Paraphilias caused by emotional or psychological issues

I was wondering if there are any documented cases where someone's paraphilia was caused by emotional, developmental or psychological issues and whether they were 'cured' of their paraphilia through therapy or some other means.

I was also wondering if there existed a comprehensive list of emotional, developmental and psychological issues that caused paraphilias and the 'symptoms' of those causes aside from the paraphilia itself.

I know that many criminals arrested relating to their paraphilia have common trends but I'm not sure if they would be a good example to use.

There's lots on the internet about this, but nothing totally conclusive. Personally, I still think those with paraphilias around sex were exposed to sex at an early age. Last time I brought this idea forward, people would say No, I wasn't exposed to sex, yet I learned their parents left porn magazines around or that at 8 or 10 they saw it online. Or there was sexual touching with others at an early age.

In other words, they were indeed exposed to sex at an early age, they just don't see it as such.

Some info here on possible issues leading to paraphilias:
http://www.medicinenet.com/paraphilia/page2.htm

Thank you very much for responding and for that information.

I'm no expert on this topic because I don't have a paraphilia and am about as far from being a pedophile as you can get. I simply can not see how little ones are sexually attractive or arousing.
They do bring out my protective instincts though.

I want to better understand people with paraphilias, including pedophiles, and develop an understanding and compassion for those who struggle with it... as I did with homosexuals. I totally changed my views of them over the years.

I don't come on here often because it is difficult for me emotionally.

I'm not attracted to prepubescent children either but I normally tell people who come here struggling with new found or realised attractions that emotional and psychological issues can be the cause and that they can be dealt with through therapy. I don't know for sure if that is possible so that is why I made this thread. People who are attracted to adults and develop a sexual attraction to prepubescent children much later in life seem to support a case for emotional and psychological issues being the cause so I want my advice to be adequate and relevant. I did believe it myself but it appears that sexual attraction to children can be helped using techniques developed by mental health professionals and by dealing with any contributing issues through therapy. I believe that this applies to many other paraphilias if they have developed later in life and don't seem to be something determined before birth.

I always like to be the control for discussions like this.

I never had any emotional, developmental, psychological or physical abuse as a child. I was sexually aware (masturbating) at 8 years old. At that point, and not until I was 12, I had not seen any pornography or walk in on "wrestling" parents or whatnot. Despite this, I still had an interest in the girl in my class and would pleasure myself while thinking of them.

Today, I still do not suffer from any sort of psychological issues, and live a fairly happy life.

As an interesting note, I think that BECAUSE I don't have any psychological/mental/emotional issues, that may be why I've been able to accept and love myself and my pedophilia. Maybe if I had those issues, I wouldn't be able to be confident in who I am and accept that I was just born a good person with a less common sexual orientation.

I wouldn't want to "cure" a part of myself because it would take away something valuable that makes me who I am.

Sorry. Not trying to derail the topic. I just wanted to put up more of a counter-argument as to how paraphilias aren't necessarily a bad thing caused by trauma that needs to be cured. If your topic was not meant to insinuate that MOST people with paraphilias have them because of those traumas, then I apologize and feel free to note otherwise and simply ignore this post. I just hate the idea that people think pedophiles, necrophiles, and the rest become that way because someone "messed them up" as kids.

I don't think that every case of a paraphilia is caused by emotional or psychological issues. Cases like yours do indeed support a theory that some paraphilias were determined before birth. I don't even think that most paraphilias are caused by trauma in childhood or later in life. I think that in the cases where there doesn't appear to be any childhood trauma and that it wasn't something determined before birth, that issues arise and eventually intensify, possibly creating new issues and causing the paraphilia as a response to that. It may even be something else that manifests as a sexual attraction. So I believe that there are many different causes or sources of praraphilias. Sorry for not making it clear when I said that in my previous post. No one should seek a 'cure' unless there is sufficient evidence to show that a 'cure' is possible and only if their paraphilia gives them marked distress and greatly impacts their life.

Mustelidae wrote:I don't think that every case of a paraphilia is caused by emotional or psychological issues. Cases like yours do indeed support a theory that some paraphilias were determined before birth.

I don't think Atma's experiences support the 'before birth' theory. If anything, they support what I tend to believe, that early sexual development is more likely to be a cause of paedophilia, where a sexual attraction to children is formed and perhaps fixed. I know that masturbation and early sexual feelings are common in children, but I doubt they are that common. When I was at primary school, I knew only one boy who had a girlfriend, and virtually all the other boys had little to do with the girls - and this was very much mutual. It was only in the last couple of years that I began to have attractions to any girls. I know we have moved on, but not that much. It was also in the last year of primary school that I noticed two boys (in my class) rubbing against each other at playtime - the first time I actually noticed anything sexual.

Although relationships between girls and boys at primary school can be common, many of these relationships seem more about prestige and gender determining factors, that of belonging to your group. A good book on this subject is Girls, Boys, and Junior Sexualities by Emma Renold. Apart from this book, a 2014 TV series on UK TV for children, Our School, detailing what to expect during the transfer from primary school and during their first year at secondary school, showed much the same about the notional boy/girlfriend relationships, these often being in name only, with little physical contact between the children. These children would have been 11 or 12 at the time, and it appears that little has changed over the decades - much like when I was at school.

That is another plausible theory that I have seen on this forum before.

"Caused by" is tricky and hard or impossible to pin down. There may be correlations between some psychological issues and "paraphilias" (I use quotes here since I don't regard all socially discouraged forms of attraction as such), but as any researcher can tell you: "correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation". In my case I am a diagnosed Asperger's Syndrome male who has, over many years, been attracted to young teenage girls. Lacking the interactive social skills and awareness to successfully "chat up" and date women my age, I frequently gravitated toward the younger ladies, helped in some cases by the fact that such girls sometimes feel flattered by the attentions of an older man. Often I simply sought out girls that I felt comfortable talking with and established friendships. In other cases I looked for possible romantic relationships. Thus I went out with teenagers when I was in college, later on when in military service, and beyond. I met one of my best friends, a lady of 14, when I was in my late 30's. When I was 50 I made the acquaintance of a late teenager in an Asian country (where they don't have the typical Western hangups about such relationships), married her there, and brought her back to the US. This has worked out very well for us. This tendency may run in the family, as my father was a high school teacher who married his prize student, my mother. Whether this reflects a genetic tendency or a personal influence (nature vs. nurture) I have no idea. I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting any general connection between Asperger's Syndrome and attractions to younger girls, merely reporting my own experience. There was a logic to it in my case, at least from my internal perspective.