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I don't find the divide of sexual interests as 'fetishes' vs 'kinks' vs 'paraphilias' to be useful or interesting . It's maybe the worst concept to come out of sex research. IMO if it's arousing to ppl, it's a sexual interest, from necrophilia to the missionary position.

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Aella

@Aella_Girl

Some sexual interests are culturally normal and common, others aren't, but there's no cutoff! It' a spectrum, and cultures change. Some sexual interests are obligate! This is fine, I just call it "an obligate sexual interest."

5:51 PM · Oct 17, 2022

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If we're gonna draw a line around a subgroup of sexual interests to try to give it a name that designates them as weird, I want it to be data-based. "Sexual interests with prevalence of 5% or lower are called kinks"? then I'll accept it, sure.

Aella

@Aella_Girl

Oct 17, 2022

'paraphilia' is maybe the most defensible, since ppl sometimes use it to mean 'sexual interest so severe/extreme it's damaging or dangerous', but i don't trust culture's ability to determine this in practice, e.g. homosexuality counted as a paraphilia for a long time.

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Isn’t calling them obligate just drawing a line using different words? Functionally you’re not really doing it differently. You’re just changing the words used.

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not really! Obligate just means "You require it to get off," and while sure there's probably a spectrum of how much you require it, it feels like it communicates actually more meaningful and precise information than the other terms

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>> It' a spectrum Like colors? Colors that have names?