I see the thought police are at it again.
Not content with associating playing computer games as a mental disorder we now see more widening of the net, this time coming from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
An article from CNN runs with the headline, WHO classifies compulsive sexual behavior as mental health condition. Reading through it you'll find that the conclusion, from WHO, is based on...um, nothing. No science, no studies, just nothing.
Sexual Behaviour Disorder, WHO claim, is defined as "persistent pattern of failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses or urges resulting in repetitive sexual behavior." The article adds:
"The disorder may interfere with someone's ability to go to work or finish school. It can hurt relationships. And although someone with this disorder may want to resist their constant need for sex, they've been unsuccessful. They may not even get pleasure from the repeated sexual activity."
Finish school?
Are they talking about teachers here or kids?
Wait, there's more:
"A person with this disorder has had to be dealing with it over an extended period of time, according to the definition, which gives an example of six months or more."
Puberty
In boys, puberty usually begins between the ages of 10 and 16. Once it begins, it lasts about 2 to 5 years. But every child is different. And there is a wide range of what is “normal.” During puberty, you'll probably start having more sexual thoughts and urges. You may feel attracted to males, females, or both.
Dang it! Look at all those 10 to 16 year-olds with "Sexual Behaviour Disorder." Quick, take their minds off such lurid thoughts, distract them with, um, I dunno, a computer game or something. Oh no, we can't, that's a mental disorder too!
Thinking, whatever it may be about, is, it seems, tantamount to having a disease of the brain.
Average
According to shape.com, researchers learned that, on average, men think about sex 19 times a day. The average women thinks about sex 10 times a day. Gadzooks! we're all perverts!
Lack of Sex Drive
Okay, so what if none of the above applies to us, what if we aren't perverted because we have lustful thoughts and desires? Well, according to the psychiatry bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), we have yet another mental disorder, this time, Hypoactive sexual desire disorder, a "brain disease" defined as "a sexual dysfunction and is characterized as a lack or absence of sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity." This doesn't, however. just apply to males, in fact, the DSM splits it into two categories, namely: "male hypoactive sexual desire disorder" and "female sexual interest/arousal disorder."
The Middleman/Woman
Psychiatry here have a scale, it's a scale that they have created entirely themselves, on one end are the perverts, on the other end are the frigid. In between, supposedly, is the "normal", but only by psychiatric standards.
As we grow older we think about sex less often, in fact, I haven't thought about it during the whole time I've been writing this... huge melons - Ah, I failed at the last hurdle...huge, wobbly, dangly ones - there I go again - I must fall into the first group of abnormal people!
WHO and the DSM authors will be taking their comedy show on the road soon - look out for Psychiatric seminars in your local press.
Meantime, whatever your sexual preference, beware that stopping in hotel rooms may cause rise for concern for your psychiatrist, as Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) painfully shows here.
Bob Fiddaman
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