Paraphilic Disorders

DEFINITION

There is tremendous variability in what people find sexually interesting. It is imperative to distinguish this variability in interests from a disorder.

• Paraphilic disorder exists when recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, urges, or behaviors cause distress or impairment to the individual, or risk harm to others generally involving non-human objects, the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one’s partner, children, or non-consenting persons.
• While there is an almost infinite variety of sexual interests, the DSM5 identifies eight (exhibitionism, fetishism, frotteurism, pedophilia, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, transvestism, and voyeurism) because these are the most significant clinically.
• Paraphilia is any intense, preferential, and persistent sexual interest in something other than phenotypically normal, physically mature, and consenting human partners.
• Some others include:
  • Coprophilia (feces)
  • Klismaphilia (enemas)
  • Necrophilia (corpses)
  • Telephone scatologia/telephonicophilia (obscene phone calls, particularly to strangers)
  • Urophilia (urine)
  • Zoophilia (animals)