Obscene phone call

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An obscene phone call is an unsolicited telephone call where a person uses profane and/or sexual language to interact with someone who may be known to them or may be a complete stranger. Making obscene telephone calls for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure is known as telephone scatologia and is considered a form of exhibitionism. [1]

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Telephone scatologia is usually classed as a paraphilia from a psychiatric viewpoint. It is in the DSM-5 as an other specified paraphilic disorder. Related psychiatric terms (such as coprophonia) were coined in Australia, the United States, and Germany; most of the pertinent literature is North American. [2] From the viewpoint of the recipient of the calls, obscene calls may be considered to be a form of sexual harassment, stalking, or both. [3] [4]

In some U.S. states, making obscene telephone calls is a Class 1 Misdemeanor. [5] In the United Kingdom, obscene phone calls are punishable by a fine of up to £5,000 or up to six months in prison under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994. [6] [7]

Generally, unwilling recipients of obscene phone calls are advised to simply hang up on obscene callers and then report the incident to the telephone company or the police. Even when Caller ID is not shown, calls are logged by the telephone company, so the perpetrator's phone number can be discovered. However, many people who regularly engage in obscene phone calls use payphones or prepaid cell phones, and in these cases, a more extensive investigation is necessary. The prevalence of internet telephony, and sophisticated international operations have also stymied the investigation of nuisance phone calls.

The demographic that most commonly commits obscene phone calls ranges from the age of 12 to 16 years, with an average of 14 years of age.[ citation needed ] Often they are emotionally or behaviorally maladjusted and have shown previous signs of sexual abuse, as well as having already committed sexual abuse. [8] Obscene phone callers are often male, feel inadequate, have feelings of isolation, have trouble forming relationships and consider making obscene phone calls to be the only way that they can sexually express themselves. [9]

See also

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voyeurism</span> Sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors

Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature.

Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time. Unlawful sexual acts are called sex crimes.

Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence that includes child sexual abuse, groping, rape, drug facilitated sexual assault, and the torture of the person in a sexual manner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exhibitionism</span> Public exposure of intimate body parts

Exhibitionism is the act of exposing in a public or semi-public context one's intimate parts – for example, the breasts, genitals or buttocks. The practice may arise from a desire or compulsion to expose themselves in such a manner to groups of friends or acquaintances, or to strangers for their amusement or sexual satisfaction, or to shock the bystander. Exposing oneself only to an intimate partner is normally not regarded as exhibitionism. In law, the act of exhibitionism may be called indecent exposure, "exposing one's person", or other expressions.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kurt Freund</span> Czech-Canadian physician and sexologist

Kurt Freund was a Czech-Canadian physician and sexologist best known for developing the penile plethysmograph, research studies in pedophilia, and for the "courtship disorder" hypothesis as a taxonomy of certain paraphilias. After unsuccessful attempts to change men's sexual orientation, he advocated against conversion therapy and in favor of the decriminalization of homosexuality.

Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other types of aggression. To these descriptions, one can also add the Kantian notion of the wrongness of using another human being as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves. Some sources describe abuse as "socially constructed", which means there may be more or less recognition of the suffering of a victim at different times and societies.

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.

Psychosexual disorder is a sexual problem that is psychological, rather than physiological in origin. "Psychosexual disorder" was a term used in Freudian psychology. The term of psychosexual disorder used by the TAF for homosexuality as a reason to ban the LGBT people from military service.

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.

Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child, indecent exposure, child grooming, and child sexual exploitation, such as using a child to produce child pornography.

Nuisance calls encompass any type of unwanted, unsolicited, telephone call. Common types of nuisance calls include prank calls, telemarketing calls, and silent calls. Obscene phone calls and other threatening calls are criminal acts in most jurisdictions, particularly when hate crime is involved.

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.

Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance by an individual or group toward another person. Stalking behaviors are interrelated to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person or monitoring them. The term stalking is used with some differing definitions in psychiatry and psychology, as well as in some legal jurisdictions as a term for a criminal offense.

Sexual sadism disorder is the condition of experiencing sexual arousal in response to the extreme pain, suffering or humiliation of others. Several other terms have been used to describe the condition, and the condition may overlap with other conditions that involve inflicting pain. It is distinct from situations in which consenting individuals use mild or simulated pain or humiliation for sexual excitement. The words sadism and sadist are derived from the French writer and libertine Marquis de Sade, who wrote several novels depicting sexualized torture and violence.

Sexual masochism disorder (SMD) is the condition of experiencing recurring and intense sexual arousal in response to enduring moderate or extreme pain, suffering, or humiliation. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) of the American Psychiatric Association indicates that a person may have a masochistic sexual interest but that the diagnosis of sexual masochism disorder would only apply to individuals who also report psychosocial difficulties because of it.

People in prison are more likely than the general United States population to have received a mental disorder diagnosis, and women in prison have higher rates of mental illness and mental health treatment than do men in prison. Furthermore, women in prisons are three times more likely than the general population to report poor physical and mental health. Women are the fastest growing demographic of the United States prison population. As of 2019, there are about 222,500 women incarcerated in state and federal prisons in the United States. Women comprise roughly 8% of all inmates in the United States.

J. Paul Fedoroff was a Canadian forensic psychiatrist, sexologist, and researcher who specialized in treating individuals with certain problematic paraphilias and/or individuals with developmental delay. He was the first director of the Sexual Behaviours Clinic (SBC) at the Institute of Mental Health Research at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre located in Ottawa, Ontario. He was a full professor of forensic psychiatry, criminology, and law at the University of Ottawa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juvenile sex offenders in the United States</span>

A juvenile sex crime is defined as a legally-proscribed sexual crime committed without consent by a minor under the age of 18. The act involves coercion, manipulation, a power imbalance between the perpetrator and victim, and threats of violence. The sexual offenses that fall under juvenile sex crimes range from non-contact to penetration. The severity of the sexual assault in the crime committed is often the amount of trauma and/or injuries the victim has suffered. Typically within these crimes, female children are the majority demographic of those targeted and the majority of offenders are male. Juvenile sex offenders are different than adult sex offenders in a few ways, as captured by National Incident Based Reporting System: they are more likely to be committed in school, offend in groups and against acquaintances, target young children as victims, and to have a male victim, whereas they are less likely than their adult counterpart to commit rape.

References

  1. ↑ Dalby, J. T. (1988). "Is telephone scatologia a variant of exhibitionism?". International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 32: 45–49. doi:10.1177/0306624X8803200106. S2CID   145129292.
  2. ↑ Janssen, D.F. (2018). ""Telephone Scatologia": Onomasiological and Historical Note". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 47 (8): 2155–2159. doi:10.1007/s10508-018-1297-1. ISSN   0004-0002. PMID   30182205. S2CID   52156546.
  3. ↑ "Buss Lab — Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Texas". homepage.psy.utexas.edu.
  4. ↑ "What Is Stalking?". Archived from the original on 2012-03-26. Retrieved 2011-07-05.
  5. ↑ "§ 18.2-427. Use of profane, threatening, or indecent language over public airways or by other methods". Virginia Law, Code of Virginia. January 29, 2018.
  6. ↑ Nuisance/Malicious calls(archived), West Midlands Police
  7. ↑ "Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994". www.legislation.gov.uk.
  8. ↑ Saunders, E. B.; Awad, G. A. (1991). "Male adolescent sexual offenders: Exhibitionism and obscene phone calls". Child Psychiatry & Human Development. 21 (3): 169–178. doi:10.1007/BF00705902. PMID   2007341. S2CID   1004078.
  9. ↑ "Nuisance Sex Behaviors" (PDF).
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