April 1, 2011

Paraphiliphilia makes it into the DSM-5

In a surprise move the American Psychiatric Association has decided to include a new set of paraphilias (sexual perversions) in the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

Given the controversy surrounding the already included paraphilias, including autogynephilia (the love of oneself as a woman) and hebephilia (sexual attraction to teenagers), one would think that the experts would be careful not to stigmatize new social groups by labeling them as mentally ill.

Not so.

More paraphilias to be included

Several researchers have, however, argued that the present list of sexual perversions is arbitrary and based on the prejudices of the researchers involved.

As one sexologist is reported to have said during a stag party: "A pervert is any kind of person my mother would not invite home for dinner". Such thinking can clearly not serve as the foundation for a serious scientific theory.

What is a paraphilia?

A paraphilia is defined as any powerful and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in copulatory or precopulatory behavior with phenotypically normal, consenting adult human partners (Cantor, Blanchard, & Barbaree, 2009).

Exactly what kind of behavior that falls inside or outside this definition seems to be a matter of taste. Ray Blanchard, one of the researchers behind this new definition, argues -- for instance -- that anal penetration with the finger, penis or dildo is kosher while enemas are not. The definition itself does not explains why homosexuality is out, while crossdressing is in.

Professor Nick Noire from the University of Wallamalango on Tasmania in Australia says it this way:

"If you want to include people who dress up in rubber and tie each other up for fun, you must also include other forms of strange activities that include the retargeting of sexual energies towards fertility wise improper objects and behaviors."

In other words: The only proper kind of sex is vanilla intercourse between men and women with the aim of conceiving children.

Noire takes the erotic target location error theory of Blanchard, the scientist who coined the term autogynephilia, to its logical endpoint, and has now gotten support for including paraphilias like numismatiphilia (erotic arousal from dealing with coins) and supellectiphilia (furniture).

Insulted stamp collectors

The International Society of Worldwide Stamp Collectors (ISWSC) has protested strongly against the inclusion of philateliphilia, arguing that stamp collectors collect stamps for cultural and social reasons, not because they get sexually turned on by postage.

Noire points to a study done by him and his assistant on filatephiliacs using a penile plethysmograph, an instrument that measures changes in blood flow in the penis:

"We measured erections in several philatelists that were shown photos of of the first stamp in the world, the One Penny Black stamp featuring the bust of England’s Queen Victoria. We found a statistically significant effect in 54.5 percent of the subjects. In comparison only 24% got an erection when shown a food stamp for Kellogg's Corn Flakes."

Noire points out that any person who spends large portions of his time looking at small pieces of paper, must be mad:

"Most of them live their mum, anyway!" he says, and goes on to argue that the very fact that these people are collecting stamps in the age of email and twitter proves that they are mentally ill.

He admits that it is hard to explain the existence of philateliphilia from a biological viewpoint:

"It has clearly been caused by a rather new and harmful mutation," he says. "One which most likely appeared in Britain in the 19th century and spread from there through the British crown colonies."

Gender equality

The previous inclusion of autoandrophilia (for female crossdressers) has killed the previous consensus that women cannot harbor paraphilias.

Now we find the inclusion of anuluphilia (sexual arousal associated with fashion accessories), nuptialiphilia (weddings) and mercantophilia (shopping). All of this is considered a victory for gender equality by the DSM paraphilia work group.

Noire argues, though, that none of these female specific paraphilias have been found among male test subjects, with the possible exception of ludoautomercantophilia (sexual arousal from buying sports cars).

Homosexuality is back in

The experts are now taking the rationale behind the inclusion of paraphilias one step further.

Professor Noire argues that any sexual activity that does not contribute to a healthy development of the human gene pool, must be considered a paraphilia:

"If you read the material presented by scientists like Ray Blanchard and J. Michael Bailey, it is clear that they base their reasoning on an evolutionary viewpoint. This is why Blanchard tries to explain the existence of homosexuality in evolutionary terms, as something beneficial to the survival of our species," Noire says.

"This is clearly rubbish, as autogynephiliacs and other perverts are more likely to get kids than any gay guy."

Noire therefore wants to reintroduced homosexuality into the DSM as a paraphilia:

"I really can't understand why Ray [Blanchard] is so reluctant to do this, " he says to the British magazine the New Scientist. "Ray's attempts at defending the honor of homosexuals is suspect, if you ask me."

"This is about the scientific truth," Dr. Noire continues. "We cannot give in to the prejudices of political correct wishy washy liberals."

Say hello to turpiphilia!
Noire has managed to convince the work group to add another paraphilia that apparently threatens the genetic health of the race, namely turpiphilia (defined as "sexual attraction to esthetically dysfunctional people").

Professor Nick Noire ->

"The underlying premise for the Darwininan selection of the fittest is that the female select the healthiest and most aggressive male, in the same way the peacock hen will mate with the males with the most impressive plumage. A big and colorful tail signal health of the male peacock. In the same way beauty signifies health among humans. Men and women who choose to mate with esthetically challenged people must therefore be considered paraphiliacs."

The work group hopes that the inclusion of turpiphiliacs in the manual will make the turpiphiliacs rethink their decision to have children with turpimetics (ugly people).

Noire argues that since most turpiphiliacs are turpimetics themselves, this will end the breeding of more unhealthy individuals:

"There is no pleasant way of saying this," he said. "But most turpiphiliacs are very unattractive and are therefore unlikely to get sexual access to superior beautiful people. By including turpiphilia in the DSM we are paving the road for a brave new world populated by Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman lookalikes only."

That being said, people like Blanchard and Noire have faced some setbacks in the DSM gender identity disorder work group.


In a coup Professor Ole T. Olerant of the of Karolinska in Stockholm has managed to get another paraphilia into the proposed manual, namely paraphiliphilia (sexual arousal associated with an interest in paraphilias).

Apparently Professor Blanchard and his colleague Ken Zucker at the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) were unable to attend this particular meeting.

The CAMH study

Professor Olerant has done a study based on a questionnaire sent to the researchers at the CAMH, and has come to the conclusion that most of them suffer from paraphiliphilia, and obsessive need to sort all people into paraphiliacs and non-paraphiliacs.
"I believe there are two kinds of sex disorder researchers," Olerant tells Science.

"There are the empathic and the autoanalytic. The empathic are focusing on the well being of the client, while the autoanalytic is focused on the development of typologies. There is reason to believe that these differences in personality types are biologically based, as the autoanalytical sexologist have lower mean IQ’s and higher rates of left-handedness than other groups of sexology patients."

<- Doctor O. T. Olerant of Karolinska in Stockholm

Olerant sent out 650 questionnaires to the research staff at the CAMH teaching hospital and got 10 in return.

Professor Olerant has been strongly criticized for the lack of representativity of this sample (Lawrence 2011), but he replies that if Blanchard and his colleagues can make use of in house patient data to make general conclusions about other types of paraphiliacs, he must be able to do the same using the staff of CAMH.

Based on an empathy test two out of 10 respondents were classified as empathic by Olerant:

"I know that some say that one of them has reported paraphiliphilic fantasies, but given the fact that no empathic sexologist can have fantasies of this kind according to my theory, I believe these dreams are more expressions of a natural attraction to a female patient. These things happen, you know."

Researchers at the CAMH have pointed out that out of the remaining 8, 4 did not report paraphiliphilic fantasies either (Zucker 2011).

"These respondents are clearly lying," Olerant says in a recent interview with Science. "They lie about their compulsive analytical obsessiveness in order to avoid social stigma. I would say that this clearly proves that all of them are narcissistic paraphiliphiliacs!"

Olerant also believes that all the anger he has faced from researchers in Toronto is more proof of them being paraphiliphiliacs: "This is science! Researchers are not supposed to get emotional about a mere medical classification. "

CAMH strikes back

Mr. T. Daniel Burns of the CAMH Board of Trustees says to the Toronto Star that he is appalled at this breach of scientific etiquette:

"Doctor Olerant has clearly misused the trust of our staff, and used the survey to wrongfully label them all as paraphiliacs. By pathologizing our researchers he undermines the dignity, credibility and respect of this teaching hospital!"

Burns is not willing to make a compromise with Olerant:

"Under no circumstance will we agree to Olerant's proposal of letting our researchers undergo a phallometric test while reading Archives of Sexual Behavior. We do not let our staff undergo the humiliating experience of being hooked up to a genital machine. They are human beings, not animals!"

The final version of the DSM-5 is expected to be published in 2013.

The proposal for a new entry on paraphiliphilia has been included below.

Proposed new definition of Paraphiliphilia

This disorder is to be be renamed from Obsessive Compulsive Perversion Disorder to Paraphiliphilia.

A. Paraphiliphilia is manifested by 2 or more of the following indicators:

(1) recurrent and intense sexual arousal from classifying sexual activities into subcategories, as manifested by fantasies, urges, or behaviors (including medical experiments, lectures, conference interventions, and peer review paper publications)

(2) equal or greater arousal from the classification of paraphilias than from the classification of other objects or practices, including, but not limited to the classification of races (cursuphilia), cultural sub-groups (tribuphilia), gender (genuphilia), political ideologies (fidephilia).

(3). Repeated use of scientific literature describing sexual activities and fantasies considered by the individual to be abnormal.

(4) Reduced ability to understand the complexity and heterogeneity of dynamic social and/or biological systems and a strong urge to reduce any number of variables to no more than two.

B. The person has clinically significant distress or impairment from important areas of functioning, including, but not limited to, reduced empathic and social functionality, or has sought personal satisfaction from behaviors involving the psychological suffering of two or more nonconsenting persons classified by the individual as paraphilic on separate occasions.

C. The related activities lead to significant distress, stigmatization and impairment for the persons categorized through such paraphiliphilic systemization.

D. The paraphiliphilic categories are limited to sexual practices or fantasies (as in Transvestic Disorder).

  • Neologophilia (an intense urge to coin new pesudo-latin and pseudo-greek terms for classifying paraphilias):
  • Educational background:
  • Scientific discipline:
Preferred sexual paraphilia(s):
  • Transvestic Type—sexually attracted to Transvestic paraphilias
  • PedophilicType—sexually attracted to hebephilic, pedohebephilic and pedophilic paraphilias
  • Sexual Masochism Type -- sexually attracted to sexual masochistic paraphilias
  • Voyeristic Type -- sexually attracted to voyeristic paraphilias
  • Frotteurstic Type -- sexually attracted to frotteuristic paraphilias
  • Exhibitionistic Type -- sexually attracted to exhibitionistic paraphilias
  • Heterogeneous Type -- sexually aroused by paraphilic activites that do not meet the criteria for any of the specific paraphilic categories. Examples include, but are not limited to, telephone scatologia (obscene phone calls), necrophilia (corpses), zoophilia (animals), coprophilia (feces), klismaphilia (enemas), urophilia (urine), filateliphilia (stamps), numismatiphilia (coins), supellectiphilia (furniture), anuluphilia (fashion accessories), calceuphilia (shoes), mercantiphilia (shopping), lagoenagaleriphilia (bottle caps), elibriphilia (ebooks), ipaedophilia ( young iPads), hillaryphilia (a fetish for Hillary Clinton), crudupisciphilia (an attraction to men or women eating sushi), turpiphilia (esthetically dysfunctional people), autoautogynehphiliacphilia (arousal from imagining oneself as a male to female crossdresser), autoautoandrophiliacphilia (arousal form imagining oneself as a female to male crossdresser)
Specify type:
  • Sexually Attracted to Males
  • Sexually Attracted to Females
  • Sexually Attracted to Young Sexy Androphilic Male to Female Transsexuals (hebetranshomophilia)
  • Sexually Attracted to ATHP (omniphilia, i.e. arousal from Anything That Has a Pulse)

Specify if:
  • In Remission (No Distress, Impairment, or Recurring Behavior and in an Uncontrolled Environment): State duration of remission in months: ____
  • In a Controlled Environment (e.g. in a non-fetishsitic straitjacket)

Members of the DSM-5 Sexual and GenderIdentity Disorders Work Group:
Zucker, Kenneth J., Ph.D. Binik, Irving M., Ph.D. Blanchard, Ray, Ph.D. Brotto, Lori, Ph.D. Cohen-Kettenis, Peggy T., Ph.D. Drescher, Jack, M.D. Graham, Cynthia, Ph.D. Kafka, Martin, M.D. Krueger, Richard B., M.D. Långström, Niklas, M.D., Ph.D. Meyer-Bahlburg, Heino F. L., Dr. rer. nat. Pfäfflin, Friedemann, M.D. Segraves, Robert Taylor, M.D., Ph.D.


  1. Glad they included that darned homosexuality again.

    Jryy cynlrq! V qrsvavgviryl pnhtug ba bayl nsgre yhqbnhgbzrepnagbcuvyvn.

  2. Jack,

    You may be surprised that I'm going to say this BUT:

    Why are we concerned that Autogynephilia is located in the DSM? I've asked this general question in my old blog as well.

    Out of all the people at Crossdream Life, here, my blog, or anywhere else, I'm not exactly seeing a bunch of individuals claiming to be content. In fact, its quite the opposite.

    What we really need is to focus on WHY we have these crossdreaming desires in the first place. In fact, allowing autogynephilia to be introduced into the DSM would only serve the interest in figuring that out, would it not?

    Cutting right back to the chase again: I think that autogynephilia is a CONDITION from a lack of gender expression, caused by the conscious or unconscious. That this condition is a CORRELATED with transexuals seeking SRS, but definitely is NOT THE CAUSE of that desire.

    I'm not going to speak for other sexual deviations, only for ours: The appetite we share is not just of people pretending to be CIS gendered straight males. Many post op transexuals claimed to have autogynephilia prior to transitioning, and that doing so was the only thing that allowed them to escape the trauma caused by it. Rather than feeling aroused from crossdressing or fantasizing, that they would feel sexy instead=- like CIS gendered women.

    Like I've said before, my idea might be baseless and I may not be a scientist, but common... What else do we really have to figure out?

    If anything, I'd say that the bulk of crossdreamers I've experienced are certainly different in not only their sexuality, but their gender as well.

  3. From reading the forum we can see that many people tell that they have mental troubles = borderline, schizophrenia, Asperger...

    And you can probably add many who have never seen a shrink and refuse to face the fact that they are very unbalanced and that being a woman will sold all their problems.

    These troubles can not come from rejection linked to AG, can't they ?

    For me it means that most transexual and people who have a fetish with their own body in female have no inner woman but a mental disorder.

    I don't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to change their body.

    But they should stop telling that their are women, that they have an inner woman because it makes no sense unless you admit that someone
    can have an inner dog or fish or alien or Micheal Jackson or Napoléon...

    They can tell that they feel feminine and that they want to be less male or even have a female body (as we are both male and female and as we should be free to chose how we look like) but not that they are real women in wrong bodies by inventing some crazy theories.

  4. Man, all i can say is wow. Why do they have to go and classify everything as a problem. It seems to be that they are trying to take the fun out of life. You like to collect this you've got so and so philia. The problem is that it means you've have a problem.
    All humans are different there are many things that we share but we have just are many differences.

    I think that homosexuality is normal by that i mean i think we are all capable of liking the same sex if we are brought up in a culture that tolerates it.
    And I Nick Noire is a social Darwinist by saying all ugly people have a disorder, what is beauty its not something you can classify in one category. Anyway it interesting to see what people are trying to come up with now.

  5. Religion is the worst think for people like us. It is at the origin of most deviant's people shame and guilt.

    Psychiatry is the new moral guard in many countries but in the USA, religion is stull the first oppressor.

    So people like us should better fight religions and some social obligations linked to it (marriage, kids...)

    Then, we could fight psychiatry. But frankly, why giving so much important to what shrinks tell when you feel good with youself ?

    An happy deviant will not give a shit to what religion or DSM tell. He will do what he wants.

    And most people don't even know what is the DSM so their behavior will not become transgender friendly if the DSM tells that being a woman in his fantasy is not pervert.

    We are not politicaly correct, we are deviant and we should assume that.

  6. Why to classify as a problem ?

    1) A bad reason
    = to control people

    2) A good reason
    = because many people are unhappy, depressed, do stupid things to feel better (smoke, drink, cut...) and when you listen to them, you see that some have all the same symptoms and so you make a category of disorder called X knowing that it is just a theory and that it can change in the future once we know better about people we put in the category.

  7. Who cares about the DSM and Blanchard ?

    My problem is not them.

    My problem is what to do with my deviant needs, how to integrate them in a real life.

    I feel better and less empty when I dress and have anal sex with men thinking that I am a sexy woman.

    I can feel depressed after but it is not because of Blanchard but because I love women and so I feel a cognitive disonnance = I love in the woman's role but I love women.

    We need to solve this disonnance. To find a way to combine 2 needs that seems opposite.

    I don't give a shit to the DSM so if the AG is removed from it, my situation will not change at all.

  8. Twas the first day of April
    and all over the world
    there were very odd stories
    reported as truths.

  9. @Renee


    Amen to that. After having studied myself, the literature and the lives of other crossdreamers, this is what rings true to me.

    Which also means that I cannot agree with Anonymous on this being a mental disorder (unless you define having a female pysche/instincts/sense of self in a male body as a mental illness in itself).

    Maybe there is some kind of statistical correlation (crossdreamers are more likely to get genetically based mental diseases), but most of the psychological suffering you see in our circles can easily be explained by the pressure of being stigmatized and not recognized as a decent human being. Depression, grief and anger are the most common reactions, not more serious personality disorders as borderline and schizophrenia.

    And yes: The fact that many crossdreamers experience a feeling of having a second female personality is not schizophrenia: That is just the psyche's way of coping with the dichotomy between male and female. I am sure of it, because I know that I am not insane.

  10. Borderline or psychotic mentals structures are set up before 6 years so before most people have any gender issue and so it can not be because they could not express their inner woman that these people have AG.

    I never wanted to be a girl when I was a kid. I evn remember thinking to be lucky to not be a girl because girls didn't wear sneakers when I was 12 while boy did.

    A psychotic person can not trust her own judgment and think that because she thinks he is a female that means that she is really a female, can't she ?

    Why do you refuse to be seen as sick (mentaly unbalanced)??

    I consider myself as sick and I don't see where is the problem.

  11. Any one who wants to change his own body (for sexual or other reason) to an extreme level is mentaly sick (for exemple M Jackson was sick even if he didn't want to be a female).

    It means that he doesn't accept his well working own body. That is not a sign of good mental health.

    The question is what to do with these people ????

    As we can not treat them, we allow them to live their fantasy = to be women.

    But it doesn't mean that they were women just because we allow them look female.

    The fact that they are sick doesn't mean that they must be rejected. Same as someone with cancer shouldn't be rejected but helped.

    Of course, the society is too rigid and we should all be allowed to dress how we want and have the sexuality we want but completely changing his own body and replacing natural organs (balls) with prothesis (hormones) is a sign of mental illness.

  12. Jack, you need to go into your settings and see if you can't tweak your comment permissions to only allow unique blogger accounts to comment.

    Its obvious basnylons is behind 4 or 5 of the anonymous comments here- and they read about as poorly as generic chinese spam.

    I'm sorry but I can't stand it. This guy makes me imagine a teenaged, French Ray Blanchard. OMG, is Ray Blanchard a French Canadian?!

    I'm onto you Basnylons...

  13. @Anonymous

    You are torturing yourself. Stop it!

    I have followed a lot of crossdreamers for the last three years. Yes, I see a lot of mental anguish, but nearly all of the people I am discussing these matters with are lucid, amazingly balanced, show a great deal of insight into their own psyche. They manage to live the lives of good co-workers, and fathers even.

    They are not borderline, psychopats, schizophrenic or whatever.

    The idea that none of the "AGP" do not discover their gender dysphoria until late is a myth. Many of them find out before the age of 6, and as for the rest, I suspect they are so busy fitting in that they suppress the whole thing.

    Besides, this is not really about the classical "I wanted to be a Barbie as a kid" kind of tale. This is probably about deep instincts that come before any dreams of fulfilling stereotypical gender roles.

    I cannot remember wanting to be a girl before the age of 9 to 11, but I know that something was "different" long before.


    This is true, but what if she is not psychotic, but she has been told so many times that wanting to be the other sex is insane, that she concludes she is insane? Then she will no longer trust herself, even if she is sane.

    "Why do you refuse to be seen as sick (mentaly unbalanced)??"

    I am not saying I am not mentally unbalanced. I am deeply depressed by this whole thing. But feeling grief and despair is not the same as being sick. It is a natural reaction to an intolerable situation.

    But I know that I am not insane, and I know that my crossdreaming is not a result of my anguish. It is the fact that so many people belittle my worth as a human being by calling me a pervert that causes the suffering.

    Of course, this does not mean that crossdreamers cannot be mentally ill. You find schizophrenia and borderline patients in all cohorts of society.

    If you truly are basnylons as Renee believes, you have shown a reduced ability to feel the pain of others over at Crossdream Life.

    That could be a sign of another type of mental illness. But it could also be the result of your suffering. We do a lot of strange things when we are in pain.

    Anyway: You will not find support for the "all crossdreamers are mentally ill" theory here.

  14. I am basnylons and I told on the forum axactly what I was telling you here and by email.

    So I don't catch where is the problem on the forum.

    1 schizo, 1 borderline, 1 Asperger on a forum with 15 posters. I wonder what the other hide !

    For your information, a psychotic person can live a normal life with no symptoms so the fact that you can think doesnt mean that you are not sick.

  15. Borderline disorder and gender trouves are VERY LINKED.

    Read about the borderline disorder.

    So for you, AG can NEVER be the consequence of a mental illness but it can be the cause because of the stress of not being able to realize a fantasy ?


    This is not about realizing a fantasy per se, but about living in harmony with very basic instincts. The copulation instinct is clearly one of them, but I believe this may be a matter of some kind of internal body image as well.

    That being said, I cannot say for certain that a mental illness will never lead to a condition similar to crossdreaming.

  17. Borderline people very often have gender troubles as their whole identity is blured (they don't know really who they are, what they want...). This is well documented.

    So anyone with AG should consider that he might be borderline.

    By treating the borderline disorder, the gender trouble may vanish or at least be less present.

    I don't catch why you refuse to admit tha AG can come from a mental illness as if mental illness was shameful.

    Of course, many AG may not be borderline. Some can have other mental illness that make them feel AG.

    I agree for the sexual instinct but it is possible to have a passive instintc and not to want to be a woman. Gay men are bottom and don't want to have a pussy to be bottom. So AG doesn't come from the need to be penetrated. It comes from a fetish for the female body (like all men who loves women) and for accessories around it (like many men who like lingerie) but for an unknown reason, the AG can not put his libido on the female body when the body is not his body. It is very narcissistic = being turned on by his own body more than the body of others.

  18. Borderline people have gender issues. This often part of the disorder as these people have a blured identity.

  19. So before going into big theories of inner woman, and feminizing his body, anyone with AG should check if he is not borderline.

    If he is, the AG may lower when the borderline is treated by therapy or medecines.


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