Sexual Perversions (Paraphilias)

This article considers perversions (paraphilias) from various perspectives. A brief description of some common paraphilias are given as well as a brief look at examples from Greek mythology and ancient history. How perversions were classified illustrates the beliefs about them, as exemplified by the writings of De Sade, Jeremy Bentham, Krafft Ebing, Freud, and associates. The contributions of Darwin's theory of evolution and Haeckel's concept of ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’ to these ideas are considered. Recent developments which involve use of technology, including use of the Internet and virtual reality for sexual purposes, are discussed. Some modern etiological ideas are considered from the fields of genetics and fetal development, as are recent concepts from cybernetics and chaos theory.