Would you tell us what the term paraphilia means and what is a paraphilia?
Dr. Park Dietz: ‘’The term paraphilia comes from Greek roots and was reintroduced in 1980 as a means of getting away from the term sexual deviation that had been used before that time, and the Greek Roots refer to the idea that what a person with a paraphilia is sexually attracted to is something alongside the normal, other than the normal area of sexual interest and each of the paraphilias, for which we have a name, refers to a more or less common form, that unusual sexual interests may take. Now, the fact is that anything or just about anything can become sexually attractive to an individual and all manner of unusual, even bizarre sexual interests are observed, but only some of them happen often enough that it’s been useful to develop a particular name for that kind of sexual attraction. There’s a recognition among people who work in this area that the names that happen to be mentioned in the book are not quite sufficient, because there are so many other kinds of sexual interests that can occur and become a particular preference or interest of an individual and so to accommodate those other ones that aren’t specifically named or listed there is a heading, referring to paraphilias, not otherwise specified and it’s possible to identify a very long list of kinds of paraphilias that exist, but the word means no more than what we used to mean by sexual deviation. In other words, it is a pattern of an enduring sexual interest in a particular kind of unusual image. It’s considered that the ordinary or usual sexual image that someone finds erotic is an adult human being who is alive and when individuals find something else sexually exciting and persist in that pattern of sexual excitement for long enough, we happen to use six months as an arbitrary cutoff point, then we label that a paraphilia. There was one political issue that came up during the dsm-3r discussions about which there’s some disagreement and that is whether one should call a particular interest of paraphilia the person never acts on it, and the way the debate was resolved was to say that we will only agree on using the term paraphilia for the purposes for which dsm was devised: when an individual has strong sexual urges toward a particular unusual kind of activity and either is bothered by those urges or acts on them, or both. So if a person has such urges, doesn’t mind having them and doesn’t act on them – it’s technically not a paraphilia. I was in the minority on that particular vote because I think if someone fantasizes torturing a woman every time he has sex with his wife, it’s a paraphilia even if it doesn’t bother him, but my colleagues outvoted me and think that it shouldn’t be given a label, unless it bothers him or he acts on it. So a paraphilia is wanting to do some unusual sexual behavior repeatedly over at least six months and either being bothered by one’s desires or acting on them.’’
Can you list some of the more commonly known and recognized paraphilias?
Dr. Park Dietz: ‘’Well some of the more familiar ones are exhibitionism in other words individuals who have the desire to expose themselves to unsuspecting strangers. If they repeatedly for more than six months have such desires and are either bothered by that, or act on it, then that’s the diagnosis of exhibitionism. A kind of paraphilia, if an individual likewise has the interest in peeping into people’s windows and watching strangers undress, or have sex and is bothered by that, or does it for long enough, then that’s the paraphilia of voyeurism. If an individual likes to make obscene phone calls and is bothered by that, or does it for long enough, that’s the paraphilia of telephone scatologia. If an individual wishes to rub up against unsuspecting strangers, as men are known to do in subways in New York and crowded elevators everywhere, then that is, if he does it, or is bothered by the desire, the paraphilia of frattourism. If one wishes to have sexual contact with a corpse and is either bothered by the idea, or does it, that’s the paraphilia of necrophilia. If an individual wants to have sexual activity with children under 12 and either does it, or is bothered by the urge, that’s the paraphilia of pedophilia. All of those, I think, are described specifically and are mentioned at least mentioned by name and dsm, but that doesn’t even begin to cover the turf, because there are so many unusual things that people from time to time find sexually exciting. Fetishism is another one that’s described there, in which an individual has a specific sexual interest in some kind of inanimate object or material, such as latex or leather garments or high-heeled shoes or some kind of underwear. If someone wishes their partners to use such things or likes to masturbate while fondling such materials or things, and they’re either bothered by that or, act on it that’s the paraphilia of fetishism and all the paraphilias are the same in being nothing more than what it is someone wishes to do, technically. We only give the label if they wish to do it long enough and if they’re bothered by the wish or, if they do it, but it’s nothing more than what they have an urge to do.’’
This is essentially a sexual urge?
Dr. Park Dietz: ‘’To put it another way, I mean a more scientific way, to make the diagnosis, really would be to look at what gives men an erection and that’s how in a research laboratory one studies paraphilias, by seeing what stimuli will produce erection in the man and if men regularly can become erect to a particular kind of unusual image, then that is what scientifically we mean by a paraphilia, so it has to do with what is a turn on. Now, if it’s a normal kind of image that the culture accepts, then we don’t call it a paraphilia. So in the United States no one would call it a paraphilia for men to be attracted to the kinds of women portrayed in Playboy, because many men will respond to that image with an erection, but if they’re responding in the same way to a picture of someone who is bound and chained that would be called a paraphilia, because that’s not an acceptable image in our culture. So you can see that, to some extent, it’s what’s accepted by the culture and society that determines which interests become labeled paraphilias and and which do not.’’
Then the term paraphilia relates really to what excites the person sexually, it does not, as such, apply to the strength of the sexual drive. Would that be accurate?
Dr. Park Dietz: ‘’That’s very accurate. The strength of sex drive is something altogether different from what it is one wishes to do. An individual can have pedophilia that is the attraction to children and yet have a low sex drive and only be motivated to have sex with a child once every six or eight months and not to be particularly motivated the rest of the time, or an individual can have a high sex drive and also be pedophilic and want to have sex with a child many times a day – strength of the drive is separate from whether they have the paraphilia or not and people have a lot of variation in the strength of their sex drive.‘’
Do some persons have more than one paraphilia at the same time?
Dr. Park Dietz: ‘’Yes, it’s quite common for individuals to have multiple paraphilias simultaneously. That’s partly a byproduct of the way we classify the paraphilias. We’ve broken the more common forms down into clusters that we’ve given names and because of the way we’ve named them someone who likes to expose himself and make obscene phone calls would have be given two paraphilias, but we could have named it differently we could have said that we’ll call a particular paraphilia of courtship, a courtship disorder, if someone goes about interrupted courting rituals and either just exposes himself, or makes phone calls, or just touches people, or rubs against them. Those are all examples of tidbits of normal courting behavior, because in a normal courtship one would look at people and call them on the phone and there’d come a time that they would touch and and perhaps rub and see each other naked but in the paraphiles there may be just a piece of that, that they’re particularly interested in and we’ve broken it down with these different names. But it’s very common to have multiple paraphilias and one line of research indicates that on the average someone who has one paraphilia is likely to have two to three paraphilias.’’
How do persons who have the paraphilias adapt to the paraphilia?
Dr. Park Dietz: ‘’Well, there are a variety of adaptations possible to those who are going to live with these urges and and not make any effort to change them. Those who choose to live with the disorders can adapt lawfully or quasi-lawfully or unlawfully. At the lawful end of the scale, the paraphile may confine himself completely to fantasy, so that when he is masturbating he fantasizes about his unusual interest; when he is having sex with an adult partner he fantasizes about his particular interest and of course, there’s nothing illegal about that. And he’s able to achieve an orgasm by fantasizing his favorite activity, even if he’s engaging in sex with a partner who doesn’t quite fill the bill for what he’d most like to be doing because the fantasy in his mind allows him to have all the excitement necessary to achieve orgasm and so he’s relieved the biological urge, or he’s relieved his sex drive in another way that people lawfully adapt, is to find a partner who is willing to simulate whatever the unusual desired activity is and who by agreement will wear particular kinds of clothing or perform particular kinds of acts, or pretend to be something they are not in order to fulfill the partner and that too is perfectly legal, so for example, men with necrophilia may merely fantasize about corpses while they masturbate or fantasize about corpses while having sex with a live partner or they may find a consenting partner who will simulate death and so this accounts, for men who from time to time will ask their wives to take a cold bath before having sex and with their eyes closed, that simulates a death-like condition and some wives will gratify their husbands’ fantasies and desires that way, which is lawful, one of the lawful adaptations of a necrophile. In addition to those, there are some things that begin to skirt some legalities such as making use of pornography or illegal obscenity or pornography to fulfill the fantasy by looking at pictures of whatever it is, that is stimulating an unusual, or by finding a paid partner who performs either prostitution services of an unusual kind, or else, some simulation for example in in West Hollywood there are, or at least there were when I went out with the vice squad and toured these places, at least half a dozen specialized bondage and domination parlors where for a fee, a man can have a partner who will simulate being a sexual Master, will chain the client and spank him or whip him or beat him or on demand will play the role of a slave and allow the client to restrain and spank and otherwise abuse the person who works there. Some such places engage in outright prostitution and so explicitly sexual services; others don’t. Some prostitutes cater specifically to clients with these unusual tastes and through those means using pornography or these services or prostitutes many paraphilic individuals can gratify their sexual drives actually, engage in some of the sorts of things that they fantasize as most arousing, or have particularly high quality photographs, or images of what they like best and can fulfill their sexual drives and gratify themselves in those ways. And then there are those of course, who adapt unlawfully and to act on their paraphilic desires by committing crimes or commit crimes in order to be able to fulfill the paraphilic desire, so for example, there are fetishists who like a particular kind of underwear who will lawfully purchase it at a store, or quasi-lawfully purchase it by mail soiled from somebody in the business of selling soiled underwear, but there are also others who will commit the crime and shoplift underwear, or steal it from the laundromat, or steal it from a clothesline, or even burglarize a house to go through an underwear, drawer and steal underwear from a victim. Those are all varying ways that someone with that fetish can adapt to the desire, but only some people commit the crimes to fulfill their sexual urges.’’
There’s some paraphiles who never act out their paraphilia?
‘’Probably most paraphiles never act on their paraphilias in any criminal way.’’
In terms of the person who wants to stop involvement in the paraphilia. Would you respond to what that person can do looking first to the fantasy aspect and then to the activity aspect the acting out aspect?
Dr. Park Dietz: ‘’Well, the paraphile who chooses not to commit a crime, need not to commit a crime. He is as free as any other human being to choose whether to commit a crime to gratify his wishes or to not commit a crime to gratify his wishes, just as an individual who would like to have money fasts and lots is in our society free to choose to commit a crime to get that money, or go about it the hard way and earn it. An individual who would like a particular kind of sex soon and a lot is free to commit a crime to gratify that desire or to choose not to commit the crime but gratify the desire in these other lawful or quasi-lawful ways. The choice is exactly the same. The freedom to make it is the same The paraphilia provides no more than the motive for what a person would like to do – it does not determine whether the person does it. It does not impair an individual’s appreciation of wrongfulness, nor does it compare and individual’s capacity to conform conduct. It only determines what it is one wishes to do. Now, some paraphiles do commit crimes to gratify their desires and when one looks at the peripherals who commit crimes to gratify themselves, they are different in certain ways from the peripherals who don’t, just as people who want money and commit crimes to get it differ from people who want money and don’t commit crimes to get it, and it turns out that the differences are basically the same. The people who commit crimes to get what they want either have something wrong with their personality: their character, so that they are not inhibited from the crime, because they don’t have the strength of character, they don’t have the principles, the morality. The usual things that keep people from committing crimes; difference is that people who abuse substances much more often commit crimes to gratify their desires than people who don’t. One finds that paraphilic criminals are much more often personality disordered, alcoholic or drug abusers then paraphilic non-criminals, just as robbers are much more often personality disordered or alcoholic or drug abusers then other people who’d like money but don’t rob.’’
Oct 22, 2022 #JeffreyDahmer #CourtTV #OnDemand
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