Paraphilia is the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals.
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.
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.
Penile plethysmography (PPG) or phallometry is measurement of bloodflow to the penis, typically used as a proxy for measurement of sexual arousal. The most commonly reported methods of conducting penile plethysmography involve the measurement of the circumference of the penis with a mercury-in-rubber or electromechanical strain gauge, or the volume of the penis with an airtight cylinder and inflatable cuff at the base of the penis. Corpora cavernosa nerve penile plethysmographs measure changes in response to inter-operative electric stimulation during surgery. The volumetric procedure was invented by Kurt Freund and is considered to be particularly sensitive at low arousal levels. The easier to use circumferential measures are more widely used, however, and more common in studies using erotic film stimuli. A corresponding device in women is the vaginal photoplethysmograph.
Hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), hyposexuality or inhibited sexual desire (ISD) is considered a sexual dysfunction in some jurisdictions and is characterized as a lack or absence of sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity, as judged by a clinician. For this to be regarded as a disorder, it must cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulties and not be better accounted for by another mental disorder, a drug, or some other medical condition. A person with ISD will not start, or respond to their partner's desire for, sexual activity. HSDD affects approximately 10% of all pre-menopausal women in the United States, or about 6 million women.
The term chronophilia was used by John Money to describe a form of paraphilia in which an individual experiences sexual attraction limited to individuals of particular age ranges. 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".
Paul Drummond Cameron is an American psychologist. Cameron has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-gay extremist. While employed at various institutions, including the University of Nebraska, he conducted research on passive smoking, but he is best known today for his claims about homosexuality. After a successful 1982 campaign against a gay rights proposal in Lincoln, Nebraska, he established the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality (ISIS), now known as the Family Research Institute (FRI). As FRI's chairman, Cameron has written contentious papers asserting associations between homosexuality and the perpetration of child sexual abuse and reduced life expectancy. These have been heavily criticized by others in the field.
Sexual attraction to transgender people has been the subject of scientific study and social commentary. Psychologists have researched sexual attraction toward trans women, cross dressers, non-binary people, and a combination of these. Cisgender men attracted to transgender women primarily identify as heterosexual and sometimes as bisexual, but rarely as homosexual. Sexual arousal research has confirmed that their response patterns are unlike those of gay men and resemble those of heterosexual men, except that they are highly aroused by transgender women in addition to cisgender women. They show little arousal to men. There has been some discussion of attraction to trans men, but it has not yet been the topic of scientific study.
Fraternal birth order has been correlated with male sexual orientation, with a significant volume of research finding that the more older brothers a male has from the same mother, the greater the probability he will have a homosexual orientation. Ray Blanchard and Anthony Bogaert first identified the association in the 1990s and named it the fraternal birth order effect. Scientists have attributed the effect to a prenatal biological mechanism, since the association is only present in men with older biological brothers, and not present among men with older step-brothers and adoptive brothers. The mechanism is thought to be a maternal immune response to male fetuses, whereby antibodies neutralize male Y-proteins thought to play a role in sexual differentiation during development. This would leave some regions of the brain associated with sexual orientation in the 'female typical' arrangement – or attracted to men. Biochemical evidence for this hypothesis was identified in 2017, finding mothers with a gay son, particularly those with older brothers, had heightened levels of antibodies to the NLGN4Y Y-protein than mothers with heterosexual sons.
Paraphilic infantilism, also known as autonepiophilia, psychosexual infantilism and adult baby syndrome, is a sexual fetish that involves role-playing a regression to an infant-like state. Behaviors may include drinking from a bottle or wearing diapers. Individuals may engage in gentle and nurturing experiences or be attracted to masochistic, coercive, punishing or humiliating experiences. Diaper fetishism involves "diaper lovers" wearing diapers for sexual or erotic reasons but may not involve infant-like behavior. Individuals who experience both of these things are referred to as adult baby/diaper lovers. When wearing diapers, infantilists may urinate and/or defecate in them.
Ray Milton Blanchard is an American-Canadian sexologist, best known for his research studies on transsexualism, pedophilia and sexual orientation. He 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's transsexualism typology is a proposed psychological typology of gender dysphoria, transsexualism, and fetishistic transvestism, created by Ray Blanchard through the 1980s and 1990s, building on the work of prior researchers, including his colleague Kurt Freund. Blanchard categorized trans women into two groups: homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men, and who seek sex reassignment surgery because they are feminine in both behavior and appearance; and autogynephilic transsexuals who are sexually aroused at the idea of having a female body.
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, criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13. A person must be at least 16 years old, and at least five years older than the prepubescent child, for the attraction to be diagnosed as pedophilia.
James M. Cantor is an American-Canadian clinical psychologist and sexologist specializing in hypersexuality and paraphilias.
Sexual arousal describes the physiological and psychological responses in preparation for sexual intercourse or when exposed to sexual stimuli. A number of physiological responses occur in the body and mind as preparation for sexual intercourse, and continue during intercourse. Male arousal will lead to an erection, and in female arousal the body's response is engorged sexual tissues such as nipples, vulva, clitoris, vaginal walls, and vaginal lubrication. Mental stimuli and physical stimuli such as touch, and the internal fluctuation of hormones, can influence sexual arousal.
Erotic target location error (ETLE) is a hypothesized paraphilia defined by having a sexual preference or strong sexual interest in features that are somewhere other than on one's sexual partners.
Michael Chikong Seto is a Canadian forensic psychologist, sexologist, and author. He is director of Forensic Rehabilitation Research at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, where he says his research focuses on pedophilia, sexual offenses committed against children, child pornography, risk assessment, offenders with mental disorders, psychopathy, and program evaluation.
J. Paul Fedoroff is a Canadian forensic psychiatrist, sexologist, and researcher who specializes in treating individuals with paraphilic disorders and/or individuals with developmental delay. He is now 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 is a full professor of forensic psychiatry, criminology, and law at the University of Ottawa.
