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Kinky Parents and Child Custody: The Effect of the DSM-5 Differentiation Between the Paraphilias and Paraphilic Disorders

DOI:10.1007/s10508-013-0250-6
Authors:
Susan Wright at National Coalition for Sexual Freedom
Susan Wright
  • National Coalition for Sexual Freedom
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1 23
Archives of Sexual Behavior
The Official Publication of the
International Academy of Sex Research
ISSN 0004-0002
Volume 43
Number 7
Arch Sex Behav (2014) 43:1257-1258
DOI 10.1007/s10508-013-0250-6
Kinky Parents and Child Custody: The
Effect of the DSM-5 Differentiation
Between the Paraphilias and Paraphilic
Disorders
Susan Wright
1 23
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COMMENTARY ON DSM-5
Kinky Parents and Child Custody: The Effect of the DSM-5
Differentiation Between the Paraphilias and Paraphilic Disorders
Susan Wright
Published online: 29 January 2014
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
The DSM-5 differentiation between the paraphilias and Para-
philic Disorders has been a decisive step forward in depatholo-
gizing consenting adults who engage in unusual sexual behav-
iors. Prior to February 2010, when the proposed revisions for the
DSM-5 were made public, individuals who engaged in BDSM
behavior were regularly misdiagnosed as having a mental disor-
derduring criminal and civil proce edings. Some of these indi-
viduals turned for assistance to the National Coalition for Sex-
ual Freedom (NCSF), a national advocacy organization that
advances the rights of, and advocates for, consenting adults in
the BDSM-leather-fetish, swing, and polyamory communities.
Under the earlier editions of the DSM, family court judges
regularly removed children or restricted custody for parents if
there was evidence of their BDSM activities, such as member-
ship with an educational group or participation on an email
list or website. A typical example of discrimination due to a
parent’s BDSM behavior was submitted to a court-appointed
psychologist by a case worker with the Department of Social
Services Children’s Division in a Midwestern state (DSS,
2010):
With regards to [mother’s] alternative lifestyle; can she
separate this from her parenting? There has been some
questions arise from other team members regarding her
sexual sadism.…[Mother] indicated she gave up this
lifestyle in March. However, the blog and stories that
were found were posted to her website in May. There are
concerns that she is still a moderator of the [BDSM]
yahoo group. I have attached pages from her website in
hopes that you can explore with [mother] her current
involvement with this alternative lifestyle.
At the final permanency hearing in February 2010, the
mother’s lawyer submitted to the judge the proposed revisions
for the DSM-5 that differentiated the paraphilias from Para-
philic Disorders, resulting in a court determination to re-evaluate
her entire case. Based on the proposed DSM-5 revisions, the
mother was awarded custody of three of the children, with the
father retaining custody of one child in order to take advantage
of his health care coverage.
The NCSFs Incident Reporting and Response Program records
that 125 people contacted NCSF in 2010 regarding child custody/
divorce issues (NCSF, 2010). Along with the example listed
above, the revised Paraphilic Disorders criteria for the DSM-
5 were successfully presented in another 12 cases. In these 13
cases, the attorneys were able to suppress the BDSM behavior
as not relevant or the judge set it aside from the bench as not
relevant, so that child custody could be determined on its own
merits.
In 2011, 115 people contacted NCSF for help in child cus-
tody/divorce cases (NCSF, 2011). NCSF provided the revised
DSM-5 criteria for 23 cases and in all of them the BDSM evi-
dence was set aside and child custody was decided on its own
merits.
By 2012, word had spread that kinky parents were having
success in removing BDSM behavior as a determining factor in
their child custody case if the proposed DSM-5 criteria was pre-
sented. A total of 87 people contacted NCSF for help in child
custody/divorce cases (NCSF, 2012). In every child custody
case—41 in all—in which NCSF provided the proposed DSM-
5 criteria, the BDSM evidence was set aside and child custody
was determined on its own merits.
Therefore, it is NCSFs opinion that the revised DSM-5 cri-
teriahave been successfulin changing theway BDSM behavior
S. Wright (&)
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, 410 Guilford Ave., #127,
Baltimore, MD 21202, USA
e-mail: susan@ncsfreedom.org
123
Arch Sex Behav (2014) 43:1257–1258
DOI 10.1007/s10508-013-0250-6
Author's personal copy
bya parentisconsideredduringa childcustodyhearing,thereby
removing BDSM behavior as a detrimental factor in those cases.
NCSF is grateful on behalf of its constituents that the Ameri-
can Psychiatric Association, in particular the Sexual and Gender
Identity Disorders Workgroup and the Paraphilias subwork-
group, responded to the evidence of discrimination against
consenting adults who engage in unusual sexual practices and
revised the criteria and text in the DSM-5 to ensure that these
individuals are no longer being misdiagnosed with a mental
disorder and denied child custody based on that misdiagnosis.
References
Department of Social Services, Children’s Division. (2010). January 21,
2010 letter.
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. (2010). 2010 Incident response
report [Online]. https://ncsfreedom.org/key-programs/incident-
response/incident-response-reports/item/655-2010-incident-response-
report.html.
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. (2011). 2011 Incident response
report [Online]. https://ncsfreedom.org/key-programs/incident-
response/incident-response-reports/item/692-2011-incident-reporting-
response-report.html.
National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. (2012). 2012 Incident response
report [Online]. Available at https://ncsfreedom.org/key-programs/
incident-response/incident-response-reports/item/700-2012-incident-
reporting-response-report.html.
1258 Arch Sex Behav (2014) 43:1257–1258
123
Author's personal copy
... Public shaming and the disclosure of intimate details in news media sometimes occurs, as 2 Luckily, kinky parents are becoming increasingly able to remove BDSM behaviour as a relevant fact in child custody cases (Wright, 2014). in the case of Cpl. Jim Brown, an RCMP officer who was investigated for "images of him in sexually explicit bondage poses wearing his Mountie boots" and who ultimately resigned after four years on administrative leave (CBC News, 2016, n.p.). ...
... Until the late 1960s, academic research and psychological interventions regarding BDSM largely approached kink practice and desire from the angle of an individual pathology when the paraphilia was strong enough as to interfere with the person's so-called natural sexual drives (Cruz, 2016), but not uncommon or inherently unhealthy if it were perceived as "mild" and occurring within heterosexual couplings (Khan, 2014). A pathological understanding of (at least some) paraphilias has resulted in significant social, legal, and employment-related harm to BDSM practitioners into the 21 st century (Wright, 2014;Moser & Kleinplatz, 2006b;Wright, 2006), a reality that is only recently being mitigated by shifts in diagnostic practices and psychological understandings of sexual difference (Wright, 2014; also see Kleinplatz, 2006). The constructed deviance of sadomasochism in academia and mainstream media seems to have been amplified and supported by the extreme nature of the cases that captured the attention of psychologists and psychoanalysts and became enshrined in publications, in addition to medical diagnoses rooted in social and historical stigmas (Kleinplatz, 2006). ...
... Until the late 1960s, academic research and psychological interventions regarding BDSM largely approached kink practice and desire from the angle of an individual pathology when the paraphilia was strong enough as to interfere with the person's so-called natural sexual drives (Cruz, 2016), but not uncommon or inherently unhealthy if it were perceived as "mild" and occurring within heterosexual couplings (Khan, 2014). A pathological understanding of (at least some) paraphilias has resulted in significant social, legal, and employment-related harm to BDSM practitioners into the 21 st century (Wright, 2014;Moser & Kleinplatz, 2006b;Wright, 2006), a reality that is only recently being mitigated by shifts in diagnostic practices and psychological understandings of sexual difference (Wright, 2014; also see Kleinplatz, 2006). The constructed deviance of sadomasochism in academia and mainstream media seems to have been amplified and supported by the extreme nature of the cases that captured the attention of psychologists and psychoanalysts and became enshrined in publications, in addition to medical diagnoses rooted in social and historical stigmas (Kleinplatz, 2006). ...
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  • Jan 2010
  • Services
Services, Children's Division. (2010). January 21, 2010 letter.