What is a paraphilia?

Paraphilias are a preoccupation with unusual urges, sexual fantasies and behaviours.

According to the The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), a paraphilic disorder is “a paraphilia that is currently causing distress or impairment to the individual or a paraphilia whose satisfaction has entailed personal harm, or risk of harm, to others”. This distinction draws a line between kinky and victimization.

An article in Psychology Today states that “although many paraphilias seem foreign or extreme, they are easier to understand if one thinks of those behaviors that, in less extreme versions, are quite common. For instance, having a partner “talk dirty” may be arousing for some people, but when talking dirty is the only way that sexual arousal or satisfaction can occur, it would be considered a paraphilia. Others want to be bitten or spanked, or become aroused by watching their partner. Viewing a nude person or watching sexually explicit videos can be arousing for most people. Paraphilias are magnified to the point of psychological dependence.”

Criminal Sexual Behaviour

Paraphillic behaviour becomes criminal when there is an unconsenting person or a child involved. Many murderers have one or more paraphillic conditions mixed with personality disorders.

Criminal paraphillic behaviour includes:

Exhibitionism:  Exposed gentials to strangers and in public places.

Fortteurism: Rubbing against another person, usually in a crowd.

Pedophilia: Primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children.

Voyeurism: Observing private activities of unaware victims.

*Telephone Scatologia: Obscene phone calls.

*Zoophilia: Sexual acts on animals.

Although these paraphillic behaviours are not criminal, they are often linked to sex crimes:

Sexual masochism: Being humiliated and/or forced to suffer physical pain

Sexual sadism: Inflicting extreme pain, suffering or humiliation on others

Fetishism: Use of inanimate objects

Tranvestism: Sexually arousing cross-dressing

*Partialism: Solely focus on a part of the human body, such as the foot.

*Klismaphilia: Using enemas or douches

*Salirophilia: Disheveling or making dirty the object of desire

*Piquerism: Penetrating the skin of another person with sharp objects (such as pins, razors, knives, etc)

*Infibulation: Female genital mutilation

*Hypoxphilia: Erotic asphyxiation or breath control play

*Necrophilia: Sexual interest in corpses.

*Coprophilia: sexual activity involving feces.

*Urophilia:  sexual activity involving urine.

*Listed under “Paraphilias not otherwise specified” in DSM-5.

Most experts agree that paraphilias cannot be cured, but therapy and/or medication can relieve the symptoms and can be used to reduce the risk of criminal behaviour.

Sources:

Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database Research Project

Murderpedia

Cold North Killers: Canadian Serial Murders by Lee Mellor

Serial Killer Quarterly, Grinning Man Press

News sources are listed under individual pages

Sexual Homocide

Hellman and Blackman (1966) first reported the concept of an “antisocial triad” of bedwetting to age 11, fascination with fire, and cruelty to animals as possible markers of later disturbance, and reference has been made to the presence of this triad in a numbers of studies of sexually motivated offenders including sexual killers. Stone (2001) and Schlesinger (2007) noted that cats were often the subject of animal cruelty in the histories of serial sexual killers, perhaps because cats are more available but not powerful enough to be able to fight back.