It looks like weird is the norm when it comes to sexual desires or fantasies. A new study from the University of Montreal looked at different types of sexual behaviors and what they mean.
The study was published in the Journal of Sex Research and consisted of 1,940 Canadians of both genders.
IFLscience reported that under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5), sexual behaviors are divided into normophilic, which means “normal” or typical” behavior and paraphilic, which means “anomalous” or “deviant”.
Out of the participants 45.5% said they are interested in a sexual behavior linked to paraphilic while 33% said they’ve already acted on these desires associated with the latter.
One of the researchers, Christian Joyal said these facts suggest that we need to know what normal sexual practices are before we label a legal sexual interest as paraphilic. According to him, EurekAlert reported that: “Some paraphilic interests are more common than people might think, not only in terms of fantasies but also in terms of desire and behavior.”
Out of the eight types of paraphilic behaviors, four were found not to be rare or unusual for women and men at all. These behaviors are: voyeurism, fetishism, masochism and frotteurism.
The study revealed 35% of the participants liked watching someone engage in intimate or sexual behavior (voyeurism), 26% said they enjoyed sexual stimulation from nonsexual body parts (fetishism), 19% said they liked getting sexual stimulation from pain or humiliation (masochism) and another 26% said they enjoyed rubbing or groping (frotteurism).
But, even though men are found to be more interested in paraphilic behaviors, women aren’t necessarily shying away from it.
“In fact, women who report an interest in sexual submission have more varied sexual interests and report greater satisfaction with their sex lives. Sexual submission is therefore not an abnormal interest.”
Joyal added in a statement that: “A paraphilia is not a mental disorder but rather a sexual preference for non-normophilic behavior, whereas paraphilic behavior is non-preferential and only engaged in from time to time. At the same time, this study strongly suggests that some legal paraphilic behaviors are far from abnormal, contrary to what is suggested by the DSM-5.”
