Thursday, September 01, 2005

Let's talk about sex

Yesterday in our psychiatry diadactic ("high brow" lectures) we discussed sexual paraphilias and internet porn. First off it is amazing how lectures are able to suck the life out of the most interesting topics. I did, however, learn a few things. So for non-psycho babblers sexual praphilias are essentially weird sexual practices that cause distress for the person doing it or are illegal.

Let's start by naming a few:
telephoe scatologia-obscene phone calls
partialism-aroused by one part of the body (feet,...)
coprophilia-feces is involved
Necrophilia- not just seeing dead people, actually "seeing" them
Klismaphilia-the use of enemas
Urophilia-getting urinated on (Adolph Hitler was thought to be into the Golden Shower)
Beastiality-fun with animals

The list really goes on and on.

The thing is, if this is not causing you or the person doing this with you (as long as they 're older than 18), then it is not a paraphilia. Let's take Sadism/Masichism. If you like getting spanked and your friend is into that, then not a paraphilia. On the other hand if your significant other doesn't like the swat on the bottom you just delivered, then maybe we have a problem (think Ben Stiller in that movie with Jennifer Aniston).

One thing I learned yesterday is that group sex isn't necessarily a bunch of people having sex together. Another variation of the definition apparently includes you and your buddies planning to see how many people you can bump uglies with on Friday. Then you all regroup to discuss the details on Saturday afternoon (very reminiscent of American Pie isn't it).

The other thing I learned yesterday is the statistics of internet porn. How many websites would you estimate are porn sites? 500,000? 5,000,000? 25,000,000? 100,000,000? Guess any of these and you are still undershooting it. Currently, there are approximately 140, 000, 000 porn sites on the web. This is just the sites. You have to figure that most of them require a few people to run. I mean take piccu, bratch, and I's other site sheepshape.com, it takes all of us and a few "friends". Just kidding, but seriously that is a huge number of sites.

Now let me throw a few more numbers at you. When interviewing 193 college students a study found that 15-45% of men had sadistic fantasies. What about the ladies? Well, suprisingly approximately 15-30% of girls had reported masochistic fantasy (especially rescue fantasy). It is approximately equal for men too.

Exhibitionism is another type of paraphilia that includes people having sex in public. Also, people who surprise there partners by jumping our naked fall in this group. The major "turn on" for these people is the shock other people experience in seeing them exposed. Flashing type exhibitionism accounts for approximately 1/3 of arrests for sexual offenses in the English-speaking world.

Some of you may say that this is interesting but what's the point. The point is this: studies have shown that exhibitionism and frotteurism (going into public crowds and rubbing genitals on strangers) are just a step in the process of expanding to other criminal acts. Voyeurism (watching people have sex or undress without their knowledge) is the same way. It starts out watching but becomes hands on and leads to rape in some cases.

Pedophilia is a final thought. It is a huge problem for obvious reasons. The questions becomes what to do with them. You can't lock all of them up for life (though many say we should) because the cost is too great. I'm sure many of you can come up with "creative" ways to deal with these people. The legal system isn't there yet. A few parting thoughts on pedophiles is this. They "groom" their targets. Meaning they don't find a victim to make attempts on the next day. They work over weeks or months building a relationship earning the trust of the victims and sometimes the victim's family. The internet is another tool for these predators in chat rooms. They also often don't look like the monsters you would expect them to look like. Be aware that they are around in small towns, big cities, and everywhere between.

2 comments:

BRATCH said...

First the hurricane and now you're telling us we have pedophiles running around everywhere.

If you aren't just a big ray of sunshine.

Anonymous said...

Frotteurism you say. Well at least now I have a name for it.


Just kidding.