SUMMARY :
Although today the term "paraphilia" is the one most commonly preferred,
due to the fact that the word "perversion" carries moral connotations,
by using the old term, a distinction can be made between "hardcore perversion"
and a new category of "soft" perversion.
Perverts focus on satisfying their impulses, and not on the object of love.
All human beings experience a transitional phase of perversion during childhood,
coined by Freud as "polymorphic sexuality". The child is too immature
to be aware of genital sexuality, so he uses all the orifices of his body to
give himself pleasure, without any thought for morals. Becoming mature means
getting beyond this stage. A pervert is someone who has not been able to go
beyond it, or who has come back to it later in life. For example, a child placed
in a situation where he sees his parents having sex can in some cases stay blocked
in this childhood experience. The impulse is more important that the object
of the impulse. The other being is not an alter ego but rather an object of
satisfaction.
It is not always easy to recognise a pervert at first sight. Many perverted
males are very seductive and can be charming. The perversion kicks in when the
woman falls in love, when she has bonded to him, and he feels his partner in
his power. He will then start to try to dominate her psychologically by pretending
to her that he alone holds the secret of orgasm, whereas in fact his aim is
to cancel it out (the true pervert), or to reach her money (the psychopath).
But the types of paraphilia are very different for men and women. Women are
more masochistic, but moral masochism in this case rather than sexual masochism.
This type of masochism is based on sacrifice: they are accepting to suffer for
their partner.
Exhibitionism is as common in women as in men, but the psychological origin
is different. For women, it is caused by doubts about their own sexual identity,
whereas men who show off their penis are doing it to shock the other person.
All other forms of paraphilia pertain to men only. One of the explanations is
that women have a lesser need to act out their fantasies. In addition, their
perversions are feeling-based rather than sex-based: these are women who love
excessively, or manipulative women.
Paraphilia is generally male because of the man’s need to permanently overcome
a subconscious fear of castration, where he diverts the fear by means of the
perversion.
But today a distinction can be made between the classical pervert and those
with "microperversions" (soft perversion). A "hardcore"
pervert is totally bound to his perversion, enslaved by it, expressing his sexuality
according to an imposed scenario. The central element of "hardcore"
perversion is not extreme sex, but a lack of freedom, a prison in which the
pervert takes refuge, whatever the danger he is fleeing, making him totally
different from those suffering from "soft" perversions. Soft perverts
act out fantasies which they have kept within the confines of their imagination
until then. Couples today seem to have signed a subconscious agreement founded
on their mutual capacity to provide emotions. When this no longer works, they
go off looking for something more intense elsewhere. In the past, people had
sexual fantasies that were very remote from reality, and remained in their imaginations.
Today, they want to compare them with real life. Such as men who have a homosexual
affair just to "see what it was like". This does not make them homosexuals.
I have seen a few cases of couples where soft perversion has provided more freedom
to their sexuality. In most cases, these couples eventually destroy each other,
because one of them asks for more than the other, or asks for it at a different
time from the other.
Some perverts love their partners in their own way: they can be totally destroyed
when he or she leaves them. But it is not love in the adult meaning of the word,
which requires reciprocity and generosity. It is a certain type of love, known
as "clinging" love, as a child clings to its mother. It is a regressive
form of love, described by the Hungarian psychoanalyst Imre Hermann.
Some women are initially seduced and find after a few months that they are in
love with a pervert who likes to humiliate, exploit, and abuse them, and not
only sexually. But they remain attached to their tormentor because, in such
cases, there is a form of sentimental masochism related to their childhood.
To detach themselves from the other person, there has to be a process of "defusionning".
But these women have difficulty in doing so: they are afraid that by ending
the relationship, they will lose all these feelings, all this energy that they
have invested in it. In such cases, therapy can help understand that energy
and feelings belong to us alone, and are not linked to anyone else.