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Psych TopicsSpecialty psychiatry — sexual dysfunction and paraphilias

Psych · Specialty psychiatry — sexual dysfunction and paraphilias

Sexual dysfunction and paraphilias

Also known as Erectile dysfunction · Premature ejaculation · Hypoactive sexual desire · Female sexual interest/arousal disorder · Genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder · Paraphilic disorders · Pedophilic disorder · Exhibitionism · SSRI sexual side-effects · Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder

Exam-exhaustive fellowship reference on sexual dysfunction across desire, arousal, orgasm and pain phases; medication-induced sexual side-effects; assessment and stepped management; and paraphilic disorders carefully distinguished from non-pathological sexual diversity, with risk, child protection, and WFSBP-aligned pharmacological framing. FRANZCP-primary, globally tagged.

medium20 referencesUpdated 26 July 202614 min readVerification in progress

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Practise this topic12 MCQs with explanations

Target exams

FRANZCPMRCPsychABPNMD-DNBNEET-SS

Red flags

  • Child at risk or disclosures of sexual contact with minors / child exploitation material — immediate child-protection reporting and multiagency action (jurisdiction-specific mandatory duties)
  • Active suicidal ideation after forensic discovery, blackmail, or profound shame — same-day risk assessment and safety plan
  • PDE5 inhibitor use with concurrent nitrates — contraindicated (hypotension/collapse risk); stop and seek urgent medical advice if used together
  • Priapism after erectile treatments — urological emergency
  • Coercive sexual behaviour with ongoing access to potential victims — risk management and public protection pathway, not outpatient delay
  • Severe antipsychotic hyperprolactinaemia with hypogonadism or unexplained amenorrhoea/galactorrhoea — investigate and revise regimen if safe for psychosis control
On this page
Study tools

Your progress

Saved on this device.

Practise this topic12 MCQs with explanations

Target exams

FRANZCPMRCPsychABPNMD-DNBNEET-SS

Red flags

  • Child at risk or disclosures of sexual contact with minors / child exploitation material — immediate child-protection reporting and multiagency action (jurisdiction-specific mandatory duties)
  • Active suicidal ideation after forensic discovery, blackmail, or profound shame — same-day risk assessment and safety plan
  • PDE5 inhibitor use with concurrent nitrates — contraindicated (hypotension/collapse risk); stop and seek urgent medical advice if used together
  • Priapism after erectile treatments — urological emergency
  • Coercive sexual behaviour with ongoing access to potential victims — risk management and public protection pathway, not outpatient delay
  • Severe antipsychotic hyperprolactinaemia with hypogonadism or unexplained amenorrhoea/galactorrhoea — investigate and revise regimen if safe for psychosis control
The one-line answer

Sexual dysfunctions are phase-specific disturbances of desire, arousal, orgasm or pain with distress or impairment — often medical, relational, or medication-induced (especially SSRIs and prolactin-elevating antipsychotics) — managed by stepped psychosexual care, causative-drug optimisation, and targeted agents. A paraphilia becomes a disorder only with distress or impairment, or when it involves nonconsenting persons; consensual adult diversity is not pathology, while child-related or coercive risk triggers protection duties and specialist risk-and-treatment pathways.[2][6][16][18]

Meet the patient

A 34-year-old man on sertraline for six months returns with his partner. His mood is the best it has been in years. He has not initiated sex in months, cannot reliably maintain an erection, and, when he can, ejaculates within a minute. His partner is hurt; he is ashamed; both assume the relationship is failing. The sertraline is working. The sertraline is also the cause.[6][7][8]

The examiner is testing whether you can hold three things at once: clinical precision without moralising, medication side-effect literacy, and the clean separation between atypical interest and disorder or risk. Same topic, two very different responsibilities.[15][16]

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References20ShowHide
  1. [1]Laumann EO, Paik A, Rosen RC Sexual dysfunction in the United States: prevalence and predictors JAMA, 1999.PMID 10022110
  2. [2]McCabe MP, Sharlip ID, Lewis R, et al. Incidence and Prevalence of Sexual Dysfunction in Women and Men: A Consensus Statement from the Fourth International Consultation on Sexual Medicine 2015 J Sex Med, 2016.PMID 26953829
  3. [3]McCabe MP, Sharlip ID, Lewis R, et al. Risk Factors for Sexual Dysfunction Among Women and Men: A Consensus Statement From the Fourth International Consultation on Sexual Medicine 2015 J Sex Med, 2016.PMID 26953830
  4. [4]Basson R The female sexual response: a different model J Sex Marital Ther, 2000.PMID 10693116
  5. [5]Bancroft J, Graham CA, Janssen E, Sanders SA The dual control model: current status and future directions J Sex Res, 2009.PMID 19308839
  6. [6]Montejo AL, Llorca G, Izquierdo JA, Rico-Villademoros F Incidence of sexual dysfunction associated with antidepressant agents: a prospective multicenter study of 1022 outpatients J Clin Psychiatry, 2001.PMID 11229449
  7. [7]Serretti A, Chiesa A Treatment-emergent sexual dysfunction related to antidepressants: a meta-analysis J Clin Psychopharmacol, 2009.PMID 19440080
  8. [8]Clayton AH, El Haddad S, Iluonakhamhe JP, et al. Sexual dysfunction associated with major depressive disorder and antidepressant treatment Expert Opin Drug Saf, 2014.PMID 25148932
  9. [9]Goldstein I, Lue TF, Padma-Nathan H, et al. Oral sildenafil in the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Sildenafil Study Group N Engl J Med, 1998.PMID 9580646
  10. [10]Althof SE, McMahon CG, Waldinger MD, et al. An update of the International Society of Sexual Medicine's guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of premature ejaculation (PE) J Sex Med, 2014.PMID 24848686
  11. [11]Waldinger MD, Schweitzer DH Differences between ICD-11 MMS and DSM-5 definition of premature ejaculation: a continuation of historical inadequacies and a source of serious misinterpretations by some scientists Int J Impot Res, 2019.PMID 30659291
  12. [12]Segraves RT, Clayton A, Croft H, et al. Bupropion sustained release for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women J Clin Psychopharmacol, 2004.PMID 15118489
  13. [13]Stahl SM Mechanism of action of flibanserin, a multifunctional serotonin agonist and antagonist (MSAA), in hypoactive sexual desire disorder CNS Spectr, 2015.PMID 25659981
  14. [14]Montejo AL, de Alarcón R, Prieto N, et al. Management Strategies for Antipsychotic-Related Sexual Dysfunction: A Clinical Approach J Clin Med, 2021.PMID 33467621
  15. [15]Reed GM, Drescher J, Krueger RB, et al. Disorders related to sexuality and gender identity in the ICD-11: revising the ICD-10 classification based on current scientific evidence, best clinical practices, and human rights considerations World Psychiatry, 2016.PMID 27717275
  16. [16]Krueger RB, Reed GM, First MB, et al. Proposals for Paraphilic Disorders in the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Eleventh Revision (ICD-11) Arch Sex Behav, 2017.PMID 28210933
  17. [17]Thibaut F, De La Barra F, Gordon H, et al. The World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) guidelines for the biological treatment of paraphilias World J Biol Psychiatry, 2010.PMID 20459370
  18. [18]Thibaut F, Cosyns P, Fedoroff JP, et al. The World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) 2020 guidelines for the pharmacological treatment of paraphilic disorders World J Biol Psychiatry, 2020.PMID 32452729
  19. [19]Seto MC The Motivation-Facilitation Model of Sexual Offending Sex Abuse, 2019.PMID 28715948
  20. [20]Assumpção AA, Garcia FD, Garcia HD, et al. Pharmacologic treatment of paraphilias Psychiatr Clin North Am, 2014.PMID 24877704

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