Many ‘abnormal’ sexual tastes are neither rare nor unusual, study finds | Hacker News Reader

Many ‘abnormal’ sexual tastes are neither rare nor unusual, study finds

theglobeandmail.com

55 pointsilamont27 comments

The article:

Joyal, C. C., & Carpentier, J. (2016). The Prevalence of Paraphilic Interests and Behaviors in the General Population: A Provincial Survey. The Journal of Sex Research, 0(0), 1–11. http://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1139034

Its abstract:

Paraphilic sexual interests are defined as unusual or anomalous, but their actual occurrence in nonclinical samples is still unknown. This study looked at desire for and experience of paraphilic behaviors in a sample of adult men and women in the general population. A secondary goal was to compare the results of two survey modes—traditional landline telephone versus online. A total of 1,040 persons classified according to age, gender, education, ethnic background, religious beliefs, area of residency, and corresponding to the norm for the province of Quebec were interviewed. Nearly half of this sample expressed interest in at least one paraphilic category, and approximately one-third had had experience with such a practice at least once. Voyeurism, fetishism, frotteurism, and masochism interested both male and female respondents at levels above what is usually considered to be statistically unusual (15.9%). Interestingly, levels of interest in fetishism and masochism were not significantly different for men and women. Masochism was significantly linked with higher satisfaction with one’s own sexual life. As expected, the online mode generated more acknowledgment of paraphilic interest than the telephone mode. These results call into question the current definition of normal (normophilic) versus anomalous (paraphilic) sexual behaviors.

Men and women have equally freaky sexualities, and equally strong sex drives. AFAIK this is settled science by now.

Women are justifiably terrified of being attacked, slut shamed to the extent of losing their career or custody of their own kids, blamed for their own rape/assault, or trapped by abusers.

This has a tendency to cramp their style.

There are significant differences. See the table I just posted.

A merge of the most interesting tables (D = desire, E = experience, * = significant difference from the other group (men vs. women, internet vs. phone)):

                           D (overall) D (men) D (women) E (overall) E (men) E (women) E (internet) E (telephone)
  Voyeurism                46.3        60.0*   34.7      34.5        50.3*   21.2      38.3*        30.4
  Fetishism                44.5        40.4    47.9      26.3        30.1    23.2      31.5*        20.8
  Exhibitionism (extended) 30.6        35.0    26.9      30.9        32.6    29.4      37.0*        24.2
  Frotteurism              26.7        34.2*   20.7      26.1        32.4*   20.5      32.2*        19.2
  Masochism                23.8        19.2    27.8*     19.2        13.9    23.7*     23.9*        14.2
  Sadism                   7.1         9.5     5.1       5.5         7.4     3.9       6.3          4.6
  Transvestism             6.3         7.2     5.5       4.9         6.5     3.5       5.7          4.0
  Exhibitionism (strict)   4.5         5.9     3.4       5.0         7.8*    2.7       5.2          4.7
  Sex with child           0.6         1.1     0.2       0.4         0.6     0.2       0.7          0
  Others                   NA          NA      NA        3.6         4.8     2.5       5.9*         1.0

[deleted misinformed speculation]

You caught a typo of mine. I flipped the Others and Sex with child values for E (women). Corrected.

How are they defining "Fetishism", precisely?

Here is a copy of that table at pastebin: http://pastebin.com/HhXt8Nba

This may be easier to read on some browsers.

For most of those, D > E, which is what I would expect. There are only two exceptions.

For women E(extended exhibitionism) > D(extended exhibitionism), and for men E(strict exhibitionism) > D(strict exhibitionism).

What are extended exhibitionism and strict exhibitionism, and why do more people experience these than desire to?

from the paper..

they fail to explicitly define strict, but it is implied from the survey question:

    4. Exhibitionism: “Have you ever been sexually
    aroused by showing your genitals to a stranger who
    was not expecting this?”;

but the paper does explicitly define extended:

    An additional item—“extended exhibitionism (couple)
    which refers to having sex with a partner in front 
    of other people or where you are at risk of being
    seen

so i think you can get from this that strict implies solo, and extended implies multiple participants

which draws a clear line as to why more experience than desire: fulfilling a fantasy of at least one less than the number of the participants

This has been known since the Kinsey Reports (1948 and 1953) literally and figuratively blew the covers off bedroom shenanigans, so I am not sure what is new here to see.

Of course, back then there was a predictable pushback by Evangelicals all over the world against the surveys, and that pushback had significant effects in keeping the information taboo.

Well, Kinsey's sampling methods were highly... unorthodox, to say the least. Which drew severe criticism to his findings, in subsequent decades.

So I think the purpose of this study was to show (at least some of) Kinsey's findings are ballpark-reproducible, under controlled conditions.

"However, Joyal also noted there is a bias in the findings; since many people refused to participate in the study, those who agreed might be more likely to have a predilection for, um, naughty behaviours. In short, they might have surveyed a lot of braggers."

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/03/10/quebecers-may-be-a-bit-...

Why wouldn't it be the other way around? It seems plausible to me that those who aren't open about their paraphilias would also respond with a "Thanks but no thanks" when a research assistant calls them to inquire about his abnormal sexuality.

Exhibitionism and voyeurism are not illegal when it's fully consensual. There's plenty of people who like to show off, and to watch. Just saying.

Also BDSM is its own subculture. There may be a munch near you. Go forth and have fun.

I think that depends on context. Exhibitionism in public is likely not legal in many jurisdictions and the same for voyeourism. If people know you're watching and are consenting it's not quite voyeurism.

They don't distinguish from "normal for a healthy human" and "normal for people in Quebec". E.g. If everybody in America is obese, is obesity the new 'normal'? What value is there in that definition?

Don't get me wrong, enjoy whatever you like. But lets understand that humans living in crowded cities may lead us to tastes that our forebears would have found puzzling. That these new tastes may be diagnostic of how our mental processes were formed? Thus still useful measures of our mental health.

Except that the paper is referring to the province of Quebec, not Quebec City...

Almost everybody lives in cities. And, as usual, this survey was of people who have phones and were at home at the time of the survey. SO, middle-class and probably older. If we want to start splitting hairs.

“While some paraphilic behaviours, such as pedophilia, exhibitionism and voyeurism, are illegal and involve a non-consensual party, certain others should not be labelled abnormal, says the study’s co-author, Christian Joyal... ‘If people are happy, if everybody is consenting, I don’t know why it should be abnormal, especially in 2016,’ Joyal says.”

In other words the co-author either has no grasp of, and/or little regard for, distinctions considered important by many people across many centuries: moral object versus moral subject, intention, and circumstances. See the essay Intrinsic Evil and the Moral Object[+] for an overview.

In pointing that out, I don’t mean to denigrate the researchers’ persons or work. But the co-author’s “I don’t know why...” comment jumped out at me; I don’t think it was a rhetorical statement. Indeed, in many conversations I’ve had in recent years and in my daily reading, I sense a vast and accelerating cultural ignorance related to basic moral philosophy, especially among STEM folk. That’s quite a different thing than holding fast to or proposing a conflicting set of reasoned ideas. Now, discussing-debating the details is somewhat out of scope for HN – and I’m not attempting to get that snowball rolling down hill – but ignorance of this variety ultimately leads to dismissive attitudes and mental caricatures of those with whom we disagree, paving the way for “justified” incivility. I think we can and should do better.

[+] http://www.catechism.cc/articles/moral-object.htm

Monogamous missionary in the context of matrimony is quickly becoming paraphillia. Those poor Christian soldiers (et al) lost the war on pleasure, they just haven't accepted it.

is it in part due to the fact that as we have a rising population then rare or quirky kinks are now held by a greater number of people and are therefore more commonplace, in addtion the internet helps bring people together so people have access to a community of like minded folk and further people are less likely to be worried about talking about it so are more open to discussing it and making others aware.

That's more correlation than causation. I'd imagine it's because in 2016, it's socially acceptable to be a bit "kinky" so more people are willing to be open and honest about it. When researchers ask people about their sexual tastes, there's less incentive to lie since there's less of a stigma about it.

Researchers could have saved themselves a whole lot of effort just by connecting to the Internet for a few minutes and reading the "rules"--particularly 34, 35, 36, and 46.

Combine that with the theory that only 1% of any online community actively participates or contributes to it. It's like counting mice or roaches. For every one you can see, there are many others that you can't.

The porn industry must have known about this for years.

Sales figures trump surveys, every time.

It's just really difficult to prevaricate when you're speaking with your dollars and euros.

In all likelihood, the phone survey results are skewed slightly just because people feel less anonymous with that technology, particularly now that phone numbers are more closely connected with a specific person than with a fixed location.

Well, you do have to account for the difference between enjoying watching or reading something and wanting to actually do that thing. That's a real difference.

For instance, most people who enjoy murder mysteries or horror movies wouldn't want to be involved in a real life murder or zombie apocalypse.

I like historical novels about the Age of Sail, but that doesn't mean I want to actually have scurvy, and certainly don't want to have people firing cannons at me. :-)

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