Posted on 05/08/2005 3:09:58 PM PDT by wagglebee
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - From bondage to "breath play" and zoophilia, it's not easy keeping up with society's fast-developing sexual trends.
That's why some of North America's top sexologists are hunkered down with academics and therapists at a Fisherman's Wharf hotel this weekend: to swap findings about everything from teens with underwear fetishes to transgender couples.
"These couples have problems that I didn't know how to deal with," said Olga Perez Stable Cox, president of the Western U.S. region of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. "You have to understand the culture, otherwise you're an outsider, and you don't get it."
The theme for the society's four-day conference is "Unstudied, Understudied And Underserved Sexual Communities." Presentations range from discussions from autoerotic asphyxiation, or "breath play," to zoophiles, or animal lovers, to more mainstream topics like sex motives of dating partners.
"Let me tell you, it was not easy finding these pictures," Hunter College professor Jose E. Nanin told his audience in a seminar about "specialized" sexual behavior among gay men.
Nanin's photos are more than an explicit how-to of exhibitionism and sadomasochism, he says; they are examples of safe alternatives to sexual intercourse that need to be de-stigmatized in order to fight diseases like HIV/AIDS.
Researchers say their greater goal is to help the medical community, the public and legislators figure out what behavior is merely out of the norm versus downright dangerous.
"As sex researchers, one of our concerns is distinguishing what can be harmful and what is not -- so that instead of being based on myth, public policy can be informed," said Charlene Muehlenhard, professor of psychology and women's studies at The University of Kansas.
When authorities caught a Midwestern U.S. teenage boy stealing girls' underwear, they immediately demonized his underwear fetish, Pennsylvania State University researcher Patricia Barthalow Kosch said. Many clinicians attribute the boy's crime more to broken family relations. The crime was theft, not his sexual fantasies, conference attendees said.
Teen sexuality draws sensational headlines, but suffers from a lack of academic study, researchers said.
Kim Openshaw, a psychology professor at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, who studies teenage sex offenders, said the limited amount of research so far has found that girls make up only 5 to 10 percent of all underage sex offenders.
The numbers are underreported, Openshaw says, because many people are reluctant to acknowledge the problem.
Victims of girl sex offenders tend to be in the immediate family circle. Most perpetrators are victims of family abuse. By contrast, boy sex offenders tend to be more macho, violent and attack outside of their immediate family.
It was just a matter of time, anyhow.
Believe me, the only reason I've ever lifted one's tail is to either show-groom it, medicate it, or to shear it.
I let the vet shove HIS arm in to assist a hard delivery. One has to draw the line somewhere, and that is why he gets the big bucks.
Google Image search is your friend!
Believe it or not, that's not the funniest name of a presenter at the conference. There's also a transsexual named Joan Roughgarden giving a talk.
Oh yeah, it's also perfectly appropriate that the last name of the society president is Stable Cox.
Hey, female skid marks are just that sexy.
You know as well as I do....it is always the most unattractive middle-aged overweight post-hippies, getting it freaky and wanting to share it with the rest of the world...LOL....NO PICTURES PLEASE!!
And with good reason. It is NOT a "practice" which is well-known--at least not within the boundaries of what we "normal" (whatever that is) people indulge in.
Let me see if I can explain it with a degree of decorum and good taste.
The reason I am familiar with this, is that while in the Air Force, I was for a period of several years, a Special Investigator and we conducted (in addition to counter-intelligence and background security investigations) criminal investigations and that is where I first became aware of this kind of deviant behavior.
"Breath play" or auto-erotic asphyxiation, is a practice whereby a person (usually a male, although it might be engaged by some women as well) attempts to "enhance" his orgasm by bringing himself to a point of near asphyxiation while engaging in "self-pleasuring."
The one case I saw of this (thus my knowledge) was where we were called to investigate a man having hanged himself and after a careful review of the facts, it was ruled an "accidental death."
This person had tied one end of a scarf around his neck and the other end to his bed post and apparently, had passed out from a lack of oxygen in the process of what he was trying to accomplish and his body weight sagged and he ended up choking to death.
Hope this explanation is not more than you wanted to know? LOL
Yeah, I googled it later and found out all of the sickening details.
Good to see you still posting MadIvan.
I'd hazard a guess that it has something to do with suffocation. There are some twisted folk out there.
Yes, because Mad Gay Cow Disease is at least triply redundant.
Thanks, I'm now cleaning beer off the keyboard, monitor and dog. I do however have the basis for a new song, "Stroh's through the nose".
I am so flattered. I am in the "sex wing" of FR. I feel so totally hip.
What temp do our breakfast sausages have to be for safe consumption?
No one's cooler than the cajungirl. How could I not ping?
hehehehee...the wild weasel is explaining them to me right now...
Yes you have. You just never mentioned the orange marmalade, so you didn't know it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.