Unusual sexual preferences - paraphilia

Read more about unusual forms of sexual behaviour termed paraphilia.

Human imagination can overstep all the boundaries of good taste, normality and acceptability in sexuality. (jlp)

What’s paraphilia?

A paraphilia is the name give to an unusual sexual preference that doesn’t involve copulatory behaviour. The term is derived from the Greek words “para” meaning “besides” and “philia” meaning “love”. Psychologists define paraphilias as mental disorders shown  in the form of recurrent, intense sexual preferences, fantasies or acts involving unusual objects, activities or situations and causing social alienation or impairment in the functioning of a person. At the same time, the term also refers to all the unusual sexual practices without indicating a dysfunction or a morally controversial issue.

Types of paraphilia

Exhibitionism is a sexual preference to expose the genitals or have sexual intercourse in public places. Fetishism refers to sexual arousal achieved by inanimate objects, most often women’s panties, shoes, stockings or other parts of clothing. Fetishism also includes partialism which is a sexual preference to non-sexual parts of the body; for instance, an obsession with elbows. Frotteurism is a recurrent sexual urge to touch or rub the genitals against a person who doesn’t consent to it, most often in the crowd. Infamous paedophilia is a psychological disorder where an adult man shows sexual interest in pre-puberty children. Masochism refers to the experience of sexual pleasure of a person who’s tortured or humiliated by another person and sadism is the opposite and refers to the experience of sexual pleasure of a person who tortures or humiliates another person. Transvestism is sexual arousal involving cross-dressing and voyeurism is sexual arousal achieved by observing a sexual act naked bodies.

Worshippers of feet could be classified among partialists and fetishists. (jlp)

Telephone scatalogia refers to a sexual preference to make obscene telephone calls because of sexual pleasure. Necrophilia means to have sexual intercourse with a dead body and zoophilia means to have sexual intercourse with an animal. Coprophilia refers to sexual arousal involving human faeces, urophilia refers to sexual arousal involving human urine and emetophilia refers to sexual arousal involving vomiting. Klismaphilia is a sexual urge to undergo an enema and gerontophlia refers to sexual attraction to very old people.