered to be sex crimes which are punishable by law. In legal codes, crimes against nature and affronts to socially acceptable sexual behavior are criminalized and are regarded as sex offenses. These crimes have included statutory rape, violent rape, child molesting, exhibitionism, voyeurism and incest. Common forms of Sexual Deviance A. Masturbation Technically, masturbation is not a deviation because it is a majority activity and its portrayal as a perversion pathologizes most of the human population from their teens onwards. It is very likely that the people who performed this characterization were pathologizing themselves. Some works, such as that by Kinsey, indicate that virtually all males masturbate during adolescence, being in the region of 95% to 98%. This is to say that among males masturbation is statistically more normal than heterosexuality. There are some revelations about so-called shared masturbatory experiences, involving two or more young males. Masturbation is less common among women, with an incidence of about 60%. Many mammals engage in self-stimulation of the