Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- One What is enigmatic about sexual desire?
- Two Explaining desire: multiple perspectives
- Three Sexual desire in a broad context
- Four An incentive-based model
- Five Sex and levels of organization
- Six Sexual attraction
- Seven Shades of desire from simple to complex
- Eight Details of the brain and desire
- Nine Arousal
- Ten The consequences of sexual behaviour and associated expectations
- Eleven Sexual familiarity and novelty
- Twelve Inhibition, conflict and temptation
- Thirteen How did sexual desire get here?
- Fourteen Setting the trajectory: link to adult sexuality
- Fifteen Sexual desire in interaction
- Sixteen Representations of sex
- Seventeen Sexual addiction
- Eighteen Variations in desire: general principles
- Nineteen Some forms of desire at the fringes
- Twenty The toxic fusion: violence and sexual desire
- Twenty one Sexually associated (serial) murder
- Twenty two Concluding remarks
- Notes
- References
- Index
Eighteen - Variations in desire: general principles
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- One What is enigmatic about sexual desire?
- Two Explaining desire: multiple perspectives
- Three Sexual desire in a broad context
- Four An incentive-based model
- Five Sex and levels of organization
- Six Sexual attraction
- Seven Shades of desire from simple to complex
- Eight Details of the brain and desire
- Nine Arousal
- Ten The consequences of sexual behaviour and associated expectations
- Eleven Sexual familiarity and novelty
- Twelve Inhibition, conflict and temptation
- Thirteen How did sexual desire get here?
- Fourteen Setting the trajectory: link to adult sexuality
- Fifteen Sexual desire in interaction
- Sixteen Representations of sex
- Seventeen Sexual addiction
- Eighteen Variations in desire: general principles
- Nineteen Some forms of desire at the fringes
- Twenty The toxic fusion: violence and sexual desire
- Twenty one Sexually associated (serial) murder
- Twenty two Concluding remarks
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
When I took off my shoes, Paulus became ecstatic about my feet. In later years, I often said that if I hadn’t walked barefoot with him that day, we would never have married. That was after I had learned that his preoccupation with feet had always been extraordinary. One of his most erotic sensations – a memory from childhood – was of the mother of a friend of his who behaved unconventionally, not to say audaciously, by walking barefoot in the sand at the ocean.
(Hannah Tillich, wife of theologian Paul (‘Paulus’) Tillich, in Tillich, 1973, p. 87)The phenomena
This chapter examines variations in the form of behaviour, where it is idiosyncratic. Some of these forms are perfectly harmless exaggerations of ‘normal’ desire, as in the above, or where some individuals are sexually excited by particular items of clothing, most usually shoes. However, at the other extreme, some are ‘all-engaging’ and extremely dangerous. One person’s desires are fuelled by coercion and violence, whereas most of us are horrified by this. To most, a reciprocating and empathetic human is essential to sexual desire, but a few seek sex with terrified victims or even corpses. Another’s fantasies are mainly masochistic. Others are drawn to peeping through their neighbours’ windows to glimpse a naked body, whereas some want their own exposed genitals to be displayed. Some of the best known such ‘paraphilias’ these days, such as voyeurism, fetishism and exhibitionism, are apparently little if at all evident in traditional societies (Gebhard (1971). They might arise in societies where people are able to remain anonymous.
How can we understand these outliers of desire? Chapters 18–21 look at various forms of desire ‘at the fringes’ and the kind of underlying processes that appear to give rise to them. I cannot provide definitive answers to why someone exhibits a particular ‘fringe desire’, but there are now some strong pointers. The incentive-based model developed in Chapter 4 can serve as a framework for understanding.
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- Information
- How Sexual Desire WorksThe Enigmatic Urge, pp. 346 - 369Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014