perversion

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Classification according to ICD-10
F65.0 fetishism
F65.2 exhibitionism
F65.3 Voyeurism (disorder of sexual preference)
F65.4 pedophilia
F65.5 Sadism (disorder of sexual preference)
F65.5 Masochism (disorder of sexual preference)
F65.8 Necrophilia (other disorders of sexual preference)
ICD-10 online (WHO version 2019)

Perversion (from Latin perversus 'twisted', 'wrong') describes a reversal into the pathological or abnormal or such a feeling and behavior. Colloquially, the term is often used for strongly deviating or taboo behavior or a development in this direction. It is mostly used in a sexual context.

Concept history

Originally, the use of the adjective pervers in medical parlance did not have a negative connotation. The concept of perversion is initially linked to the theory of degeneration of the late 19th century. Richard von Krafft-Ebing provided essential scientific foundations in his work on sexual pathology . There he also made a distinction between illness (perversion) and vice (perversity). Back then, homosexual men were portrayed as hereditary perverts. After Sigmund Freud's publication of the Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie in 1905, the understanding of the term has spread, especially in relation to the sexual aspects. Subsequently, further terms have developed in the chronological order: deviation, deviations, types of sexuality, variants, paraphilia , preference disorders. The term dissexuality was also proposed by Beier in 1994 and 1995.

Until the late 20th century, homosexual acts among men were classified as perverse in most states and sometimes prosecuted, for example because the ability to have romantic relationships among homosexuals was disputed. Traditionally, in many cultures, sexual behavior in particular was described as perverse if it did not serve the purpose of reproduction. Likewise, sexual activities and fantasies whose object is not a partner with whom a child can be conceived are still considered perverse.

While the term perversion has been replaced by paraphilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) uses the term sexual preference disorders.

The question of the disease value

In the sexual context, the term stands for a strongly time and society-dependent deviation from the socio-cultural norms generally regarded as appropriate with regard to sexual desire and action. The focus is on unusual sexual practices or objects. In the sexual area in particular, however, what counts as a deviation from normality is often culture-dependent.

In many cultures today z. B. Oral-genital or anal-genital sexuality, homosexuality , masturbation are referred to as perversions, while according to ICD-10 these represent behavior in accordance with the norms. In the ICD-10 and the newer DSM-5 , disorders of sexual preference are diagnosed instead, such as fetishism , fetishistic transvestism , exhibitionism , voyeurism , pedophilia , certain forms of sadomasochism , sodomy and similarly strong deviations of sexuality from “norm behavior”.

Based on Hans Giese , the term "sexual perversion" is used when it is a matter of pathological deviation. The disease severity is determined by Giese, but also by Eberhard Schorsch (1971) and Johann Glatzel, based on the following criteria:

"Interchangeability of partners, anonymity and promiscuity, expansion of the imagination, practice and refinement, addictive character of behavior, ritualization, self-centeredness, relief of non-sexual difficulties through sexuality and disintegration, in that the object of sexual desire is detached from the context of the personal relationship framework."

The psychoanalyst Estela Welldon uses the term perversion “consistently in the sense of a recognized clinical form of existence [...] in which the person concerned does not have the freedom to achieve genital-sexual satisfaction and instead feels subject to compulsive behavior, in which unconscious hostility is one Role. "The sexologist Volkmar Sigusch justifies his adherence to the term perversion:

“I have chosen to continue to call addictive sexual developments in need of treatment perversion. The main reason is: This word doesn't gloss over anything; it calls the catastrophe by name. This cannot be said of the term paraphilia, which younger sexologists prefer to use. We should use this word when it comes to unusual sexual preferences and behaviors that do not require therapy and do not cause violence to anyone, which means that they do not harm either the paraphile himself or any other person. "

- Volkmar Sigusch : Sexual worlds

Discourse analytical perspectives

The philosopher Michel Foucault understands perversions as a socially constructed and produced phenomenon. In his work The Will to Know (French. Original: Histoire de la sexualité ) Foucault carries out a profound analysis of the social, political and economic power mechanisms that produce and manipulate sexual norms over time. He examines the conditions of medical, legal and biological discourses about sexuality (their 'historical a priori '). In this context, he criticizes their conceptions of sexuality and their understanding of sexual inclinations. He devotes a separate chapter to the “implantation of perversions”.

According to Foucault, a process has been going on since the 17th century that, although superficially called repression , i. H. as a ban on talking about sex appears. If one looks at this phenomenon at the level of the discourse about sex, according to Foucault, an almost inverse process can be observed. "Modern societies are not characterized by the fact that they banish sex in the dark, but that they speak incessantly of it and assert it as the secret." Sex is thus forced into a "discursive existence" that is also the product of The influence of power is, but it is also only made possible. This can be observed, for example, when dealing with children's sexuality. The masturbation of children comes from the 19th century increasingly becoming the focus of educational institutions and parenting. By clearly condemning it as a 'vice', stricter control measures are launched, which, however, also increases the target of the exercise of power enormously - everything becomes suspect. The condemnation of the masturbation of children makes it a secret, of course without being able to completely erase it: children are forced to hide them "so that they can be discovered afterwards". Instead, their sexuality is checked, 'interrogated' and, if in doubt, treated medically.

According to Foucault, perversion, as an 'abnormal' sexual inclination, also increasingly came into the medical perspective in the 19th century, under which we still view it today. In short, a change can be noted, according to which the ecclesiastical legal prosecution of violations of marital law is increasingly being replaced by the medical examination and 'treatment' of sexual preferences. In contrast to the legal discourse, the field of medicine tries to classify perversions as precisely as possible, and to shed light on their causes and connections. In this context, different 'unnatural' sexual acts are differentiated, as well as their identification with certain types of people, characters, physiognomies and life courses. Perversion (and sexuality in general), according to Foucault, is thus increasingly becoming an object of scientific knowledge and social control. One consequence is that the perversion is primarily not 'banished', but rather named and thus produced in the first place. Foucault comes to the conclusion that even if it superficially seems to suppress sexuality, it is precisely “the ' bourgeois ' society of the 19th century - undoubtedly still ours - (...) a society of the most flourishing perversion”.

See also

literature

  • Heinrich Ammerer: Krafft-Ebing, Freud and the invention of perversion. (Attempt to encircle). Tectum, Marburg 2006, ISBN 3-8288-9159-4 .
  • Heinrich Ammerer: In the beginning there was perversion. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, psychiatrist and pioneer of modern sex education. Styria Premium, Vienna / Graz / Klagenfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-222-13321-3 (revised dissertation, University of Salzburg, 2010).
  • Sergio Benvenuto: Perversions. Sexuality, Ethics and Psychoanalysis. Turia & Kant 2009, ISBN 978-3-85132-549-2 .
  • Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel: The anatomy of human perversion . Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2002.
  • Michel Foucault: The will to know. Sexuality and Truth 1. Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-518-28316-5 .
  • Eberhard Schorsch, Gerlinde Galedary, Antje Haag, Margret Hauch and Hartwig Lohse: Perversion as a criminal offense. Dynamics and Psychotherapy. Springer, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-540-12468-3 .
  • Eberhard Schorsch; Perversion, love, violence . Edited by Volkmar Sigusch and Gunter Schmidt, Contributions to Sexualforschung, Vol. 68. Enke, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-432-25391-5 .
  • Volkmar Sigusch : Neosexualities. About the cultural change of love and perversion . Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2005, ISBN 3-593-37724-1 .
  • Robert Stoller : Perversion. The erotic form of hatred . Psychosocial, Giessen 1998, ISBN 3-932133-51-X .
  • Estela V. Welldon: Perversions of women (= Martin Dannecker, Gunter Schmidt, Volkmar Sigusch [Hrsg.]: Contributions to Sexualforschung . Volume 82 ). Psychosocial, Gießen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-164-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Duden, keyword perversion .
  2. ↑ Sydney Alrutz: About the so-called perverse temperature sensations. In: Scandinavian Archives for Physiology. Volume 18, 1906, pp. 166-176.
  3. ↑ a b Hans-Jürgen Möller, G. Laux, H.-P. Kapfhammer: Psychiatry and Psychotherapy . Springer-Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-27386-8 , pp. 1537 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ Claudia Bundschuh: Pedosexuality: conditions of origin and manifestations . Springer, 2013, ISBN 978-3-663-10987-7 , pp. 18 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ Andreas Marneros: intimicide: the killing of intimate partner; Causes, factual situations and forensic assessment; with 12 tables . Schattauer, 2008, ISBN 978-3-7945-2414-3 , pp. 179 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ A b c Ilka Quindeau: Freud and the Sexual: New Psychoanalytic and Sexual Science Perspectives . Campus Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-593-37848-0 , pp. 136 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ^ Weber, Klaudia Luise et al .: Perversionen. A standard work in sexual psychology. Edition Liber Specialis, Norderstedt 2015.
  8. ^ David Kupfer, Darrel Regier: DSM-5 Implementation and Support. American Psychiatric Association, accessed May 4, 2015.
  9. ↑ John Junginger: Summation of arousal in partial fetishism. In: Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. Vol. 19, No. 4, 1988.
  10. ^ A b Norbert Nedopil: Forensic Psychiatry: Clinic, Assessment and Treatment Between Psychiatry and Law; 69 tables . Georg Thieme Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-13-103453-3 , p. 199 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed February 20, 2016]).
  11. ↑ Johann Glatzel: Forensic psychiatry: The psychiatrist in criminal proceedings . F. Enke, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-432-94901-4 .
  12. ↑ Estela V. Welldon: perversions of the woman . Psychosocial, Gießen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-164-7 , p. 208 .
  13. ↑ Volkmar Sigusch : Sexual Worlds. Heckling from a sexologist . Psychosocial, Gießen 2005, ISBN 3-89806-482-4 , p.  100 .
  14. ↑ a b c d e Michel Foucault: The will to know. Sexuality and Truth 1 . 22nd edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 978-3-518-28316-5 .