What are paraphilias?

Y s K live dot com. You'll get tickets in info there and you will be very happy that you did. So see you guys in October. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's guest producer Lowell. I didn't say Noel, everybody said Lowell. He's the first timer and here to party. Is that why he has the beer bong, which we didn't even call beer bongs. We just called

it funneling beer. Yeah? Yeah, oh, is that a beer bong? I didn't realize they are one and the same. I think so, it's just it must be regional. I just thought like the crazy college kids would come up with something, some new thing that was a beer bong that was different than a funnel. But okay, you know the good old days where you did kig stands and beer bongs, and you know, I think I did one of echo those in my entire college career. Was like, no, these

aren't that great. I never did a kig stand. They're really hard. I don't understand them at all. They don't make any sense whatsoever. Well, I think the idea is you're upside down, right, but you're drinking. You know, the beer is going in the opposite direction. Is you're standing all right? I mean, I'm not sure the effect is supposed to have. I'm sure if there's a head rush involved, I don't know how I thought it was dumb. It would make way more sense to do one of these

beer bongs and then do a handstand really quick. Yeah, I mean, enough funnel de beer too in my day, but that wasn't really my bag either. Just drinking like a normal human being. Yeah, yeah, you know, me as a freshman in college, shutting back with my brandy snifter

then you're smoking jacket's right slippers? Well, obviously, Chuck, since I said smoking jacket and slippers, we're talking today about paraphilias, which could be the case if the smoking jacket and slippers were the was the only way that you could achieve erection and completion. What do you mean completion like you know, ejaculation. Oh, I got you. Completion. That's like such a great way to put it. Man, it's so like so crisp and sterile. Is it too late to

issue our c o A. Yes, it is away. Yeah, I mean I figured since this is about paraphilias, unless you don't know what that is, then you probably don't have your kids listening already. But you know, we're gonna be talking a lot about stuff like knowl and completion and completion, abnormal sexuality. Yeah, which that you might as well that the can of worms has been opened because you said the word abnormal. Yeah, I mean that's what

paraphilia means. Like para, the prefix means beside, but really in the usage, especially with with psychology, para means like abnormal, not normal um. And then philia means love, so it's abnormal love, which is kind of a funny way to put it, but it's a lot better than the way they used to put it, which is like deviants, sodomy, perversion. Yeah, so it's actually a huge, massive step forward to call

it paraphilia. I actually found a couple of quick, quickie definitions that don't even use the word abnormal that I felt kind of nailed it a little better. One is psychology today says a condition and which a person's sexual arousal and gratification depend on fantasizing about and engaging engaging in sexual behaviors that are atypical and extreme. And then the other one says, you become sexually aroused by an

object your activity that most people don't consider sexually stimulating. Okay, yeah, that's more interesting. That makes a lot of sense. That second one, my favorite one, is not hurting yourself for anybody else, Just go with it. That's that's a definition that I can get behind, right, And that will also bring up the distinction which we're going to be focusing a lot of this on, between a paria, a paraphilia,

and a paraphilic disorder. Yeah, because the whole point of studying paraphilias is not to be like, well, look at this weirdo. Let's let's poke him and see what comes out,

see what brings him to completion? You know. Um, it's instead to help people who are are distressed by the fact that they have an a typical um object or desire of sexual arousal, right like that that they are there, there's some sort of compulsion that they can't um disregard, and it's causing them to stress in their lives, or it's harming their lives in some way or and this one's even more important that there there are paraphilias that

involve other people that are not consenting. That's a big, big problem too. It's big enough problem when it's affecting your own life, but when it involves somebody else who does not want to be involved in your paraphilia, then it's a big problem, and the courts frequently become involved. Yeah, so this is mainly an overview, so we're not going to get too much into specific paraphilias. Although tell me you didn't have a bunch of ideas for further episodes.

I'm so glad you said that, But also, did you hear like a million people just go oh, but let's can I read through some of these real qu though at least, yeah, let's do that. So common paraphilia is Voyeurism is one. I think we all know what that is, sure, the peeping tom uh this is listed, which kind of I don't know. I didn't know what was gonna be on here. Transvestism, yeah, cross stressing is a better way to put that, which is well, we'll talk a little

more about that one later because it's a good example. Exhibitionism, yes, which can be just you know, um, if you like acting in porno films, you could be an exhibitionist and it could be very fulfilling or more frequently, from what I understand, you can expose your genitalia expecting person. Yeah, and a parking lot. And the thing that I read about exhibitionism and males what we commonly call like flashers.

They're not. They don't get gratification from the other person, be like, oh hey, ten out of ten, you know, or let's go something like that. They get their gratification. This is the whole point of their exhibitionism is from the shock, from the surprise that they elicit from the other person when they suddenly expose their genitalius. Are you surprised by that. Yes, I was actually really did you think it was like a legit? Come on, I guess

I always did. Now that I think about it, it is a little ridiculous, But it never occurred to me that that is what they were going for? Was that shock or surprise, which, yeah, which makes the whole non consenting thing even worse, you know, yeah, for sure. Uh So fetishism. And this is interesting because I think a lot of people think a fetish is just any you know, a typical sexual desire. But a fetish specifically is a non living object like a shoe, like a high heel shoe,

or something that excites you sexually. Whereas if you say, like, oh, I've got a foot fetish, that's actually called partialism. Yes, that's right, And it could it could be a foot fetish, it could be a breast fetish, it could be a butt fetish whatever. But I think with partialism, it's specifically part of the human body, right right, Okay, But the other stuff, it's like a non human object, like you said, a shoe or something you know, oh, I don't know,

like a nice candlestand or smoking jacket and slippers. That's right. A candlestand what are they called a candlestick? Candlestick? But what used to murder people? I forgot the candlestick. Uh. There is fraderism. That is when you know subway creeps rubbing up against your non consenting obviously again yes, non consenting. Uh. There is S and M so sexual sadism and sexual masochism. So do you know the difference. I'm sure you do. Sure. Masochism is self harm, self abuse, or or enjoying being

abused or humiliated. Masochism is or sadism is inflicting out on somebody else. Correct, You're doing really well, Thank you. We should turn this into an internet quiz. Uh. Pedophilia, which everyone knows what that is rible. It is terrible, and there's there's a lot more to unpack with that. So much so I think that that one deserves its own episode, Oh for sure. Uh. And those are the most common. Less common are somnophilia, that is, fondling a

person who is a sleeper unconscious. I would guess that's also unconsenting to. Uh. Yeah, I wonder, although imagine you could act that out in a consenting way. I wonder, well, yeah, and I wonder if also that's it like an introductory level beginner's class for necrophilia, because like the lightest form of necrophilia is the other person pretending they're dead. Al right, So necrophilia one on one, that's another one that deserves its own episode. Yeah for sure, Um, and I know

which other one you're gonna pick? Two? Uh, there's telephone scatalogia, yes, prank calls, but obscene variety like Philip Seymour Hoffman and happiness, right, not the pursuit of happiness. Different altogether, really different, like the opposite of each other. Uh. There's copperophilia, you know, that's um an obsession with poop, maybe being pooped on, sure, just poop in general turns you on eurrophilia, that's obvious, right, And then zoophilia, yes, man, which is you might think like, wow,

that's that's gross. The person is engaging in acts of best reality. That's the new name for best reality is zoophilia. But one thing that a lot of people overlook UM, or at least I did until I saw the documentary Zoo, was that it's a It also involves non consenting um partners or other people, but not a person, an animal. The animal can't consent to that. Um, And so there's it's a basically a form of rape, but it's animal rape. Yeah.

I never saw that documentary. Man, I know it's been many years you've been you've been wearing that T shirt every day. Yeah, the I heart Zoo, Yeah I want Zoo. And all I got was this lousy teacher. Right. But it's like I want to recommend it, but at the same time, I also want to be like stay away, you know, like you're you're going to change in some ways, some of which you might not be fully okay with,

you know. So it's a tough one. But as far as documentary filmmaking goes, it's about as close to a masterpieces there is sold. Although it did get a lot of flak chuck for um, a lot of recreation. If I remember correctly, I think the whole thing might have been voiceover and recreations. How like specific do they get with those recreas? Very like, um, like it's just slightly out of focus kind of stuff. Interesting. Yeah, all right, now they think about it, I'm not sure how they

did that. So the important thing to remember about these paraphilias and this is, um, we're not talking about the disorder part. But it's important to what language people use, because for many, many years, and still in many circles, um, things like homosexuality have even been considered you know, a perversion.

So things have evolved over time, but depending on who you are and where you are in the country, even and what your political affiliation might be, there still might be a lot of um damning language us for what some people consider consider immoral. Yeah, and like you kind of hit it on the head, um, homosexuality was considered a disorder until that, I think late seventies as far as the psychology community was was concerned. And things change, but it all basically boils down to morality so much

so that it's like, you know, the law. The fact that there have been laws against certain sexual acts and that those have changed and evolve over time really kind of underscores this idea that you know, society says, this is not okay because we think it's weird, um, or this is not okay because you're harming somebody else, um.

But but the fact that it changes or evolves really kind of shows that that in a lot of circumstances, especially when it comes to the kind of paraphilia where you're just involving yourself and you're you're not harmed by it in any way, it's not causing distress. That there's really little reason whatsoever for anybody to be um legislating or moralizing about that because it doesn't really have anything to do with anybody else, right, so they're for sure

legal acts are illegal acts. And thus I guess legal acts in terms of paraphilia. Uh, there are problematic behaviors too, and that is um, like you mentioned, I don't know if you mentioned masturbation. I didn't because I don't know that. I mean, I'm sure there is a paraphilia where all you want to do is masturbate, but that seems more like, um, I don't know, it just doesn't seem like a paraphiles me.

I could be wrong, though. Well. The whole idea of problematic though, is like if you're so consumed by masturbation that you can't, like you can't go to work, or you leave work so often that you miss meetings, and you know, Basically, I think the point is what could be a harmless behavior can be problematic if it's all consuming and like affects your job or your home life or your social life right or there, or it's like causing you to be arrested so you miss work the

next day. There's this guy who, um, there's actually multiple people, but one man was arrested. Um. I guess making love to a car is how you would put it, which is mchennophilia mechanophilia. Interesting. Um. And there's another guy who claims to have made love to over a thousand cars in his lifetime, and as far as I know, he's never been arrested, and he seems to be totally great with the idea. He said that his peak sexual experience was a wolf. I was gonna say with like a

fifty seven Chevy. No, he has, he has, I don't know how else to put it. Made love to Herbie before Herbie the Beatle, like the real thing, or he had it recreated as far as I know, the real thing. But air Wolf, Chuck, air Wolf, he got with air Wolf. That the plane, the helicopter, the helicopter Okay, I couldn't remember, Yeah,

the jam Michael Vincent helicopter from the TV show. But this guy, that guy, he seems to be totally fine with it because he, you know, submits to interviews and poses for photos that show up in the paper from time to time. But I don't think he's ever been arrested, so his would just be a paraphelia the guy who got arrested. His would be a paraphilic disorder as far

as the D S M. Five is concerned. But it sounds to me like this guy just didn't get caught because you can't make love to air Wolf and Herbie legally. I guess you can't, You're right, because it got to be in like a museum or something. Right, he's dancing along the line unless he has a lot of money and he's like, hey, I'll pay you, you know, a thousand dollars to look the other way while I get an hour with air Wolf, or he's the night watchman

at the Hollywood Car and Air Space Museum. But even that that would be technically illegal, or at least he could get fired for that, So that would be a paraphilic disorder. Then this is all very interesting stuff, it really is. But also I want to point this out, like if you're starting to feel a little bit confused and it sounds like we're just kind of throwing stuff at the wall, welcome to the world of studying paraphilias

from in the field of psychology. Yeah, absolutely right. Should we take a break, Yeah, all right, let's do that and we'll come back and uh never talk about air wolf again. Okay, So we're back and we're more confused than ever I thought we started out. Really well, just send it into genuine confusion, that's right, which is very easy to do because, like we said from the get go, the definitions change so often in what is acceptable or

not acceptable, and immoral or not immoral. It is all a matter of opinion, So it's kind of hard to dive into this stuff. It really is so um there. That's why, over time the definition of paraphilia is kind of expanded and contracted. UM. And the ones that tend to be called out in the d s M, which we'll get to in a minute, some of them make total sense, like pedophilia being in there. That's like something

that that psychology should take a keen interest in addressing. Um. Other ones don't make any sense, like transvestism um, cross dressing, where like if you are into wearing women's clothes and you're a man, and that is how you achieve sexual arousal. There's no problem with that, and it shouldn't it shouldn't be psychologized. But then the field of psychology would say, well, whoa, whoa.

There are people who are into cross stressing and they can achieve sexual arousal without it, but they find this very distressing. It's it's um running up against society's expectations of what it means to be a man. They are having trouble rectifying that. So we need to play that

role too. So over time, as we were saying, paraphelia's have been distinguished, most recently, I think in two thirteen with the d s M five between just an atypical sexual interest in an atypical sexual interest that causes distress in the person or involves non consenting people. That's right. Uh. But over the years, a lot of these terms have

changed in their meaning. Up until geez, up until century three, people are using words like sodomite or sodomizer, even though it sounds like something from the Bible, which it is. Um and anti sodomy laws were on the books until Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court said that these laws are not constitutional. Um. That was an interesting case. There was a weapon's disturbance reported at a private residence. Houston police

were called. They entered the apartment of John Lawrence and saw him with another adult man engaging in a private and consexual con sexual Well, you just killed two birds right there. That's right, consentual sex act. And they were arrested, uh for deviant sexual intercourse and violation of Texas statute that said basically, two people of the same sex can

engage in a certain intimate sexual conduct. It was held up by the state Court of Appeals, but then eventually overturned six three by the U. S. Supreme Court, and that was they were arrested in two thousand and the Supreme Court ruled in two thousand three. And when they ruled in two thousand three against Texas, they said, youth thirteen other states that have sodomy books laws on the books,

they're they're null and void. Now you just cannot You cannot outlaw people's consensual sexual behavior in the privacy of their own homes. You just can't do it. Well, yeah, but the way they did it was they said it violates their due process clause, the due process clause of the Constitution. Oh, how so, Well, I mean, if they're behind closed doors in private, engaging in a practice, um, then to arrest them for doing something is a violation of their due process. Like you know what I mean,

I I don't. To me, it's more just like it kind of follows in that great American tradition of if you're not hurting yourself or other people, what you do behind your own your own closed doors is fine with everybody else, we'll just look the other way. Well, that is true, but they have to frame it, I think under the guise of the Constitution. Yeah, but I just don't see how that how that has to do with

do proces this? Because the due process being like you are, you're you have the right to be defended by a competent attorney and in a court of law in front of a jury of your peers. I don't know. I mean, Anthony Kennedy wrote, their right to liberty under the due process clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. Well, I mean, I agree with Kennedy, I just don't quite understand where

he's coming from. No, I hear you. Maybe one of our wonderful listeners will write in and say I'm a constitutional law professor, and here's what he meant. Maybe so, so it's a big deal. Like you were saying that we started calling paraphilias paraphiles rather than sodomy laws because it's it's it's basically psychology saying thanks a lot for

for this religion. We're going to take the reins from here and we're going to take it out of you know, the realm of just religious moralization and put it into scientific study. And that was a big, big transition. Um. We said earlier that that laws against certain sexual acts have been on the books for thousands of years now. Some of the earliest they found were from um A thousand b c. Three thousand years ago in Assyria, the Roman republic Um. And that was just kind of how

it stood. The Bible legislated against things like b clity, homosexuality, adultery. There was there's just always been kind of moral codes and consequences that society said, if you break this moral code as far as sex is concerned, we're going to bury you up to your neck and stone you to

death or something like that. Right, But then in the twentieth century, I think slightly before the twentieth century as psychology started develop one of the first things that said is like, this is right up our alley, We're gonna take this over. And in nineteen o four in Austrian scientists named Friedrich Solomon Krauss uh coined the term paraphilias and it started to kind of transition into the scientific study. Yeah, and there's another guy named John on Money or Money.

I want to say money, because if he's a sexologist named John Money that it doesn't get any better than that. Uh. And apparently he's he's a really prominent researcher of paraphilia and he kind of brought it into the forefront as far as using that word. Yeah, And I mean, just because you know, Friedrich Solomon Krauss coined it in nineteen o four doesn't mean that psychology adopted it. And it wasn't until nineteen eighty that the d s M started

using paraphilia in place of sexual deviance night. Yeah, so they've got at catching up to do, and what they're involved in right now is trying to figure out what the heck is going on and exactly where the boundaries are between what they're supposed to be studying and what they what's none of their business really. Yeah, And there's a couple of um, a couple of psychological manuals that are often looked to. And we talked a lot about on the show about the d s M, the Diagnostic

and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. We haven't talked as much about the International Statistical Classification of Diseases. There's a good reason for that, chuck, because neither one of us knew it existed. I didn't know it existed. And apparently here in the States, people default to the d s M a lot, which is why we you know, know

more much more about it obviously. Uh. The i c D is published by the WHO, the World Health Organization UM, but they use uh, they don't offer a definition, even a blanket definition of paraphilia. So the d s M is sort of the default. And it's it's important that it's uh that it's used, because the d s M

is used. I mean, this can determine whether or not you get custody of your kids or like they're real world, real world ramifications for sure, for um, having a paraphilia and and do you say having a paraphilia or engaging in paraphilic acts. Probably both. But it's you know, it's not just like we want to label people like there

are consequences whether illegal or not illegal. You know, someone could go into divorce court and say, you know what, my husband, um can only achieve orgasm in a in a high heel stiletto heal, and a judge might think that's perverse and deny custody. Right. Yeah, so that I mean that's a big deal because if you if you think about it, like psychology isn't getting together and saying we're going to create this book that outlines what's normal and acceptable for human beings, and you guys go use

it to throw somebody in jail. That's not the point. They're doing it to try to help people who need help, right, But they that doesn't mean that other people aren't coming along and figuring out how to use that to put other people in jail or gain custody of their children. I mean, there's really no faster way to undermine someone's credibility or just cast aspersions on them. Um is it

aspersions or dispersions? Dispersions? I think cast dispersions on them then to frame them as a sex pervert in court when you're talking about custody of children. Right, that's it.

So psychology has figured out, or psychiatry has figured out in the last few years, like it just doesn't operate in a vacuum, and it has to really pay attention to what it publishes in this Bible of normalcy that is the d s M. And they're getting better at it, but they still have a long ways to go, but at least they're awake to this idea that no, no, no,

this stuff we say is normal. We have to we have to we have to word it just so because if we do it wrong, people are going to go to prison for a very long time, especially when they might not should be in prison necessarily. Yeah, especially when they use words like unusual and bizarre in official definitions because that's so subjective. Um. And again it's it's not a legal manual, so it's it's very tricky territory. But

the words are really really important. So they started out they were um, I think in the first d s M, paraphelia was called sexual deviance and the definition was just forget about it, and then it evolved all they got better from there until the d s M three, where they said that a paraphilia. Um said that bizarre imagery or acts were necessary for sexual excitement, and that these

imagery and acts were persistent, involuntary, repetitive, and involved. And this is this is a big deal because what's just gone is um kind of the persistence or the intensity of it. And then now they're kind of getting into the meat of what makes a paraphila paraphilia It involves a preference for the use of a non human object, repetitive repetitive sexual activity with humans involving real or stimulated suffering or humiliation, or repetitive sexual activity with non consending partners.

Subway creeps, right or um, you know pedophiles or um, yeah, f subway creeps. So do you've you've you've They really kind of hit it on the head. I think with the D s M three are if you ask me, like they said, here are some things that are you know, we consider atypical, and that some and that here's how they can be problematic. Yeah, I think calling it unusual and bizarre was sort of the problem with n D s M three, right, um, And is that not in

four and five? So four definitely had a different definition that we're still talking about Led Zeppelin albums. Yeah, exactly that one, said Zoe. So um it said recurrent intense, sexually arousing fantasies, sexual or just or behaviors generally involving non human objects, the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one's partner. And so there's a real preoccupation with b DSM among psychiatrists. Don't ever let a psychiatrist tell you otherwise,

because they're lying to your face. And then the third one is children or other non consenting persons that occur over a period of at least six months. So they dropped unusual and bizarre. Then they did which rightfully. So they also called out children specifically, I think, um kind to add a little bit of legality to the whole thing and to kind of say like, this is a separate, special case, you know, this is beyond just non consenting. And then they added that it has to persist for

at least six months. Yeah, that's interesting, because up to six months it's just a bad, a bad streak you're on. I guess so um I did everywhere I look though in other places too, outside the d s M. I did see where these um uh predilections is that the right word are basically permanent, so it's not like it changes. So if you've got a thing for the high heel shoe, uh, you're probably always going to have a thing for the

high heel shoe. And in the same way, if you have a thing for children, you're probably always going to have a thing for children, which is a big problem. And I was joking by the way that there's a you know, anything up to six months is just a bad streak, especially when you're involved with uh, if you

have a paraphilia that involves a non consenting person. Yeah, but I wonder why they said that for six months, I mean just a I don't know, it seems like it that may maybe should just be for any amount of time. Yeah, I think I think they are. I think they're kind of moving into the right direction. Where So in the d s M five it's unclear whether the d s M five actually changed the definition or not.

This article says that it stayed the same. But what they did was they separated them out and said, Okay, look, we recognize that there are they're a typical sexual um proclivities that don't harm anybody. They're just not typical, you know, like not everybody um has a thing for women's high heeled shoe or the tail pipe of air Wolf for something.

You know, like not everyone does. But as long as you're not harming anybody, and it's not having a negative effect on your life and you're not distressed by it, if you're out there living your best life, you know, wearing women's high heeled shoes around your house and just loving every minute of it, like, go with God, that's great. You know, there's that's fine. That's that's that's different. We're

just going to call it a paraphilia. Paraphilic disorder is where it does cause the stress or it does involve somebody else who doesn't want to be involved. And now now this is what we should be paying attention to. And then so people say, okay, that's great psychology, you're going in the right direction here, but just get paraphilias out of there entirely, like, just just don't even include those, because what they warn against is the fact that it's

in this d s M, this Bible of normalcy. The very fact that it's in there suggests that there's something weird about it and abnormal about it. Psychia psychiatry said as much by including it, it's like a mental disorder

of some kind. Right, and so even if you don't fit the criteria for a disorder diagnosis a paraphilic disorder, if you say where women choose around, even if you're enjoying it, you still are in the the the Bible of normalcy called out as a weirdo, and then that kind of thing can be used against you in like a custody hearing when it really shouldn't be. You're probably not going to be wearing your high heels in front of your kids because you're probably involved in sexy time.

And if you are doing that in front of your kids, you've got a whole other disorder that needs to be addressed that really has little then nothing to do with high heels. That's right. So this is where this is the hornets nest that is currently paraphilias and the d s M and psychiatry in general. Yeah, for sure, Um, should we take another break? Sure? Man, all right, let's take a break, and we're gonna talk about why humans have paraphilias to begin with, right for this stop stop

all right. So we're talking a lot about a lot of interesting things. Some people might think this is pretty out there that someone would make love to a car. Sure, maybe, but I'll bet if you really got to know your neighbor, you'd be pretty surprised. Yeah, who was it to sing that song? No one knows what goes on behind closed doors? I think you're thinking of that song about um. Nobody knows what it's like to be the bad man behind blue eyes? That one. That's the Who, that's the World

Health Organization, that's John Fogerty. What. I'm pretty sure that's John Fogertty behind blue Eyes. I'll give you Bob seekers a. Maybe it's the Who. It's on quadrupin. All right, So chop Fogty, what song were you talking about? What folkty song? Did you mean? Oh? I didn't mean I'm so mad at you right now? So? Uh where where was I even? Okay, here's the deal. Why do we have paraphilias? You hear

these things. It might sound very unusual to you, but there are still people that you know, they didn't wake up one day and say, you know what, I'm gonna try. I'm just gonna try making up to a car for kicks, Like this is something that is in someone's brain. Um, some might argue in their heart, depending on how you feel about stuff like that. Uh, it's not some some choice that someone is making just to be different. Uh. They found that it's probably genetic and probably caused by

environmental factors, some mixture of both. They can't point to some gene and say, hey, here's the gene that causes an obsession with an object. But um, and they can't say for sure what behaviors like environmental factors and behaviors at home might lead to it, or how much you know?

I know for years and still, like Freudian psychologists are bounded determined to say that, you know, if your mom spanked you, then you're gonna want to be spanked sexually later in life by a woman you hired who looks just like your mom. Right, But that is very, very reductive. And although that you know things that happen in your childhood may play out later on, you can't always say exactly how. Yeah, so you might ask, well, then what

the psychology what? What? What? What can psychology explain? Nothing? Basically, nothing about paraphilias is understood how they develop, and there's so many competing voices like you said, not really one of them has been proven wrong. They've all kind of got their support and their detractors and their different schools of thought, which is a really it's a head scratcher in this day and age and nearly two thousand and twenty that we have virtually no idea how paraphilias form, Like,

like you said, are they genetic? Who knows, Maybe maybe we will find a gene one day. But what about what about nurture? I mean, like we all developed sexually at a certain rate and at a certain time and under certain circumstances. So if you know, you happen to get a late spanking right around the time that you're you're becoming uh pubescent, maybe you will kind of get a little turned on by spanking. Or if you look at a shoe store, you know, right right sure yeah?

Or um, you know, if you're if you were raised in a very sexually repressive environment, well maybe that sexuality has to come out somewhere and it's going to come out onto mom's shoes or something like that. You know, like it's going to find a way, just like you know, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park did, so will budding sexuality and a young kid, it's going to find it's its way out, and then maybe that's where parapheles come from. They really have no idea, but they have done studies

that that actually don't clear anything up at all. Yeah, the studies are problematic for a couple of reasons. One is because a lot of times their studies conducted on criminal behaviors. Almost all of it is because they're the ones that are in jail, and they're the ones easiest to study. And it's hard to get uh, someone that's not a criminal, just in regular society to step forward and take a survey and be super honest about something that maybe their deepest, darkest secret. So it's really hard

and problematic too to study. And um, they have found a few things as far as the genetic component goes.

There was one study of five families where they had confirmed pedophiles and they found a lot of evidence that pedophilia can be multi generational in some families and then across single generations and others like, um, three brothers are all pedophiles and single family and so you would say, well, you know, obviously there's a genetic basis, but a behaviorist would say, well, yeah, well maybe that you know, it's it's spans multiple generations because it was a learned behavior

and it was carried on in that way, So it's not it doesn't clear up anything whatsoever. Uh. They usually find paraphilias between uh men ages of fifty, although it can vary wildly, of course, And there are other reasons that people put forward that maybe they've generally found them in men and not women. Um, how we study things

with a male slant could be one. Uh, the fact that men may be more apt to act out, maybe in a violent way if that's their paraphilia, or brazen enough to get on the subway and do something like that. It's also way more socially acceptable for say, an exhibitionist woman to get into film and be able to to fulfill her exhibitionism that way, whereas we don't usually film naked men very often, so the exhibitionist man needs to just kind of walk around town donald ducking porky pigging it.

That's what I mean. I'm sure that the Disney Corporation is happy with either one of the definitions. Yeah or yeah, as Warner Brothers in Disney, they're both mad. Yeah, they did find in that same study some co morbidities with low intelligence, and interestingly deafness and blindness is interesting. And then some other studies have found some predominance in left handed people. Yeah, again, none of that means anything at this point. It's just just just here's the data point

I turned up from five families. It's so, you know, it's it's not very good study, right. That's sexologist John money he Um he wrote in the eighties. He wrote a book called Love Maps and I think six that was really authoritative on UM paraphilias. And his thing was that, you know, it's it's learned behavior that comes at a certain point, and our love map, which combines like love and lust in in normal ways, gets vandalized in some way from some traumatic experience or it could also be

in some fun experience. But um, the introduction of this this additional data point in the development of this love map UM creates creates a paraphilia that has to be UM I guess corrected through something like cognitive behavioral therapy. Sometimes drugs are used SSR, eyes are used, sometimes UM, and then in certain cases they'll use things like UM chemical castration. Actually, yeah, we talked about that in a

few episodes. I feel like, ah, yeah, I don't remember which ones, well, definitely the one with with what's his name? The Enigma Machine, Alan Turning with Alan Turing because he was chemically castrated. Did we do an episode on the Enigma Machine. No, but we talked about him, and I believe or was that just the TV show with the Turing test with caps? I don't remember. It's all such

a fault right now. It really, UM here's something. If you ever hear someone in conversation say, you know, if you were sexually abused as a child, then statistically you're going to grow up and do that someone else. Not true? I saw both. Really, I saw that it is true, and I saw that was largely refuted. Now, yeah, I I saw something on I found a site called smart dot gov. It sounds made up, but it seems real.

But it was about paraphilias from a UM criminal justice point of view, and it said outright that it's not a guarantee in any way, shape or form, but that people who um sexually abused children or are sexually abused as children are more likely to sexually abused children than people who weren't sexually abused as children. How interesting, Yeah, which is I mean that brings up a really important point here. Um, there's a big distinction between sexually abusing

a child, raping a child, and being a pedophile. They're not necessarily one and the same. Well what in that Uh, A pedophile can be a pedophile and not act upon that instinct. That's one version. Another version is if you're a child apist, you might not really have much of a desire for children. You just had a desire to rape somebody and that child happened to be handy at the time. So there is there's in two different ways at least, there's a distinction between pedophilia and child rape.

And this is where that whole legality thing kind of comes in, oh right, And that paraphilia is not a legal defense. So if you commit a sex crime, you can't go to court and say, I plead a paraphy paraphiliac. Yeah, which is kind of surprising because if you kill somebody and you go and say I, UM, I have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, they're probably not going to um give

you the death sentence. Where if you are if you're diagnosed with a paraphilic disorder, they're going to totally set that aside in in considering you know, how you should be punished. What's weird, though, Chuck, is since the act actual opposite has been allowed to develop too. Where if they convict you of something as a sexual violent sexual sexually violent predator s VP. I believe it's what it's called, right,

they can keep you in jail longer. They won't keep you in jail, but they'll say, um, this person shows that they have signs of being like, uh, they have a paraphilia toward child molestation. Uh there towards um pedophilia. Um. So they've served their sentence for attacking this child. But now under the law, we can actually commit them to uh like a mental asylum a hospital indefinitely to keep

them from harming somebody else. So that's that's one way that that the the d s M can be used to keep people in in jail for crimes they even even commit. Did this is like the prevention of future crime, which as far as I know, is completely, um completely

contravenes the spirit of the law in the United States. Right, Yeah, I mean that's a minority reports stuff, but that's what they've been doing using the d s M, and for a little while there they were able to do it because the d s M had the word or in the wrong place that allow that basically said you you qualify as the definition of somebody with a paraphilic disorder if you've committed committed a criminal act that has something to do with the paraphilia. UM. Now, it's that that's

part of the criteria. It's not its own criteria. But for a while it allowed these laws to basically say, Yep, this person committed the criminal act. By definition, they have a paraphilic disorder, and pair of people with paraphilic disorders have basically a chronic, ongoing um it's illness disorder that

that we need to them out of society indefinitely. For Yeah, I mean, I know that you have seen the great, great documentary Capturing the Freedman's from two thousand three, and by talk about a documentary to really take you on a roller coaster of how you feel about things like this. Um I remember, I mean I've only seen it the one time way back when, but it just rocked my world. As far as letting you come to your own conclusions,

which I think the best documentaries do you know. Yeah, I haven't seen it in a while either, but I remember feeling the exact same way about it. Yeah, really interesting stuff. Uh what else do we have in here? I mean we talked about treating it with cognitive behavioral therapy. Uh,

there's another line of treatment if you. Uh, I mean, I guess it's still called treatment, but in that they're not trying to say don't do this, but hey, maybe we can take something that you clearly want to do that's problematic in your life and just um construct your life in a way so it's not so problematic and you can still do that and it's not causing you or anyone else any harm and make it a positive part of your sexual identity. Yeah, I would guess, like,

for example, something like cross stressing. I think it's a really good example of how somebody might feel distress about um about having that paraphilia where they could really benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy with a therapist who basically said, hey, you know, is this is your Is your wife okay with this? Yeah? Like, or what's the problem here? Is

it really because you're disappointing your parents? Maybe that is it? Well, barn'th your parents are dead, they aren't paying attention anymore. If you really are enjoying yourself, like, maybe just go

with it. It doesn't matter what society says. That is a that would be a really beneficial um situation for somebody who is experiencing some some level of distress where it just came from the fact that they had an atypical sexual proclivity and they were distressed by the fact that it it contravened or it was in contradiction with

society's norms or expectations, and that was it. That was the whole problem, right, Or if there's a real world situation like it's butting up against your job or a social relationship maybe constructed in a way where it doesn't do those things, and then it's just you know, it's all good. Yeah, maybe save the animals for after work, Like, don't leave work to go get an enema unless your job is giving enemas, then you're in hog Heaven. I guess. So that one, by the way, is called let me

see if I can find it real quick. What do you have a master list on your phone? There? No, I just wrote that one down. Oh yeah right here. Uh. Klismaphilia really that is a that is a paraphilia regarding receiving enemas as far as I can tell, So you would receive an enema in order to achieve completion. That's right. Interesting. Yeah, I feel like there's probably nothing that isn't defined. I think it's one of those things you know, what's that was it rule forty two where um, if if it exists,

there's internet, there's porn about it. Yeah. I mean the internet is is in a good way, has brought these people together because of many many people for many many years felt very alone, uh in this stuff. And um, and we should also shout out kind of loose friend of the show, Kevin Allison from the comedy Troupe of the State on MTV many years ago. He has a great podcast called Risk. Uh all caps are I SK exclamation point and Risk doesn't necessarily deal with this, It

deals with UM. It's just really good people telling kind of risky stories about their life that they normally wouldn't tell in a room full of people. Um. But Kevin is also championed, UH, champion fetishes in the people in paraphilias basically consenting PARAPHILIAX who don't have a disorder and kind of helping them to be right with themselves and to be more excepting of others. It's really kind of interesting and cool. Yeah. I think that's the way it

should be. I feel like, if somebody has a kink that that you don't jibe with, but that doesn't have anything to do with you, just remember it doesn't have anything to do with you and don't judge them. Yeah, Kevin's a really really good dude. Yeah, that's cool. Way to go, Kevin. You're doing God's work. So uh oh, by the way, it's rule forty four, Lowell corrected me. Thanks Lowell. What do you say rule forty two? Yeah? I think I said forty two. I don't know forty

forty four, whatever it takes. I was thinking of the hit Man agent forty two. That's forty six, right, So you got anything else? I got nothing else? Alright. Well, look for some more more specialized episodes on paraphilias coming down the pike. But for now, that's paraphilia. If you want to know more about paraphilia, the internet is wide open for you. That's right. Since I said that, it's time for a listener mail. The governor is off the internet is is ready to be goosed? Yes, goosed? I

meant that is like an engine revving thing. Not never mind, I know it's you man. Yeah, this is a short one. Hey guys, Remember we had that listener mail from between Jeremy and Kate. Yeah, yeah, from the MSG episode about the Chicago thing. So we have Maggie chiming in now. All these people are so kind. I love it your listener, Maile. Conversation between Jeremy and Kate from Thursday's MSG episode had me smiling, and after the mail from Veronica, I couldn't

help but continue this trend. So to Veronica, I am also a stuff you should know, a listener and also a teacher in Chicago, and I was also at that show. Being a first year teacher is extremely challenging in so many different ways, So please be sure to make to take time to take care of yourself and stay positive. I promise it gets easier. Good luck with a new job, and welcome to Chicago from Maggie Beautiful. That was so nice. Maggie. People, we're basically gonna turn listen or mail into a what

was that? What's that one? Section? Like I saw you somewhere like Uh, were you the guy on the train who helps helps me through the door. I want to meet you and bring your puppy to our date. That's right? Yes, Well regardless, I think that was very sweet. Who is that from Maggie? Maggie, that was really cool email. And congratulations to you also for being a teacher. You two are doing God's work. That's a new thing. I'm going to say, maybe that'll be a T shirt. I do

God's work. I listened to Stuff you Should Know. I love it. Okay, Well, if you want to get in touch with this like Maggie did, or if you want to get in touch with another listener, apparently you can go on to stuff you Should Know dot com and follow our social links. You can also send us an email to stuff podcast at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works for more podcasts for my heart radio

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