| paper 3 draft |
[Nov. 9th, 2006|06:09 pm] |
A man lights a fire in the fire place in his home, from the mere sound of the burning he is sexually aroused, to a point others only reach through actual intercourse. This fetish with fire, or pyrophilia as it is called by John Money, a sexologist whom keyed the terminology for most sexual fetishes (***), is one of the more harmless or a long list of fetishes. Not all paraphilia, translated literally as “beyond sex” (***), acts are quite so innocent or safe. For example, haematophilia, the sexual attraction involving blood, may lead a person to cut his/her partner in order to draw blood. Another, more extreme example is lust murders or deriving sexual pleaser for taking another’s life (***). With such extreme negative results, what would lead someone to act on these sexual desires? Our more relevant, where do these fantasies and fetishes originate in the first place? The nature versus nurture debate has been argued for centuries, applying in a wide variety of fields of research, sexology is no exception.
The field of sexology is a relatively new field in comparison to many others, dating back only a hundred years or so. Many developmental psychologists had touched on the subject of sexuality in childhood, but it was not until Richard von Krafft-Ebing that the modern and respectable field of sexology emerged (***). Krafft-Ebing was interested on the origins of sexual disorders, or other wise the harmful paraphilias such as rape or pedophilia, and how people with these disorders could be recognized and stopped. He remained strong to his belief in a purely hereditary and genetically explanation only until Alfred Binet rouse up in opposition with his acquired learning theory on sexual fetishes. Once Binet had argued his point, Krafft-Ebing decided to reconsider his own theory and modify his theory quite drastically, claiming then that paraphilias were due to learning but only in individuals who had the right hereditary background (***). A little under a hundred years later a sexologist by the name of John Money came up with the synthesis of imprinting of paraphilia, much like language is imprinted, with the near same critical periods in its development (***). Krafft-Ebing believed in the nature effect of the formation of paraphilias, Binet in the nurture, and Money wrapped them together in a way in which it is neither wholly nature nor wholly nurture.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing was a sexologist in the late 19th century and early 20th century, his work dealt primarily with sexual disorders in criminal sex offenders. His belief in the impact of nature over the impact of nurture was relatively strong at first and remained a key element in his theory throughout his life. Originally believing that all sexual abnormalities, now referred to as fetishes or paraphilias, were caused by a hereditary and gene based factor. He conducted cross-cultural studies along with case studies of prisoners convicted of sex crimes from lust murder to rape to better understand what he viewed as a disorder. His studies have been considered the most complete and most extreme cases to date, covering the most hostile and ruthless men committed and having an amazing amount of variety (***). He was made to rethink his theory once counter work by Binet, discussed later, was presented. It appears that he more or less took his theory and Binet’s and blended the two together to form a completely new thought process altogether. His new belief stated that nature and nurture work some what together. He believed then that the experiences of the individual have a large effect on the development of paraphilias but only if the inherited genes are present.
Agree or disagree with his thoughts, Krafft-Ebing was a pioneer and has been a highly influential man in field of sexology. At the time his research was done, he had no method to follow and no rules, short of basic ethics, to follow. So unlike a vast majority of researchers today he had no structure or guidelines for his work, he was forced to developed his own techniques and ways of analyzing his findings. He does not simply state that fetishes are due to nature and leave for another subject, he gives areas of the brain he feels are effected and responsible for the actions or disorders. With the limited amount of knowledge on the subject prior to his research, Krafft-Ebing opened a door leading to yet another vast emptiness in science that is now becoming explored in depth. In summary, Krafft-Ebing believed that the nurture side of a person depends on his/her inherent genetics, but at the same time, the sole possession of the genes does not absolutely mean that that person will develop the given paraphilia. That is one side of the debate, now for the counter argument by Alfred Binet.
Alfred Binet lived at the same time as Krafft-Ebing; he too gave a great deal to the field of sexology in his short life. Binet grew up in a family full of doctors and physicians in France. He originally studied to be a lawyer but then became involved as a psychologist and a short time later a sexologist. Even with an education outside the field of medicine, Binet is still credited as an influential figure that helped to open the doors to modern theory and thinking in the subjects of sexology. He also made a great contribution to the field of psychology with his work on intelligent testing. He is also credited with first using the term fetish to describe unusual sexual fixations or acts. As mentioned earlier, he purposed an entirely alternate theory to Krafft-Ebing as to why fetishes occur. He simple believed that paraphilias were gained through associative learning (***). Looking back through the life of a sex offender he believed one could find certain events of environmental situations that effected the way sex is viewed or the way arousal is achieved, these situations occurred in the earlier adolescent years of life. A classic example is a child who is caught masturbating by his mom, she has the sister help to hold him down while she spanks him, and she then threatens to cut of his privates if she catches him pleasuring himself again. Such a case, according to Binet, would most probably lead to an array of fetishes and fixations, first the sexual pleasure he gave him self had suddenly been associated with pain, leading to an either sadism or masochism fetish, with his sister in the room he might also become incest to a slight degree, and lastly the threat of castration could lead to gender confusion of not meant to have a penis or to a fetish involving amputations (***). Binet felt that a simple act such as the punishment of this little boy could affect the entire sexual life he pursues. He held strong to a purely nurture standpoint in the way of sexual disorders, fitting the clean slate theory of the human mind at birth into the realm of sexuality (***).
The theories of Krafft-Ebing and Binet have long been regarded as general truthful that is until the research of a professor at John Hopkins Medical School in the 1980’s named John Money. Money keyed the term paraphilia along with the scientific terminology for near every modern fetish or sexual disorder. He is best known for his work on gender identification and transsexuals. In regards to the origins of paraphilias, Money came to view them much as the origins of language, with an imprinting view point (***). This theory involves a combination of the nature and nurture aspects of the original theories by Krafft-Ebing and Binet. Money incorporates Krafft-Ebing's theory of nature by claiming that every individual is imprinted with the ability to acquire a paraphilia, but the imprinting is not limited solely to people with genetic disorders (***). He also believes strongly in the nurture aspect, stating that the paraphilia are formed when an event triggers the imprinting (***). The strongest argument Money has for support for his claim is its ability to apply globally and in a multicultural setting, much like language. Since every person is imprinted world wide then the culture has an amazingly high effect on the out come of the children, not in the way of harmful or bizarre paraphilia but in general practice and acceptability of sex. Money published a book entitled, “Vandalized Lovemaps: Paraphilic Outcome of Seven Cases in Pediatric Sexology” in which he examines seven case studies he performed and there out comes, which ranged from the development of paraphilias from one boy with acrotomophilia, attracted to amputees, and apotemnophilia, the sexual desire to amputate something on someone or self, to a boy who developed a paraphilia for drowning, or a combination of asphyxiophilia, the paraphilia dealing with strangulation and suffocation, and aquaphilia, a water fetish. Money describes the event in the boy’s lives that lead them to their individual paraphilias. |
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