Question

Where should we draw the line between normal and abnormal sexual behavior? What criteria should we use?

Answer 1

Difference between Normal and Abnormal Behaviour are as follows:

Normal:

The common pattern of behaviour found among the general majority is said to be the behaviour of the normal. Normal people exhibit satisfactory work capacity and earn adequate income. They conform and adjust to their social surrounding.

They are capable of establishing, satisfying and acceptable relationship with other people and their emotional reactions are basically appropriate to different situations. Such people manage to control their emotions.

Their emotional experiences do not affect their personality adjustment though they experience occasional frustrations and conflict. These people who adjust well with themselves, their surroundings and their associates constitute the normal group.

The normal group covers the great majority of people. According to Coleman (1981) normal behaviour will represent the optimal development and functioning of the individual consistent with the long term well being and progress of the group.

Thus, people having average amount of intelligence, personality stability, and social adaptability are considered as normal.

Abnormal:

The concept of abnormality is defined as the simple exaggeration or perverted development of the normal psychological behaviour. In other words, it deals with the usual behaviour of man. The unusual or maladapted behaviour of many persons which do not fit into our common forms of behaviour is known as abnormal behaviour.

Abnormality refers to maladjustment to one’s society and culture which surrounds him. It is the deviation from the normal in an unfavourable and pathological way.

According to Brown (1940) abnormal psychological phenomena are simple exaggerations (over development or under development) or disguised (i.e., perverted developments) of the normal psychological phenomena.

It is expected, for instance, that a normal human being would react to a snake by immediately withdrawing from it. But if the person on the contrary, plays with the snake very happily, it is a sign of uncommon behaviour which may be considered as abnormal provided that past experience or training does not play a part here.

A person who has been by profession trained from the very childhood to deal with snakes will not be afraid of a snake and if he does not withdraw from a snake, will not be considered abnormal.

Coleman (1981) holds that deviant behaviours are considered as maladaptive because they are not only harmful to the society, but to the individual. Maladaptive behaviour impairs individual and group well being and it brings distress to the individual. It also leads to individual and group conflicts.

Page (1976) views that the abnormal group consists of individuals marked by limited intelligence, emotional instability, personality disorgani­zation and character defects who in most part led wretched personal lives and were social misfits and liabilities.

Thus, abnormality and normality can only be defined in terms of conformity to the will and welfare of the group and in the capacity for self management.

A close analysis of various types of abnormal behaviour indicates that abnormal behaviour circumscribes a wide range of maladaptive reactions like psychoneuroses, psychoses, delinquents, sexually deviants, and drug addicts etc.

Thus, same kind of biological, social and psychological maladjustment affects the functioning of the individual in a society. The abnormal deviants who constitute about 10 per cent of the general population are classified into four main categories; such as psychoneurotic, psychotic, mentally defective and antisocial.