Sexual perversions
Freedom! What a wonderful concept. One of our most important freedoms is our ability to make choices. When a person takes that freedom away from another person, they can feel violated. An example of this is rape. Rape always involves one person violating another person, by forcing them to have sex. There is a difference between sexual intercourse that occurs between consenting individuals, compared to the sexual pleasure one with a deviant perversion would receive. In this essay we will discuss the various types of perversions that have been documented, and I will argue that however odd or strange a specific perversion seems, the only type that should be considered morally wrong are those that hurt people by taking away their freedom to choose whether or not they want to participate in the act.Within our ever evolving society, we can see how it is that our views of perversion can change, some are added and some are removed. Homosexuality had for a long time had been considered as a sexual perversion among many parts of Western civilization, (and for some it still is), but within the field of psychology, it is no longer considered pathological (Parker p132). Homosexuality was viewed as deviant because it was considered no
" (Barlow p G-12) There are a number of recognized disorders of this type. Theories of how homosexuals have different brain activity, specifically a larger hypothalamus was noted as one possible cause(Parker p134). Whatever the reasons or cause for homosexuality, it is becoming more evident that with societies increasing acceptance of it, we are slowly taking away the stigma that was attached to it. The list can go on, and include anything from people who are sexually attracted to urine (urolagnia) to those who are sexually attracted to wood (xylophilia). There is however one specific reason why I believe that homosexuality should have never been classified as a perverse behaviour, and that is because homosexuality occurs between two consenting individuals, unlike many of the other deviant behavior's we will discuss. Pedophilia which is a sexual attraction to children, and sadomasochism, which is taking sexual pleasure in inflicting pain and humiliation, or having pain inflicted upon one's self. In fetishism, the object of sexual desire is either an inanimate object or another part of the body that normally would not be related to sexual arousal. We live in a society where you can not just go around hurting people for your satisfaction, and the laws are there to punish the people who feel they have the right to do this. (Barlow p335) However odd these desires may seem, they are relatively harmless, because no-one is hurt by these desires, (the only exception here would be voyeurism, it must consensual or it would be considered a violation). Joel Feinberg's The Concept of Harm, defines a "harm to others principal" in which he writes, this principal "permits society to restrict the liberty of some persons in order to prevent harm to others" (Feinberg p195). We are lucky that in our society we hold people responsible for their actions. It reiterates the point that while we should all have the freedom to desire what we like, when that desire will cause harm to others it should be considered wrong, and therefore your freedom to choose such a desire should be taken away. There are however paraphilias that do cause others harm. By sending people to jail, we are taking away their freedom, and ensuring that they will no longer be able to do harm to others. Throughout the years, scientists have tried everything to explain a cause for homosexuality.
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,
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