Arousal and Paraphilia

Arousal And Paraphilia

In society, there are many things that can be considered as “arousing” to different people in different situations. For instance, an individual could be aroused by men or women, and in some cases they are aroused by both. People are not the only way a person becomes aroused; it can be done by having a sense of fear, being in pain or inflicting pain on someone. Objects are also a cause of someone becoming aroused.

In the world of psychology two psychologists by the names of Masters and Johnston created a model for arousal. The model consisted of four stages, it first starting with excitement. Following excitement is the plateau stage of the model, and then comes the orgasm. The last phase of the model is resolution, or the refractory period for the male. More recently for psychological purposes, they added a stage to the model. Instead of starting the starting it with excitement, they began the model with desire than the following four. They did this because if someone is aroused, it does not necessarily mean that they have a desire to act on the arousal.

When pertaining to arousal, different people have very different opinions of what is arousing and what is not. There are people that have a certain type of individual or a “proto type” and are strictly aroused by that type, and sometimes they are not. In a heterosexual male’s perspective, some men can be very aroused to a woman’s breast, while another man could not find it arousing at all, and be more interested in the woman’s butt. Not only parts of the body that are considered being “sexual” such as breast and the genital area are considered arousing. Some individuals consider a man or woman’s eyes and other body parts that are not typically looked at as being sexual as highly arousing. To support this idea, take different cultures for example. In cultures where food is scarce and the general population is “skinny”, most of the time the women that are larger are considered as the most attractive and the most arousing. It is almost the complete opposite here in America. The stereotyped women that are considered as the most attractive and arousing are the skinniest women in society. That is only one example of this, but there are many more cultures that would disagree with our idea of an “attractive and arousing” woman, because of the look of being unhealthy. Oct 4th

In psychology, there are three learning associations involved in arousal; the first is known as Classical Conditioning. This term means that a neutral object and pair it to something else at the same time, that causes an arousal. After this is done enough times, only the object will be necessary in the arousal. An example of this would be if a man has sex with a woman, and every time they engage in any sexual acts she wears red lingerie. After a while, the man will begin to be aroused by the sight of red lingerie or an object that resembles it, and the woman will no longer be necessary. One restriction to this theory is that person involved will have to have at least a neutral attitude towards the object, or it is not a factor in arousal. The next idea associated with arousal is Operant Conditioning; which is when arousal is based on consequences of behavior. It simply means that the way an individual was rewarded or punished as a child plays a factor in finding things arousing. The last theory associated with arousal is known as Social Learning. This theory states that an individual is aroused by people or objects that are known as arousing by society. A man watching pornographic movies with a group of men and they express how arousing they find a woman’s breasts; and he agrees. The man believes that he is a “normal” man because he thinks the woman’s breasts are arousing; that is an example of Social Learning (Psych Notes, Oct 4th).

People are not always aroused to people or objects that are considered as deviant. There is a population of individuals in society that have a “love for what is beyond”. When saying this, it means that they have what is known as a paraphilia. People in the category of having a paraphilia are considered to have a sexual fixation for unusual objects and or unusual settings. Objects such as underwear, shoes; and having