Sexual addiction and the couple

peer reviewedLes « excès » sexuels d’un des partenaires peuvent poser des problèmes au sein d’un couple. Distinguer le normal et le pathologique est cependant loin d’être simple, l’opération pose inévitablement la question de la légitimité ou de l’illégitimité relative du comportement sexuel réputé excessif et de l’intolérance sociale ou personnelle à l’égard de ce comportement. L’étiquetage diagnostic doit ainsi être manié avec prudence, c’est un enjeu de pouvoir dans le couple. Selon le point de vue adopté, le traitement oscillera entre acceptation et modération comportementale. Dans ce dernier cas, les modèles de type approche motivationnelle et prévention de la rechute couramment utilisés dans le champ des addictions pourront s’avérer utiles. Dans tous les cas, le traitement ne manquera pas d’interroger la dynamique conjugale, que ce soit en tant que facteur causal, en tant que facteur d’amélioration ou en tant que facteur à améliorer. La question du maintien du couple se posera donc régulièrement ainsi que celle de la collaboration du conjoint pour faire évoluer la situation

The cognitive effects of anxiety on sexual arousal

Anxiety and sexual arousal have often been considered as incompatible. Since the end of the 20th Century, however, researches have impaired theories centred on the inhibitory effect of the stress and on peripheral explanations; they rather focus attention on the complexity of the relations between the two states and on cognitive mechanisms. Now sexual arousal tends to be regarded as a complex response that requires the convergent interpretation of internal and external stimuli. Anxiety may have different effects on this process, sometimes neutral, sometimes facilitating and sometimes inhibitory. On the one hand, anxiety can trigger a vegetative emotional reaction that may be associated to a concomitant erotic stimulation. Thus, anxiety facilitates the sexual response: this can be called a priming effect. This effect is regularly observed in labs, mainly among women. It likely also works in certain compulsive sexual behaviours or, more commonly, in those numerous persons that report being sexually aroused when stressed. On the other hand, anxiety can cause a massive irruption of non erotic cues in working memory. Therefore, cognitive function available for treating erotic stimuli is diminished and sexual response is impaired. This is an effect of cognitive interference. A trait called erotophobia could be regarded as a vulnerability factor to cognitive interference. Erotophobic subjects are characterized by a trend to focus upon danger-related information when they are in a sexual situation and by a higher risk of sexual dysfunction

The farther, the safer: a manifesto for securely navigating synthetic species away from the old living world

Biotechnology has empirically established that it is easier to construct and evaluate variant genes and proteins than to account for the emergence and function of wild-type macromolecules. Systematizing this constructive approach, synthetic biology now promises to infer and assemble entirely novel genomes, cells and ecosystems. It is argued here that the theoretical and computational tools needed for this endeavor are missing altogether. However, such tools may not be required for diversifying organisms at the basic level of their chemical constitution by adding, substituting or removing elements and molecular components through directed evolution under selection. Most importantly, chemical diversification of life forms could be designed to block metabolic cross-feed and genetic cross-talk between synthetic and wild species and hence protect natural habitats and human health through novel types of containment

Quantifying Vegetation Biophysical Variables from Imaging Spectroscopy Data: A Review on Retrieval Methods

An unprecedented spectroscopic data stream will soon become available with forthcoming Earth-observing satellite missions equipped with imaging spectroradiometers. This data stream will open up a vast array of opportunities to quantify a diversity of biochemical and structural vegetation properties. The processing requirements for such large data streams require reliable retrieval techniques enabling the spatiotemporally explicit quantification of biophysical variables. With the aim of preparing for this new era of Earth observation, this review summarizes the state-of-the-art retrieval methods that have been applied in experimental imaging spectroscopy studies inferring all kinds of vegetation biophysical variables. Identified retrieval methods are categorized into: (1) parametric regression, including vegetation indices, shape indices and spectral transformations; (2) nonparametric regression, including linear and nonlinear machine learning regression algorithms; (3) physically based, including inversion of radiative transfer models (RTMs) using numerical optimization and look-up table approaches; and (4) hybrid regression methods, which combine RTM simulations with machine learning regression methods. For each of these categories, an overview of widely applied methods with application to mapping vegetation properties is given. In view of processing imaging spectroscopy data, a critical aspect involves the challenge of dealing with spectral multicollinearity. The ability to provide robust estimates, retrieval uncertainties and acceptable retrieval processing speed are other important aspects in view of operational processing. Recommendations towards new-generation spectroscopy-based processing chains for operational production of biophysical variables are given

The premature ejaculation ‘disorder ’: Questioning the criterion of one minute of penetration

The current trend is to reserve the diagnosis of premature ejaculation (PE) for cases where penetration lasts for about one minute or less. The rationale is that the aetiology is primarily bio-constitutional, and that long-term pharmacological treatment is the only viable option. However, the literature contains little scientific evidence to support this argument. In fact, a good number of individuals who suffer from overly rapid ejaculation present with penetration duration exceeding one minute, and even severe forms of PE have responded favourably to psycho-sexological treatment. Moreover, although certain biological variables are known to influence ejaculation latency time, nothing indicates that they play an exclusive role of psychosocial etiological factors in severe PE. Therefore, it would be ‘premature’ to base a PE diagnosis on a maximum penetration duration of one minute, which should instead be considered a severity gradient. Given that desired criteria for penetration duration often exceed biological norms, it would be inappropriate to propose that only the most severe forms of PE have constitutional origins. In any case, the constitution is relatively flexible, and can respond to adaptive learning. An adaptive learning approach would undoubtedly be more difficult to apply in severe cases, but not impossible. The issue of whether to use pharmacological versus psycho-sexological treatment could be side-stepped by moving beyond the single criterion of ejaculation latency

The contribution of plethysmography and cognitive psychology to the understanding of the relationships between anxiety and sexual arousal

peer reviewedFor years, sexual arousal has been considered as incompatible with anxiety. Studies using plethysmographic techniques developed in the last decades have demonstrated that it is not always so. Depending on experimental conditions, anxiety can exert an inhibitory, neutral or facilitative effect. It’s tempting to establish a link between these observation data and concepts otherwise issued from cognitive psychology. A coherent theory can thus be inferred about the relationship between anxiety and sexual arousal. This theory can be summed up in a few major points: (1) the inhibitory effect of anxiety on sexual function would mainly be due to a cognitive interference phenomenon: the subject focuses on danger cues rather than on erotic stimuli. (2) In this case, the subject’s working memory is saturated by danger-related information, therefore cognitive function available for treating erotic stimuli is diminished and sexual response is impaired. (3) A cognitive-emotional structure called erotophobia could be regarded as a vulnerability factor to cognitive interference. (4) If he cognitive interference mechanism is not activated, anxiety tends to facilitate sexual arousal, (5) by increasing the attention on erotic cues or/and (6) by attributing the physiological correlates of anxiety to an erotic sourceL’idée a longtemps prévalu que l’anxiété avait sur l’excitation sexuelle un effet essentiellement inhibiteur. Au cours des dernières décennies, des recherches utilisant des techniques pléthysmographiques ont démontré qu’il n’en allait pas toujours de la sorte. Selon les conditions, l’anxiété peut avoir un impact inhibiteur, neutre ou facilitant. L’articulation de ces données de recherche à des modèles et concepts développés par ailleurs dans le champ de la psychologie cognitive permet de proposer une théorie cohérente des relations anxiété – excitation. On peut l’énoncer en plusieurs points : (1) l’effet inhibiteur de l’anxiété sur le fonctionnement sexuel se doit largement à un phénomène d’interférence cognitive : l’attention du sujet se porte sur des signaux de danger au détriment des stimuli érotiques. (2) Dans ce cas, la mémoire de travail du sujet est saturée par des signaux de danger, les ressources cognitives indispensables au traitement des stimuli érotiques s’en trouvent réduites avec pour conséquence une altération de ses réactions sexuelles. (3) Une structure cognitive et émotionnelle nommée érotophobie prédisposerait à ce processus (4). En l’absence du vecteur interférence, l’anxiété aurait plutôt tendance à favoriser l’excitation, (5) ceci parce qu’elle accroît l’attention allouée aux stimuli érotiques et/ou (6) parce que les corrélats psychophysiologiques de l’anxiété sont interprétés comme ayant une origine sexuell

Pedophilia: A clinical synopsis

Conceiving pedophilic sexuality as a sexuality resulting from a fack of grtifying relationships to adults is an important operational reference for the clinician. In this way, the obstacles to sexual satisfaction with adults can become the privileged target of therapeutic and preventive acts.The narcissic fragility is certainly an obstacle common to almost all the pedophilic patterns. Beyond this common denominator, the individual cases are characterized by strong dissimilarities. The variety of the cases justifies the attempts to classify the different types of pedophiles. But the typological systems are also quite different, depending on the theorical and methodological preferences of their authors. Starting from the ideas of several authors, this article try to sum up the variety of pedophilic functioning in four axes of variation. At last, the article stresses the imortance of contexts of life as factors leading a predisposed personality to transgressio

The cycles of the sexual desire (season 2)

Cette deuxième saison au pays du désir nous conduit aux confins de la passion amoureuse, entre animalité et profonde humanit