Erotic target location error

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Erotic target location error (ETLE) is a hypothesized dimension for paraphilias, defined by having a sexual preference or strong sexual interest in features that are somewhere other than on one's sexual partners. [1] When one's sexual arousal is based on imagining oneself in another physical form (such as an animal, an infant, or an amputee) the erotic target is said to be one's self, or erotic target identity inversion (ETII). [2]

Contents

The terms "erotic target location error" and "erotic target identity inversion" were first used in 1993 by the sexologist Ray Blanchard. [2]

Proposed types

The sexologist Anne Lawrence describes as examples of erotic target identity inversions males or trans women who experience sexual arousal in response to imagining themselves as women ( autogynephilia ), as well as at least one case of anatomic autoandrophilia. [3]

Blanchard writes that whereas gynephilia refers to the sexual preference for women, autogynephilia refers to a male's sexual interest in being a woman. He states that autogynephilia can be associated with gender dysphoria and gender identity disorder, discontent with one's sex and the desire to undergo surgery for sex reassignment and permanently take on a role and life of the other sex. [4] [5] A male with sexual arousal based on temporarily taking on the appearance or role of a woman is transvestic fetishism.

Several other sexual interests also exist in ETLE forms:

Whereas acrotomophilia refers to the sexual preference for amputees, apotemnophilia refers to sexual arousal in association with having an amputation, [6] although both can be experienced at the same time. [7] Apotemnophilia can be associated with the strong belief or desire that one's external body is mismatched to one's true nature, [8] a phenomenon called body integrity identity disorder, [9] and the desire to undergo surgery to remove a limb. People who temporarily adopt the role or identity of an amputee have been called disability pretenders. [9]

Whereas zoophilia refers to the sexual preference for animals, autozoophilia refers to sexual arousal in association with being an animal.

The sexual attraction to plush animals is termed plushophilia. [10] Anne Lawrence has proposed the terms autoplushophilia for the sexual attraction to being or changing one's body to have plush features, and fursuitism for sexual arousal from wearing a fursuit to temporarily resemble an anthropomorphic animal. [1]

Whereas pedophilia refers to the sexual preference for children, paraphilic infantilism refers to the sexual interest in being a child. [11]

Lawrence and others have posited parallels between gender identity disorder and apotemnophilia, [9] [12] as well as between gender identity disorder and species identity disorder. [13]

Criticism

In a letter to the editor of The Journal of Sex Research in 2009, San Francisco-based physician and activist Charles Allen Moser criticized Lawrence' endorsement of the concept of ETLEs. [14] He noted that "there is nothing wrong with creating or expanding a classification system of sexual interests" but believed that Lawrence "pathologizes nonstandard sexual expression" and that "ETLEs are a slippery slope," whereas Moser's view is that all sexual phenomena should be removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). [15]

Related Research Articles

Paraphilia is the experience of recurring or intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals. It has also been defined as a sexual interest in anything other than a consenting human partner.

Body integrity dysphoria (BID), also referred to as body integrity identity disorder (BIID), amputee identity disorder or xenomelia, and formerly called apotemnophilia, is a rare mental disorder characterized by a desire to have a sensory or physical disability or feeling discomfort with being able-bodied, beginning in early adolescence and resulting in harmful consequences. BID appears to be related to somatoparaphrenia. People with this condition may refer to themselves as transabled.

Hebephilia is the strong, persistent sexual interest by adults in pubescent children who are in early adolescence, typically ages 11–14 and showing Tanner stages 2 to 3 of physical development. It differs from pedophilia, and from ephebophilia. While individuals with a sexual preference for adults may have some sexual interest in pubescent-aged individuals, researchers and clinical diagnoses have proposed that hebephilia is characterized by a sexual preference for pubescent rather than adult partners.

The term chronophilia was used by psychologist John Money to describe varying forms of romantic preference and/or sexual fixation limited to individuals of particular age ranges. Some such fixations, specifically those towards prepubescents and those towards the elderly, constitute types of paraphilia. The term has not been widely adopted by sexologists, who instead use terms that refer to the specific age range in question. An arguable historical precursor was Richard von Krafft-Ebing's concept of "age fetishism". Importantly, chronophilia are technically not determined by age itself, but by human sexual maturity stages, such as body type, secondary sexual characteristics and other visible features, particularly as measured by the stages of the Tanner scale.

Acrotomophilia is a paraphilia in which an individual expresses strong sexual interest in amputees. It is a counterpart to apotemnophilia, the desire to be an amputee.

Paraphilic infantilism, also known as autonepiophilia and adult baby, is a sexual fetish or non-sexual fetish that may involve role-playing a regression to an infant-like state. Paraphilic infantilism is a form of ageplay. People who practice paraphilic infantilism are often colloquially referred to as "adult babies", or "ABs".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Androphilia and gynephilia</span> Sexual orientation to men or women

Androphilia and gynephilia are terms used in behavioral science to describe sexual orientation, as an alternative to a gender binary homosexual and heterosexual conceptualization. Androphilia describes sexual attraction to men and/or masculinity; gynephilia describes the sexual attraction to women and/or femininity. Ambiphilia describes the combination of both androphilia and gynephilia in a given individual, or bisexuality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray Blanchard</span> American-Canadian sexologist

Ray Milton Blanchard is an American-Canadian sexologist who researches pedophilia, sexual orientation and gender identity. He has found that men with more older brothers are more likely to be gay than men with fewer older brothers, a phenomenon he attributes to the reaction of the mother's immune system to male fetuses. Blanchard has also published research studies on phallometry and several paraphilias, including autoerotic asphyxia. Blanchard also proposed a typology of transsexualism.

Attraction to disability is a sexualised interest in the appearance, sensation and experience of disability. It may extend from normal human sexuality into a type of sexual fetishism. Sexologically, the pathological end of the attraction tends to be classified as a paraphilia. Other researchers have approached it as a form of identity disorder. The most common interests are towards amputations, prosthesis, and crutches.

American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard proposed a psychological typology of gender dysphoria, transsexualism, and fetishistic transvestism in a series of academic papers through the 1980s and 1990s. Building on the work of earlier researchers, including his colleague Kurt Freund, Blanchard categorized trans women into two groups: homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in both behavior and appearance; and autogynephilic transsexuals who experience sexual arousal at the idea of having a female body (autogynephilia). Blanchard and his supporters argue that the typology explains differences between the two groups in childhood gender nonconformity, sexual orientation, history of sexual fetishism, and age of transition.

Gender incongruence is the state of having a gender identity that does not correspond to one's sex assigned at birth. This is experienced by people who identify as transgender or transsexual, and often results in gender dysphoria. The causes of gender incongruence have been studied for decades.

Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, psychiatric diagnostic criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13. People with the disorder are often referred to as pedophiles.

Childhood gender nonconformity (CGN) is a phenomenon in which prepubescent children do not conform to expected gender-related sociological or psychological patterns, or identify with the opposite sex/gender. Typical behavior among those who exhibit the phenomenon includes but is not limited to a propensity to cross-dress, refusal to take part in activities conventionally thought suitable for the gender and the exclusive choice of play-mates of the opposite sex.

The classification of transsexual and gender non-conforming people into distinct groups has been attempted since the mid-1960s.

Courtship disorder is a theoretical construct in sexology developed by Kurt Freund in which a certain set of paraphilias are seen as specific instances of anomalous courtship instincts in humans. The specific paraphilias are biastophilia, exhibitionism, frotteurism, telephone scatologia, and voyeurism. According to the courtship disorder hypothesis, there is a species-typical courtship process in humans consisting of four phases, and anomalies in different phases result in one of these paraphilic sexual interests. According to the theory, instead of being independent paraphilias, these sexual interests are individual symptoms of a single underlying disorder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transsexual</span> People experiencing a gender identity inconsistent with their assigned sex

Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.

Analloeroticism is having no sexual interests in other people. Anil Aggrawal considers it distinct from asexuality and defines the latter as the lack of a sex drive. Analloerotics are unattracted to female or male partners, but not necessarily devoid of all sexual behaviour.

Anne Alexandra Lawrence is an American psychologist, sexologist, and former anesthesiologist who has published extensively on gender incongruence. Anne transitioned male to female in her 40s.

Charles Allen Moser is an American physician specializing in transgender health, a clinical sexologist, sex therapist, and sex educator practicing in San Francisco, California. He is the author of numerous academic publications and books in the fields of transgender health, paraphilias including BDSM, and sexual medicine.

References

  1. 1 2 Lawrence, A. A. (2009). "Erotic Target Location Errors: An Underappreciated Paraphilic Dimension". Journal of Sex Research. 46 (2–3): 194–215. doi:10.1080/00224490902747727. PMID   19308843. S2CID   10105602.
  2. 1 2 Freund K; Blanchard R (1993). "Erotic target location errors in male gender dysphorics, paedophiles, and fetishists". The British Journal of Psychiatry . 162 (4): 558–563. doi:10.1192/bjp.162.4.558. PMID   8481752. S2CID   24239209.
  3. ↑ Lawrence, A. (2009). "Anatomic autoandrophilia in an adult male". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 38 (6): 1050–1056. doi:10.1007/s10508-008-9446-6. PMID   19093196. S2CID   23509954.
  4. ↑ Blanchard, R. (1993). "Varieties of autogynephilia and their relationship to gender dysphoria". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 22 (3): 241–251. doi:10.1007/bf01541769. PMID   8494491. S2CID   4677060.
  5. ↑ Blanchard, R. (1989). "The concept of autogynephilia and the typology of male gender dysphoria". The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 177 (10): 616–623. doi:10.1097/00005053-198910000-00004. PMID   2794988.
  6. ↑ Ryan, C. J. (2008). "Out on a Limb: The Ethical Management of Body Integrity Identity Disorder". Neuroethics. 2: 21–33. doi:10.1007/s12152-008-9026-4. S2CID   56364554.
  7. ↑ Preester, H. (2011). "Merleau-Ponty's sexual schema and the sexual component of body integrity identity disorder". Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 16 (2): 171–184. doi:10.1007/s11019-011-9367-3. PMID   22139385. S2CID   144072976.
  8. ↑ Money, J.; Jobaris, R.; Furth, G. (1977). "Apotemnophilia: Two cases of self-demand amputation as a paraphilia". Journal of Sex Research. 13 (2): 115–125. doi:10.1080/00224497709550967.
  9. 1 2 3 Smith, R. C. (2004). "Amputee identity disorder and related paraphilias". Psychiatry. 3 (8): 27–30. doi:10.1383/psyt.3.8.27.43394.
  10. ↑ Hill, Dave (19 June 2000). "Cuddle time". Salon.
  11. ↑ Cantor, JM; Blanchard R; Barbaree HE (2009). "Sexual disorders". In Blaney PH; Millon T (eds.). Oxford textbook of psychopathology (2 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp.  531.
  12. ↑ Lawrence, A. A. (2006). "Clinical and Theoretical Parallels Between Desire for Limb Amputation and Gender Identity Disorder". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 35 (3): 263–278. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.368.6837 . doi:10.1007/s10508-006-9026-6. PMID   16799838. S2CID   17528273.
  13. ↑ Gerbasi, K.; Conway, S.; Paolone, N.; Privitera, A.; Scaletta, L.; Higner, J.; Bernstein, P. (2008). "Furries from a to Z (Anthropomorphism to Zoomorphism)". Society & Animals. 16 (3): 197–222. doi:10.1163/156853008X323376.
  14. ↑ Moser, C. (2009). "A Response to Lawrence's (2009)Erotic Target Location Errors". Journal of Sex Research. 46 (5): 383–384, author 384 385–384. doi:10.1080/00224490903230053. PMID   19787535. S2CID   205442235.
  15. ↑ Lawrence, A. A. (2009). "Erotic Target Location Errors are easy to mischaracterize: A reply to Moser". The Journal of Sex Research. 46 (5): 385–386. doi:10.1080/00224490903230061. S2CID   146150251.
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