Parahpilias?

[TomStraye]

I have been thinking about this question for a bit, since I thought that yes I could be grouped into the category of being a paraphilia. My mind never leaves the kinky, deviant thoughts alone.
I think there is a fine line drawn though, between that disorder and what we here think.

Just a thought — how many people here were disturbed/distressed by their fantasies/desires until they discovered they were not alone in feeling that way and that their feelings are shared by millions of otherwise perfectly normal people?

Not that I'm suggesting we are abnormal but ... Well, I guess I'm just thinking Freud and the concept that, once you cut through all the crap, it was not their desires that made his patients ill, but their repression/denial of those desires.

Take eating disorders. Nothing abnormal about eating. And yet there are people out there who just cannot come to terms with their need to eat. Probably a bad example, but hopefully you get the point.

[alpha_Straye]

Just a thought — how many people here were disturbed/distressed by their fantasies/desires until they discovered they were not alone in feeling that way and that their feelings are shared by millions of otherwise perfectly normal people?

Not that I'm suggesting we are abnormal but ... Well, I guess I'm just thinking Freud and the concept that, once you cut through all the crap, it was not their desires that made his patients ill, but their repression/denial of those desires.

Take eating disorders. Nothing abnormal about eating. And yet there are people out there who just cannot come to terms with their need to eat. Probably a bad example, but hopefully you get the point.

so We really are Paraphilias, We're just in recovery?*Grin*

[gloombunny]

Just a thought — how many people here were disturbed/distressed by their fantasies/desires until they discovered they were not alone in feeling that way and that their feelings are shared by millions of otherwise perfectly normal people?

That's an interesting question. I'm pretty sure I knew about BDSM in general before I realized I was into it, so I never really thought of it as abnormal in the first place. (Since I've known I'm into BDSM since I was 10 years old or so, you can probably chalk this up to my liberal San Francisco upbringing. ^_- )

Not that I'm suggesting we are abnormal but ... Well, I guess I'm just thinking Freud and the concept that, once you cut through all the crap, it was not their desires that made his patients ill, but their repression/denial of those desires.

Take eating disorders. Nothing abnormal about eating. And yet there are people out there who just cannot come to terms with their need to eat. Probably a bad example, but hopefully you get the point.

I think this is precisely what psychologists are trying to get at with the clinical definitions of paraphilias. A paraphiliac disorder isn't just having a kink, it's having a kink and not being able to deal with that in a healthy way.

[cadence]

Just a thought — how many people here were disturbed/distressed by their fantasies/desires until they discovered they were not alone in feeling that way and that their feelings are shared by millions of otherwise perfectly normal people?

I don't think I can particularly say I was distressed by my fantasies/desires. I was more upset that I couldn't find someone who felt the same way as I did.
I chalked it up to being a bit abnormal and a minority. I knew that I wasn't completely abnormal, just different. Having no access to the internet, or no way of really knowing where to look for likeminded people didn't help things.

I repressed the idea that I would find someone who felt the same way I did. I really didn't repress my fantasies. I kept them as a way to cope with my vanilla life.