1 The Relevance of Sexual Differentiation of Behavior For Understanding Perversion

. In order to consider whether we may be all be “ perverse ” we must first understand sex differences in perversion pornography and sexual violence. Most paraphiliac patients are men, and men consume pornography more frequently than women. They are also more sexually violent. Understanding this requires a developmental paradigm different from any suggested by Freud, or subsequent psychoanalysts. The proposed paradigm, begins with the sexual differentiation of behavior, a 20th century discovery whose full significance has yet to penetrate psychoanalytic theory and psychotherapeutic practice. (Young, Goy and Phoenix 1965) This article is in 2 parts- first an extra- psychoanalytic discussion of the sexual differentiation of behavior, then some thoughts about how this shapes our understanding of deviancy