Both: What do you think causes people to develop sexual paraphilias?

submitted by worried19 from self.GCdebatesQT

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]theory_of_thisan actual straight crossdresser 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (12 children)

checks hand ratio

Good question. To me the flat universal occurrence of the phenomena implies a natural cause. You can look at sexuality in Roman history and see sexual practices we recognise today but interpreted in different ways. There is an interaction between the environment and biology. Things that are universally found are highly likely to be natural even if they are dealt with differently.

Though the essentialist biological differences have to come down to few reasons rather than lots of reasons. That means lots of different apparent forms are triggered by a few elements rather than all having individual natural triggers. For instance linking the higher male numbers to a higher sex drive and/or a higher level of innate aggression.

In other words, sex drive fully accounted for the sex difference in paraphilic interests.

Paraphilic Interests: An Examination of Sex Differences in a Nonclinical Sample

Maybe.

Another aspect of the gender variation I wonder about is the active and passive element.

Sexual arousal by dominance and submission in relation to increased reproductive success in the general population

Results: Sexually dominant men aged 35-44 years had more biological male children. Both the sexually dominant men aged 35-44 years and sexually submissive women aged 35-44 years perceived themselves as being more attractive.

Conclusion: We suggest that sexual arousal by dominance is likely to be the means by which the mating strategy is accomplished.

Don't blame me for what this report says. I'm just looking things up.

I'm generally looking at popular erotic culture. Yes I agree that is culturally dependent. Again don't blame me for what is popular erotic work with women.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Erotic-Fiction/zgbs/digital-text/362277031

I think it contains what are often classed as paraphilias. I often think the clinical paraphilias are extreme versions of preferences found in common sexual activity. It isn't a binary thing. Saying but they shouldn't like it is something else.

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Erotic-Fiction/zgbs/digital-text/362277031

Amazon US list for comparison: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Erotica/zgbs/digital-text/157057011/?tf=1

Note the slight uptick in urban fantasy, sci-fi/fantasy, and m/m features and the comparative downlisting of the Grey series. Just to say there's likely to be variation by reader population, location, and size.

[–]theory_of_thisan actual straight crossdresser 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (10 children)

I mean slight variations but your list still has plenty of kink tropes. But I am interested in the gender stereotypes in these.

What are your thoughts on these best sellers?

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

What are your thoughts on these best sellers?

They're the crisps of modern evocative lit, like The Pearl and penny dreadfuls. And they're probably popular to the degree that they're transgressive. (Who among us wants to consort with actual vampires? To be de Sade's Justine?)

[–]theory_of_thisan actual straight crossdresser 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (8 children)

I think I met vampire women with sharpened incisors.

You think their popular because their transgressive? But a lot of the characters aren't transgressive, their actually traditional.

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

But a lot of the characters aren't transgressive, their actually traditional.

Of course. That sets up a contrast, which you need to build tension in any story.

Yes, I think they're popular because they're transgressive. Since novels became popular in the 17th/18th century, there've been expanding niches for stories that evoke dread (gothic, horror), suspense (thriller), and arousal (erotica). The repeal of blue laws in late 20th century UK/US just opened up the market and made erotica more widely available. But people don't keep reading (for instance) Mary Shelley because she describes their 9-to-5; it's the opposite. Ditto erotica.

Humans like to invent narratives that evoke intense feeling in the audience -- we've been doing that for millennia. There's a psychological dynamic involved. It doesn't follow that keen readers of a genre will model their actual daily lives according to that genre. Most won't, and never have.

[–]theory_of_thisan actual straight crossdresser 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (6 children)

But the archetypes in this fiction aren't transgressive. They are traditional archetypes of masculinity.

"Zeus is the alpha of alphas."

gay biker MC erotic romance “Living off the grid and being an outlaw brings a dangerous reality.”

Billionaire BOSS: Secret Baby (Oh Billionaires!) He’s the man I absolutely hate.

billionaire badass CEO Collin Stark. Did I mention he's an ex-Army interrogator?

Nothing particularly transgressive there in the characters. Apart from the gay figures. Of course there is criminality. But that's a bad guy male stereotype.

Sure a lot of feminism denounces them. But then women carry on enjoying them.

Is there horror and fantasy in that list too? sure. But often mixed with strong masculine and feminine types and iconography.

Horror and erotica is certainly a common mix.

I also presume there is an amount of gay male porn being enjoyed by a female audience here. Probably another debate.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Transgressive narratives. And an archetype is not a character.

Looking forward to your thesis where you can define your terms and present a coherent argument for us, rather than just swapping words around and eliding meanings at will.

[–]theory_of_thisan actual straight crossdresser 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (4 children)

The characters aren't transgressive then?

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Depends on how they're written, who they are, what they do, their motivation for doing it, and how or whether they subvert reader expectations or challenge cultural norms.