Paraphilia Research Paper

Jessica Rhodes
Should all paraphilias be considered disorders;
I compare the transcending of parahilias from harmless to harmful with drug use. For drugs, marijuana can be a gateway drug as it opens up the social network of people that use it, which then eventually opens up the possibility of a new drug being passed around your new circle of friends and eventually to you. Along with the drug will come the behaviors to match. As people try new things, sometimes they aren’t satisfied for long and continue to chase the excitement of pushing the boundaries for themselves. As a fetish I can see how people are thrilled by these things. What happens when they become bored with their present thrills and look to find new things that make them as excited or more the ones before? They are adding people to their social network with like interests and most likely some of these people will be
much more experienced and have new ideas to push their boundaries.
I can see how this could lead to unsafe practices or putting people in situations outside of their comfort level. As our text explains the behavioral account of the development of paraphilias, after a person pairs masturbation with inappropriate sexual fantasies repeatedly, they then extend the frequency and intensity. Naturally, if the person is feeling good about what they are doing they will repeat it. The intensity increase can account for the need to add to what they are doing. What may have been exciting and shocking before, is dull and boring at the present so they need to come up with something new. I was astounded by the statistics in our lecture notes regarding people who using the internet for sexual entertainment and was surprised to see that there was no percentage for those who were just curious or began with curiosity. I was also surprised that over 50% of the men were in committed relationships. I wonder if the relationship was lacking something for them or if they would
be engaging in online sexual behavior regardless of their relationship.
To imagine some of these parahilias as being considered normal to society is difficult for me but then again, some of the things that we consider normal were at one point in our history unheard of or unacceptable. For example; women wearing pants, smoking, piercings, divorce, and having children out of wedlock were not considered normal depending on the culture and decade. As we move into a new wave of generations who have had their fill of pushing their own shock valued activities as well as becoming less sensitive to the activities of others . While we watch an increasing amount reality television shows and news media that allows us to see the many different kinds of people in this world, we are seemingly less judging, more accepting and also feel less pressure to be ourselves, whatever that may be. To consider these lifestyle choices as disorders, I think it must meet specific criteria that leads into effecting the person’s ability to function in daily life activities or hurts or interferes with someone else.