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The Mystery of PerversionWhat idiosyncratic lust can, and can't, tell us.

By Peter D. KramerPosted Monday, Jan. 26, 2009, at 6:36 AM ET

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Of course, this approach works only for perversions that cause no harm. Bergner complicates the moral calculus by introducing Roy, who has touched his first wife's pubescent daughter sexually. (Here, too, the social surround is conventional: Roy is remarried to a woman who recalls, "One of the nicest things he ever said to me was that when he met me God was giving him a second chance.") Bergner does not ignore the contrast between pedophilia and perversions that lead to consensual sex; he sees molested children as victims. But in the context Bergner offers, the quality of Roy's obsession cannot seem especially strange. Judging by measures of penile engorgement, Bergner reports, normal heterosexual men are significantly "aroused by female pubescents and, less so but markedly, female children." Though Roy's actions are heinous where Ron's are harmless, Roy's desires are more mainstream than Ron's. Bergner seems to be asking what defines perversion—displaying deviance or causing injury.

But, then, injury has its complexities. The Baroness, a dominatrix, specializes in extreme pain—for example, roasting a man on a revolving spit one foot above glowing coals. A former theater costume designer and now an impresario of sadism, the Baroness is a true female paraphiliac, taking as much pleasure as she provides to her submissive subjects. (Often their service is mundane—vacuuming, for instance.) The Baroness has a fine empathic ear, anticipating her clients' needs and fulfilling them in vigorous fashion. She casts her calling in therapeutic and moral terms: "I have the power to change people. I get to do so much good." Like Bergner's other subjects, the Baroness enjoys a staid marriage to a man who proposed to her in the Rainbow Room between dances to the swing band.

Faced with the high drama of idiosyncratic lust, modern science speaks with a quiet, not to say confused, voice. There is still truth in Freud's claim that we all bear a touch of the perverse. Shown erotic videos, Bergner writes, women undergo "swift vaginal engorgement to images of all sorts of human sexual activity." Scenes of bonobo chimpanzees humping increase women's vaginal blood flow. But this equal-opportunity arousal is more in brain and body than in mind. Measures of genital response correspond poorly to women's reports of excitement. Evidently "what women want" is largely a cerebral matter, and on that level, convention rules. The Baroness notwithstanding, exceedingly few paraphiliacs are women.

Men's desires are more focused. Male homosexuality has a strong genetic component. (Less is known about female homosexuality, but the genetic contribution may be weaker.) Bonobo intercourse has no appeal for men. In general, the penis and the mind are in reasonable agreement; men recognize when they've been turned on. Part of what saves men from pedophilia is the very vigor of their sexuality; most men are strongly drawn to adult women, albeit in a promiscuous way. When asked what they visualize when they climax, few men say it's the partner they're with.

These disjointed observations raise more questions than they answer. If female arousal is more mind-based, shouldn't diverse experiences have led women, and not men, to seek out idiosyncratic love objects? If the penis rules cravings in men, why aren't more of them child molesters? The answer might be that socialization, judgment, and morality can corral desire; but then you would think that psychotherapy should be especially effective at redirecting pedophiles' leanings. Some of the doctors Bergner interviews do hold out this hope, but only drugs that blunt sex drive have a track record.

Given the limitations of science, resonant journalism may be the best way to approach paraphilia, and Bergner's book has a musical quality. The vignettes form a sequence of theme and variations, a counterpoint of exotic and banal in which outlandish longings alternate with bourgeois aspirations and bland uxoriousness. The juxtapositions give rise to a host of paradoxes and conundrums. Who provides true therapy, physicians or dominatrixes? As sexual beings, Ron and the Baronness are strangely constrained*; and outside the realm of their obsessions, they sound dull. At the same time, these two often seem freer, less bound by convention, more joyful, more aware of others' needs, and arguably nobler than the doctors intent on correcting deviance. Nor is the contrast with doctors only; after a century of Freudianism, how many of us refine this part of the self, the sexual, with the assiduousness of Bergner's happier subjects?

Finally, paraphilia bears on the central issue of human psychology, free will. We don't choose our desires, and our ability to redirect them is limited. Midway through the book, a sex researcher remembers wondering, in preadolescence, why people kiss. This question, which led to her career, remains unresolved. The normal is as puzzling as the perverse. What we cannot know about Ron, Roy, Jacob, and the Baroness is what we do not know about ourselves.

To read an excerpt from The Other Side of Desire, click here.

Correction, Jan. 30, 2009: This sentence mistakenly referred to Roy instead of Ron. (Return to the corrected sentence.)