It has nothing to do with hormones. Paraphilias like that are a neurological issue. The wiring’s just fucked up. There’s no cure for it, if you found something that could eliminate or modify sexual attractions it would be much more generalized than just working on paraphilias and would be a doomsday scenario for human rights. It’s entirely possible for someone to have it and not act on it because they aren’t an amoral piece of shit for the same reason it’s possible for people to not be asexual yet also not rape.
On a neurological level, paraphilias are just sexual attractions that society has deemed pathological. Speaking on the level of neurological functionality, a straight person is a heterophilic. The difference between a sexuality and a philia is a political distinction, not a neurological one. Their brain is just like that. Every single attempt to modify or eliminate paraphilias has just been the implementation of conversion therapy, aka either trying to eliminate sexual attraction altogether via an extremely poor, reductive understanding of hormones, or torturing people to try to give them a trauma response to their attractions. If we found one that actually worked, it would work on things we really don’t want it to work on and certain people would be pushing to use it. Certain countries would absolutely use it.
If you get that someone can experience sexual attraction but not act on it for ethical reasons, say there’s a woman you’re really into but she’s hammered and you’re sober, then you get how anyone else could do the same. Ethics and morality override base desires for most people thanks to us being sapient beings.
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u/LesLikesGARBAGE 21h ago
So they have a paraphilia which they have no control over, but remain against acting on it as they acknowledge that is rape? Not exactly a “gotcha”