Paraphilia and Societal Influences-A Rant

The term paraphilia, its association with the term "sexual disorder", and the obscene amount of disinformation about such behaviors on the internet is a source of great concern for me.  I have been working towards a psychology degree for a number of years now, and am surprised at how even those who have been in the profession for years are misinformed or are holding on to ideas that went out of vogue.  Sometimes, these ideas went out while they were even in school.

Let's get a few thing straight about these terms.

A paraphilia is described as an intense arousal to an atypical object, situation, or individual.  This could be anything from a foot fetish, to liking redheads(they are very atypical...well, the real ones anyway).

A sexual disorder is a sexual interest for which a "person feels distinct distress about their interest". 

Okay, I have a problem with the definition of sexual disorder for one thing.  In most cases the "distress" that the individual feels is due to a societal influence(or, lets be honest, a religious influence).  These influences are what cause the disorder, not the sexual interest in itself.

It is my belief that we should be treating these disorders at the root cause.  We should be educating, not labeling.  Educate the society and the individual.  Tell the individual that its okay to enjoy being cuckolded.  Its okay to enjoy being flogged, or to want to be urinated on. 

Society as a whole has a large history of kink-shaming.  Unlike the kink-shaming that happens in the  lives of kinky people, society has shamed all forms of kink.  Everything that falls outside of their societal norm, or what they were raised to believe in some form or another, is considered wrong, and therefore worthy of ridicule.  Unfortunately, there are psychologists in this world who have made it their mission in life to bring their own baggage to the table and force it on everyone else by default.

The only time there should be a diagnosis of "sexual disorder" is when there is actually a psychological issue that prevents proper functioning of the sexual organs and their connection to the pleasure centers of the brain.  In this case the therapy should be centered on clearing the block so that the patient can enjoy sex in the way that they wish to.

And now we come to non-consensual sex.  This isn't a sex disorder.  This is the product of an entirely different disorder.  Nobody is so sexually hard up to rape someone.  People that do this have some other form of psychological disorder that allows their mind to forget consequences, and to not care about the well-being of other individuals.  These people are called sociopaths, psychopaths, border-line personalities.  Unfortunately, though there are medications that help, there are no real viable treatment options for these people.  They have to want to get better, and in most cases, if not all, don't see a real reason to get better.