LilJennie's Weblog

Thoughts and events from non-famous non-celebrity big little person LilJennie

2009/06/04

"Paraphilic" Infantilism

Just a bit of a terminology rant here.

Google "infantilism" and the first result you get is the Wikipedia article on "Paraphilic Infantilism." This article describes various aspects of what I've usually just seen called infantilism.

My problem is that, according to the DSM (the mental health profession's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), a paraphilia is a disorder, something that needs curing. The DSM calls a paraphilia a condition that is "characterized by recurrent, intense sexual urges, fantasies, or behaviors that involve unusual objects, activities, or situations and cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." Never mind that they don't bother defining "unusual," but ...

I don't have a paraphilia. Whatever it is that I do doesn't cause me distress or impairment, and certainly not clinically significant distress or impairment. I don't need curing.

I'm sure there are those who disagree with me, but as long as the DSM defines a paraphilia as a negative thing, I refuse to call anything I do "paraphilic." Not that I can change what other people choose to call it, but I would think that most ABs wouldn't want what they do called a disorder either.

Labels: , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home