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Why isn't sexuality a paraphilia?

 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
20:10 / 16.07.06
I have a confession.
For all of my life I have been at the mercy of an naked lady fetish. I can only be sexually gratified in the company of an female I am attracted to, I find myself thinking about them at innapropriate times (about every six seconds) and have even sought out pictures of naked ladies to fufill my warped desires.
Now, for a hetrosexual male that's normal. I have a sexual preference, nothing to be ashamed of. Now try replacing 'attractive women' with 'shoes', 'latex', 'spanking', 'smoking' or forty years ago 'naked men' and the diagnosis would be that I have a sexual fetish, or more properly a Paraphilia.
What is the a distinction between a sexuality and a paraphilia? Why is one limiting sexual preference privileged over another?
 
 
Lugue
21:49 / 16.07.06
Note: I'm no expert, and am relying in good part on the link provided.

Isn't there a bit of a terms issue here? Sexuality actually encompasses paraphilia and sexual orientation, the second of which you are refering to as "sexuality" - taking the part for the whole, in a way.

The fundamental distinction seems to be a lack of balance between the subject and object of attraction - heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, whathaveyousexuality, involve, I suppose, an attraction to a person as a whole, with a series of traits, while in the case of a paraphilia, the focus is centered on a specific trait (or at least, this appears to be how it is interpreted by many).

This seems, however, to be simply one of its uses, and it can be simply taken as sexual attraction/practice outside of accepted social norms - as you've exemplified with the case of homosexuality, and as described in the link.

Is this the issue you're trying to raise? How something crosses fom that specific category over into the wider space of accepted sexuality?
 
  
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