Written By Francesca Camilleri
You might have heard about the scandal of a man breaking into a farm at night to have sex with a flock of sheep. A similar case rose to public discourse as another man was found beating and molesting a horse later on. You may be wondering, why a horse? Is it because they cannot find a willing partner(s) to have sexual relations with? Possibly the thought of these people being lonely and desperate crossed your mind. Perhaps the pandemic has left an effect on their psyche?
To put it simply, the answer is… NO. Bestiality, or zoophilia, is just one example of sexual deviances or paraphilias, meaning ‘any sexual behaviour […] that is regarded as significantly different from the standards established by a culture’. In most cases this isn’t problematic on its own as many people practice atypical sexual behaviours without meriting a diagnosis of mental illness and without the behaviour being problematic.
Sex and Mental Disorders
When a person has ‘recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, urges or behaviours’ professional intervention is required. Why? It creates personal distress that does not arise from society’s disapproval. It is essential to intervene when it involves another person’s psychological distress, injury, or death. And even more so when it involves nonconsenting and unwilling persons.
The DSM-5, which reviews a list of recognised mental disorders, their symptoms and prevalence, lists the most common eight disorders. However, this list does not exhaust the entirety of possible paraphilic disorders. It includes voyeurism; the ‘peeping Toms’ of the world who spy on other people without consent. While doing so, they change or engage in sexual behaviour. Exhibitionistic disorder; the ‘flashers’ who expose their genitals or sexual acts to nonconsenting victims.
Frotteuristic disorder; involves the touching or rubbing of genitals without consent. These three acts are all coercive forms of paraphilic disorders, unlike fetishistic disorder which is considered to be victimless. Persons with this disorder use non-living objects like undergarments or high-heeled shoes or have a highly specific focus on non-genital body parts, for example feet.
And lastly, paedophilic disorder, which is coercive and is a sexual focus on children. When a girl is chosen as a focus of one’s sexual desires, the attraction is probably based on sexual gratification. An emotional connection is more likely to be the main highlight if a boy is the sexual focus. Because of the nature of these acts, most are classified as criminal offenses. Zoophilia, however which is under the general category of “Other Specified Paraphilic Disorder”, is not yet illegal in Malta.
When To Bring in the Professionals?
Professional intervention to threat paraphilic disorders is only provided when there is self-suffering, a suffering partner(s) or penalisation. The goal is active acceptance, coping and prevention of the person acting on their preferences, since the desire cannot be totally stopped.
Treatments include:
- Pharmacological medication like anti-androgens, SSRIs, LH-RH agonists, etc.
2. CBT ( Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)
3. Self-regulation to teach the person how to cope with negative emotions. It also teaches how to recognise and cope with triggers and to accept that they experience this preference.
However, if the paraphilic disorder is of a coercive type, one learns to refrain from acting on the preferences even though they are experiencing them. The line between the interest or fantasy and acting on that interest is very blurred. But as soon as one acts on their preference it becomes coercive thus becoming an illegality and penalising the persons. Relapse prevention is important, especially since one is trying to control not cure the paraphilic disorder given that sexual preference is quite stable. We do not know enough about how to treat people that offend, all these options are quite difficult in practise and treatment efficacy is quite low.
Is it a Kink or a Disorder?
A usually noncoercive paraphilic disorder is masochism which involves undergoing humiliation, bondage, pain, or suffering. Except for this disorder, which is 20 times more common in women than in men, paraphillias are almost exclusively diagnosed in men. Opposite to this is sexual sadism disorder which includes inflicting humiliation, bondage, pain, or suffering on a victim.
Keep in mind that these behaviours are only classified as disorders when impairment in functioning is present in either of the parties. If a couple with a healthy dynamic both consent to giving and/or receiving pain it does not mean they have a paraphilic disorder, it just means they have different interests than most and like to explore the pleasures of BDSM (an acronym for Bondage/Discipline-Domination/Submission-Sadism/Masochism). In fact, a study by Wismeijer found that persons who practise BDSM showed greater subjective well-being than a control group
The Human Behind Sexual Deviance
Let’s redirect our focus on the humanisation of people with simple sexual deviances that do not harm anyone. Having a non-vanilla sex life, a foot fetish or an interest in BDSM has its benefits. BDSM practitioners report increased feelings of trust in a relationship that respects boundaries. They also feel closer to their partner(s) and feel emotionally safe because they can explore their sexuality without judgment. Open dialogue and consent from all parties is of utmost importance. It’s why some persons feel that relationships that implement BDSM have better sexual communication than those without!
Thus, as long as open communication is kept, no one should be scared to take a leaf out of the kinky relationship handbook and further explore the inner passion they never know they had. After all, as Bering states in his book Perv, there is a sexual deviant is all of us – and as long as consent is supremely respected, exploration can do no harm!
Check this article Betapsi wrote a while back on Sex Ed in Malta!
