■ Noncoercive paraphilias are often solo activities or behaviors that involve the participation of adults who agree to engage in, observe, or just put up with the particular variant behavior.
■ Fetishism, transvestic fetishism, sexual sadism, sexual masochism, autoerotic asphyxia, klismaphilia, coprophilia, and urophilia are all varieties of noncoercive paraphilias.
■ Fetishism is a form of atypical sexual behavior in which an individual obtains arousal by focusing on an inanimate object or a part of the human body.
■ Fetishism is often a product of conditioning, in which the fetish object becomes associated with sexual arousal through the reinforcement of masturbation-produced orgasm.
■ Transvestic fetishism involves obtaining sexual excitement by cross-dressing. It is usually a solitary activity, expressed by a heterosexual male in the privacy of his own home.
■ Sadomasochism can be defined as obtaining sexual arousal through receiving or giving physical or mental pain, or both.
■ Most participants in sadomasochism view it as a form of sexual enhancement that they voluntarily and mutually choose to explore.
Atypical Sexual Behavior
■ People who engage in sadomasochistic behavior may be seeking additional nonsexual stimuli to achieve sufficient arousal. They may also be acting out of deeply rooted beliefs that sexual activity is sinful and immoral.
■ For some participants, sadomasochism acts as an escape valve that allows them temporarily to step out of the rigid, restrictive roles they play in their everyday lives.
■ Individuals who engage in sadomasochism sometimes describe early experiences that may have established a connection between sex and pain.
■ Autoerotic asphyxia is a rare and life-threatening paraphilia in which an individual, almost always a male, seeks to enhance sexual excitement and orgasm by pressure-induced oxygen deprivation.
■ Klismaphilia is a paraphilia that involves achieving sexual pleasure from receiving enemas.
■ Coprophilia and urophilia are paraphilias in which a person obtains sexual arousal from contact with feces or urine, respectively.