Exploring the causes of sexual deviations, Deets and Evans noted that the content of popular pornographic publications may be associated with the development of deviant needs and the emergence of deviant behavior. Focusing on the metapsychology of the psychotest, Koning and Jenner emphasize that oral, anal, urethral, and sadistic sexual needs have a strong place in normal sexuality. Based on the study of the content of sexual fantasies in men of different ages, this thesis was also confirmed by other researchers. Moreover, the significance of the content of fantasies accompanying masturbation in childhood and adolescence in the development of sexual deviations is indicated by many modern researchers.
In recent times, the list of classical sexual deviations has been significantly replenished with new, previously unknown forms, the emergence of which is due to technological progress (telephone, television, video equipment), the customs of some modern subpopulation movements (for example, group sex in hippie communes) or the action of certain chemicals. (for example, pharmacogenic orgasm, which occurs under the influence of certain drugs).
The prevalence of sexual deviations in the human population is estimated differently by different researchers. According to McCarey, manifestations of sadism are observed in 5% of men and 2% of women, masochism – in 2.5% of men and 4.6% of women, transvestism – in 1% of people (and in 25% of cases it has a homosexual orientation).
Here is a list and a brief description of sexual deviations that are most often included in sexological classifications:
- sadism – a form of sexual deviation, in which the achievement of sexual satisfaction begins in the process of inflicting pain, bodily injury or humiliation on a partner;
- fetishism (sexual symbolism, sexual partialism) – the object of sexual attraction is a body part, clothing or some other object symbolizing a sexual partner;
- apothemnophilia – a kind of fetishism combined with sadomasochism, in which the role of a fetish is played by deformities of the body;
- pygmalionism (monumentophilia, iconology) – a kind of fetishism, combined with voyeurism, in which the role of a fetish is played by images of the human body (paintings, statues, figurines, photographs);
- narcissism (autophilia, autoeroticism, autoerastia) – the object of sexual attraction is one’s own body (a kind of fetishism);
- automonosexualism – as in narcissism, the object of sexual attraction is also one’s own body (more often its mirror image), but resembling the body of a subject of the opposite sex, achieved with the help of clothes and appropriate manners (a kind of fetishism);
- heterochromophilia – the object of sexual attraction is only a partner with a different skin color (a kind of fetishism);
- retifism – a kind of fetishism combined with masochism, in which shoes (and sometimes other leather items) play the role of a fetish;
- transvestism (aeonism, metatropism) – sexual satisfaction is achieved by dressing in clothes of the opposite sex;
- cisvestism – a kind of transvestism, in which there is a desire to put on clothes not of the opposite, but of one’s own sex, but typical of a different age, or a different social group;
- homewestism – a kind of transvestism, combined with fetishism, in which sexual satisfaction is achieved by dressing clothes of the same sex, but belonging to another person;
- pedophilia (infantosexualism, paderosia) – sexual attraction to children (some researchers consider it as a kind of fetishism, in which the role of a fetish is played by the features of an immature child’s body, and the sex of the baby does not play a significant role);
- parthenophilia – sexual attraction to mature virgins (sexually inexperienced mature young subjects);
- ephebophilia – sexual attraction to teenage boys, young men;
- nymphophilia – sexual attraction to teenage girls, young girls;
- gerontophilia (presbiophilia) – sexual attraction to older people, to the elderly;
- zoophilia (sodomy, zooerastia, zoostuprum, bestiophilia, bestiality) – sexual attraction to animals;
- zoosadism – a kind of bestiality and sadism, which consists in obtaining sexual satisfaction from the torment of animals (akin to ktinomania – a pathological attraction to animal life);
- sexual sadism (erotic tyrannism, active algolagnia) – sexual satisfaction obtained by causing suffering or humiliation to a sexual partner;
- flagellantism (active flagellantism, flagellation, dipoldism) – a kind of sadism in which satisfaction is obtained by scourging a partner, less often self-flagellation (later, the latter form often refers to sadomasochism or masochism);
- saliromania – getting sexual satisfaction as a result of smearing other people with dirt, feces, urine, blood, etc. (a kind of sadism);
- pollutionism – a kind of saliromania, which consists in the desire to stain people with seminal fluid;
- “stabbing” – a kind of sadism, in which satisfaction is delivered by pricking a partner with various sharp instruments (some authors refer to a variety of saliromania; close to this phenomenon is the desire for local cauterization of the body of a sexual partner, for example, with a burning cigarette);
- necrophilia (necromancy, lycanthropy) – sexual attraction to corpses and sexual acts with them. Some researchers distinguish this phenomenon as an independent form of sexual deviations, others consider it as a kind of fetishism (in which a dead body acts as a fetish) in combination with sadism or without it, 30% of them – as a kind of sadism. Closely related to this phenomenon is the attraction to sexual activities with sleeping or unconscious people, with the seriously ill and dying, as well as a sexually tinged high interest in corpses, cemeteries, funeral rituals and everything that is somehow connected with death and the dead. An extreme form of necrophilia is necrosadism (Bertranism) – the desire to desecrate a corpse and abuse it (more often in the form of cutting off the mammary glands, cutting out the genitals) and necrophagy – eating parts of the corpse (often – the genitals). Both necrophagy and necrosadism are sometimes combined with the preliminary killing of the victim, or obtaining sexual satisfaction is associated precisely with the process of killing;
- vampirism (sexual vampirism) – sexual satisfaction begins when you taste the partner’s blood (more often, the partner’s blood is obtained in the process of intercourse or caresses preceding it by applying bites; a number of researchers attribute this phenomenon to manifestations of necrosadism);
- masochism (passive algolagnia, passivism, passive flagellantism) – obtaining sexual satisfaction from humiliation and physical suffering caused by a sexual partner (some researchers combine sadism and masochism into one general form of sexual deviation – sadomasochism, believing that they are complementary forms of obtaining sexual satisfaction and sometimes alternate with the same person;
- thanatophilia (tanatominia) – a kind of masochism, which consists in obtaining sexual satisfaction in the course of fantasies about one’s own death and burial (more broadly – falling in love with topics related to death; the masochistic equivalent of necrophilia);
- excrementophilia (picacism) – a combination of masochism and fetishism, in which human secretions play the role of a fetish (in the form of sniffing, feeling, swallowing or smearing oneself with them; according to the subsequent principle, some authors mean by pollutionism smearing themselves with sperm, and therefore refer to it to excrementophilia);
- reniflex (ozolagnia, osfreziophilia) – a kind of excrementophilia, in which the role of a fetish is played by the specific smell of the object of sexual preferences (olfactory fetishism);
- urolagnia (urophilia) – a type of reniflex, in which the olfactory fetish is the smell of urine (with coprolagnia, the fetish is the smell of feces, with spermolagnia – the smell of seminal fluid, etc.; the taste equivalent of excrementophilia is eating or drinking secretions – urophagy, coprophagia, spermophagy) ;
- frottage (frotterism) – obtaining sexual satisfaction by touching (or rubbing) the genitals to various parts of the body of a chosen object in a crowd, in crowded places (for example, in transport; some researchers understand this term as sexual deviation, which is a kind of exhibitionism, others – a variety petting;
- candaulism – a kind of exhibitionism, combined with masochism, based on achieving sexual arousal when demonstrating a naked wife or partner to other men;
- pluralism (sexual pluralism) – group sex, a kind of exhibitionism combined with voyeurism;
- triolism – a kind of sexual pluralism, which consists in sexual activities between three partners, two of which are of the same gender;
- voyeurism (scopophilia, scoptophilia, mixoscopy, visionism) – attraction to spying on sexual intercourse or naked objects of sexual preferences (a specific kind of voyeurism is an overvalued passion for pornography);
- exaudirism is the acoustic equivalent of voyeurism;
- klysmophilia – obtaining sexual satisfaction by introducing liquid or medical suppositories into the rectum;
- Pyrolagnia – getting sexual satisfaction from the contemplation of fire, the spectacle of a fire (the implementation of arson for this purpose – pyromania).