Perversion

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For other uses of "pervert" or "perversion", see Perversion (disambiguation).
Perversion is a type of human behavior that deviates from that which is
understood to be orthodox or normal. Although the term perversion can refer to
a variety of forms of deviation, it is most often used to describe sexual
behaviors that are considered particularly abnormal, repulsive or obsessive.
Perversion differs from deviant behavior, in that the latter covers areas of
behavior (such as petty crime) for which perversion would be too strong a term.
It is often considered derogatory, and, in psychological literature, the
term paraphilia has been used as a replacement,[1] though this term is
controversial, and deviation is sometimes used in its place.[2]

Contents

 1History of concept
 2Non-sexual usages
 3Sexual usages
o 3.1Freud on the role of perversion
o 3.2Arlene Richards on the role of perversion in women
o 3.3The permissive society
o 3.4Critical views
 4See also
 5References
 6Further reading
 7External links

History of concept[edit]
One view is that the concept of perversion is subjective, [1] and its application
varies depending on the individual. Another view considers that perversion is a
degradation of an objectively true morality. Originating in the 1660s a pervert
was originally defined as "one who has forsaken a doctrine or system regarded
as true, apostate."[3] The sense of a pervert as a sexual term was derived in
1896, and applied originally to variants of sexualities or sexual behavior
believed harmful by the individual or group using the term.

Non-sexual usages[edit]
The verb pervert is less narrow in reference than the related nouns, and can be
used without any sexual connotations.[4] It is used in English law for the crime
of perverting the course of justice which is a common law offence.[5] There is a
transition to the sexual in 'the technique of purposeful perversion' of
conversational remarks: "Purposeful perversion of what a woman has said ... is
a long step closer to a direct attempt at seduction or rape." [6]
The noun sometimes occurs in abbreviated slang form as "perv" and used as a
verb meaning "to act like a pervert", and the adjective "pervy" also occurs. All
are often, but not exclusively, used non-seriously.
In economics the term "perverse incentive" means a policy that results in an
effect contrary to the policymakers' intention.

Sexual usages[edit]
Freud on the role of perversion[edit]
Freud's didactic strategy in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality was to
construct a bridge between the "perversions" and "normal" sexuality. Clinically
exploring "a richly diversified collection of erotic endowments and
inclinations: hermaphroditism, pedophilia, sodomy, fetishism, exhibitionism, sadi
sm, masochism, coprophilia, necrophilia" among them, Freud concluded that
"all humans are innately perverse".[7] He found the roots of such perversions in
infantile sexuality—in 'the child's "polymorphously perverse" inclinations ... the
"aptitude" for such perversity is innate'.[8] The 'crucial irony of Freud's account in
the Three Essays was that perversion in childhood was the norm'.[9] Refining his
analysis a decade later, Freud stressed that while childhood sexuality involved
a wide and unfocused range of perverse activities, by contrast with adult
perversion there was 'an important difference between them. Perverse sexuality
is as a rule excellently centred: all its activities are directed to an aim—usually a
single one; one component instinct has gained the upper hand...In that respect
there is no difference between perverse and normal sexuality other than the fact
that their dominating component instincts and consequently their sexual aims
are different. In both of them, one might say, a well-organized tyranny has been
established, but in each of the two a different family has seized the reins of
power'.[10]
A few years later, in "A Child is Being Beaten" (1919), Freud laid greater stress
on the fact that perversions "go through a process of development, that they
represent an end-product and not an initial manifestation ... that the sexual
aberrations of childhood, as well as those of mature life, are ramifications of the
same complex"[11]—the Oedipus complex. Otto Fenichel took up the point about
the defensive function of perversions—of "experiences of sexual satisfactions
which simultaneously gave a feeling of security by denying or contradicting
some fear";[12] adding that while "some people think that perverts are enjoying
some kind of more intense sexual pleasure than normal people. This is not
true ... [though] neurotics, who have repressed perverse longings, may envy the
perverts who express the perverse longings openly".[13]
Arlene Richards on the role of perversion in women[edit]
Freud wrote extensively on perversion in men. However, he and his successors
paid scant attention to perversion in women. In 2003, psychologist,
psychoanalyst and feminist Arlene Richards published a seminal paper on
female perversion, "A Fresh look at Perversion", in the Journal of the American
Psychoanalytic Association.[14] In 2015, psychoanalyst Lynn Friedman, in a
review of The Complete Works of Arlene Richards in the Journal of the
American Psychoanalytic Association, noted prior to that time, "virtually no
analysts were writing about female perversion. This pioneering work
undoubtedly paved the way for others, including Louise Kaplan (1991), to
explore this relatively uncharted territory." [15]
The permissive society[edit]

A sign in Suita city, Osaka prefecture, Japan, warns 'Beware of Perverts'.

Main article: Permissive society

With the sexual revolution of the later twentieth century, much that Freud had
argued for became part of a new wide-ranging liberal consensus. At times this
might lead to a kind of Panglossian world view where every fetishist has his
"fetishera ... for every man who is hung up on shoes, there is a woman ready to
cater for and groove with him, and for every man who gets his thrills from hair,
there is a woman who gets hers from having her locks raped. Havelock Ellis has
many cases of this meeting of the minds: the man who yearns to get pressed on
by high heels sooner or later meets the woman who has daydreamed all her life
of heel-pressing".[16]
Where internal controversy did arise in the liberal consensus was about the
exact relation of variations to normal development - some considering in the
wake of Freud that "these different sexual orientations can best be explained
and understood by comparison with normal development", [17] and highlighting
the fear of intimacy in perversion as "a kind of sex ... which is hedged about
with special conditions...puts a vast distance between the partners".[18] From
such a standpoint, "whatever the deviant impulse or fantasy may be, that's
where the real, true, loving sexuality is hidden" [19]—a point of transition perhaps
to some of the bleaker post-permissive visions of perversion.
Critical views[edit]
For some participants, "Liberation, at least in its sexual form, was a new kind of
imposed morality, quite as restricting" as what had gone before—one that "took
very little account of the complexity of human emotional connections" [20]. New,
more sceptical currents of disenchantment with perversion emerged as a result
(alongside more traditional condemnations) in both the French-speaking and
English-speaking worlds.
Lacan had early highlighted "the ambivalence proper to the 'partial drives' of
scoptophilia, sadomasochism ... the often very little 'realised' aspect of the
apprehension of others in the practice of certain of these perversions". [21] In his
wake, others would stress how "there is always, in any perverse act, an aspect
of rape, in the sense that the Other must find himself drawn into the experience
despite himself ... a loss or abandonment of subjectivity." [22]
Similarly, object relations theory would point to the way "in perversion there is
the refusal, the terror of strangeness"; to the way "the 'pervert'...attacks
imaginative elaboration through compulsive action with an accomplice; and this
is done to mask psychic pain".[23] Empirical studies would find "in the perverse
relationships described...an absolute absence of any shared pleasures"; [24] while
at the theoretical level "perversions involve—the theory tells us—an attempted
denial of the difference between the sexes and the generations", and include
"the wish to damage and dehumanize ... the misery of the driven, damaging
life".[25]

See also[edit]

 Human sexuality portal

 David Morgan (psychologist)

 Fixed fantasy
 Hentai
 Kink (sexual)
 Richard von Krafft-Ebing
 Robert J. Stoller
 Voyeurism

References[edit]
1. ^ Jump up to:    Martins, Maria C.; co-author Ceccarelli,
a b

Paulo. The So-called "Deviant" Sexualities: perversion or

right to difference? Archived 2006-03-03 at the Wayback
MachinePresented in the 16th World Congress. "Sexuality
and Human Development: From Discourse to Action." 10–14
March 2003 Havana, Cuba.
2. ^ Robin Skynner/John Cleese, Families and How to Survive
them (London 1994) p. 285
3. ^ "Pervert".  Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved  6
January 2014.
4. ^ "Pervert".  Dictionary.com. Retrieved  6 January  2014.
5. ^ "Perverting the course of justice".  The Crown Prosecution
Service. 1 July 2011. Archived from  the original on 6
January 2014. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
6. ^ G. Legman, Rationale of the Dirty Joke Vol I (Panther
1973) p. 238–9)
7. ^ Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for our Time (London 1988) p.
145–6
8. ^ Gay, p. 148
 9. ^ Adam Phillips, On Fliratation (London 1994) p. 101
10. ^ Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on
Psychoanalysis (PFL 1) p. 365
11. ^ Sigmund Freud, On Psychopathology (PFL 10) p. 169 and
p. 193
12. ^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of
Neurosis (London 1946) p. 327
13. ^ Fenichel, p. 328
14. ^ Arlene K. Richards (2003)
15. ^ Lynn Friedman (2015)
16. ^ Eric Berne, Sex in Human Loving (Penguin 1970) p. 115
17. ^ Skynner/Cleese, p. 285
18. ^ Skynner/Cleese, p. 290–1
19. ^ Skynner/Cleese, p. 293
20. ^ Jenny Diski, The Sixties (London 2009) p. 62
21. ^ Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection (London 19960 p. 25
22. ^ Jean Clavreul, "The Perverse Couple", in Stuart
Schneiderman ed., Returning to Freud(New York 1980) p.
227–8
23. ^ Adam Phillips, On Kissing, Tickling and Being
Bored (London 1994) p. 64
24. ^ Phillips, On Flirtation p. 104
25. ^ Phillips, On Flirtation p. 108, Raymond Harris, III The
Pervert.

Further reading[edit]
 Robert J. Stoller, Sweet Dreams, Erotic
Plots (2009)
 Morgan, David and Ruszczynski, Stan, Lectures on
Violence, Perversion and Delinquency. The
Portman Papers Series (2007)

External links[edit]
 Joyce McDougall "Perversion"
 Sexual Perversion and Treatment
Categories: 
 Paraphilias
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 This page was last edited on 2 August 2020, at 18:03 (UTC).
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