Is Perversion a Perverted Category? Introduction to the Special Issue

ABSTRACT This introductory paper outlines the clinical, ethical, and personal reasons that led to the preparation of this French-based issue on perversion. In traditional French psychoanalysis, perversion is conceived of as an autonomous psychopathological structure, with a special emphasis placed on narcissistic fragility, nullification of the other, and nonhegemonic sexual practices deemed as the abolishment of sex and generational differences. The author questions the relevance of perversion as a fixed category and proposes an inclusive approach that takes into account social, cultural, intrapsychic, and countertransference parameters. Finally, he overviews each article included in this special issue and highlights the epistemological diversity of the authors’ positions, thus promoting the paradigm of complexity, which is understood as heterogeneous hybrid thinking, noncompliant to dialectical synthesis.