Last semester I took a course in abnormal psychology and a major part of it was going over the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” Interestingly enough, a portion of this lengthy book is around sexuality, kinks, and paraphilias. 

I was most confused about different paraphilias that I have always just regarded as standard kinks in the BDSM (bondage, domination, sadomasochism) community.  

For example, men who have fantasies of dressing in traditionally female clothing are labeled with the paraphilic disorder of transvestic disorder. 

In 1994 was there an addition to the criteria which adds that the fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors must “cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.” Some other kinks got this thrown on to their diagnosis as well to separate consensual adults practicing and those that deem their kinks in need of control. 

However, how can some of these kinks done consensually ever be distressing unless society is pressuring a person to not do it? 

If we are just more accepting of people and mind our business on what people choose to do in the bedroom we probably would not be in this mess. 

On the other hand, there is a place for BDSM and kink practice to be studied in academia because sexuality and how the mind works in those ways is a beautiful thing, deserving to be explored further. It just deserves space to be explored further non-judgmentally and without outright saying that those that practice kink are mentally ill like the “DSM-5″ used to suggest. 

It is considered taboo to speak about to a great deal of people. In contrast to my psychology classes so far that I have learned so much about animal experimentation that still grosses me out, how much worse can studying people having fun and enjoying each other in diverse ways be? 

Another point that goes along with how the “DSM-5” and previous books set up paraphilias may be that there are just not many people involved in the BDSM scene also doing studies. Those that are not part of a community can have a limited point of view when attempting to study that group of people.  

Is there enough people in the kink community within the field of science to do this kind of research? Being part of the community helps in understanding terminology and culture surrounding it. 

Either way people deserve to have safe, sane, and consensual fun without the stigma of potentially being considered mentally ill for it. Psychologists must be safe when including these diagnoses in the various DSM.

Theo Edwards is a junior psychology major. They can be reached at 581-2812 or heedwards@eiu.edu.