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OTHER PERVERSIONS

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There are many other perversions. For example, there are some people who get their best sexual pleasure from masturbation and prefer it to other activities. Rapists sometimes claim in their defence that pornography led to their condition, but as erotic and pornographic material is widespread and rapists are not, other factors must be involved, even if the original statement is true as far as it goes. The use of alcohol is probably a much more common precipitant factor in a rather inadequate individual who is basically afraid of women but hostile towards them. Some rapists find that the struggle and the power they feel enhance their sexual drive, so perhaps they should really be considered perverted. Others can scarcely perform at all. Certain types of rapist are deterred if the woman fails to struggle or if she gives in. Psychopathic men may displace anger with one woman on to another and generally manage to convince themselves that the woman deserved what she received.

In general the conclusion which emerges from studying perversions is that there are components of them in most of us, but in most people they are integrated into the overall pattern of their sexuality and certainly do not dominate it. If they are to be at all useful, theories as to what causes them have to be sufficiently precise to allow parents to prevent their formation in the first place. Insufficient research has been carried out on this subject. The main dilemma such research would try to explain is why some individuals exposed to fairly similar situations in childhood and beyond as those experienced by deviants and perverts should develop normally or fairly normally. Some individuals are able to control their tendency towards a perversion, but may become neurotic and produce other physical and psychological symptoms.

On the whole psychiatry has been woefully inadequate in investigating perversions and has very little to say about their prevention. Another body open to criticism is the Home Office. If the Home Office made clinical histories of sex offenders available for study, together with the prisoners themselves, if they were willing, much light could be shed on the subject. Whilst prisoners should not be deprived of any rights, many would be willing to involve themselves in serious research aimed at uncovering the real causes of their plight, as opposed to the ones offered publicly in court, especially if it led to the establishment of preventive programmes.

A more immediate solution may be to establish walk-in clinics on the same lines as VD clinics, where even the names of those attending need not be taken. In such clinics help, advice and treatment could be offered to those who suffer from, or think they might have, a problem. Many know something is wrong before they commit an offence and some would be sufficiently motivated to seek help if it were available.

Looking at the problem more generally, anything which promotes happy and fruitful

man-woman relationships, better marriage and healthier, more rational attitudes towards sex would help. Parents and teachers need to be better informed about normal sexual development and, with increased knowledge about what is normal and what is not, should be able to get professional help for their children before things go too far.

Although many readers may be put off by the subject matter of this chapter, feeling that most of it is totally foreign to them, it must be seen as a part of human experience. Though we have tended to present the many facets of unusual sexual expression as simply as we can and in somewhat ‘barn-door’ ways, it should be realised that they also exist in lesser and less easily recognisable forms in most of us.

Rather than condemning the individuals whom this chapter describes, it perhaps behoves all parents to think critically about the impact of cultural restraints and excitations upon their children and to reflect on the long-term harm that can result from thoughtless actions.