DSM 5 draft revision is up for public comment.

Check it out: Diagnostic & Statistical Manual V proposed draft revisions

The sexual paraphilias have been changed to sexual disorders so that it is very clear that being kinky isn't a mental illness. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom has been working hard at achieving this distinction for many years.

NCSF Chair, Leighe Fleming:

The victory is this: the revision committee is giving us exactly what we asked for. ALL the paraphilias are being renamed from, e.g. "Sexual Sadism" to "Sexual Sadism Disorder", explicitly to acknowledge that the paraphilias themselves ARE NOT disorders and bring their misleading names into alignment with the other behavioral disorders already in the DSM. (e.g. eating isn't a disorder, but bulimia is an eating disorder.)

NCSF Founder and media spokesperson, Susan Wright:

NCSF has worked very hard with our DSM Revision Project to make these changes come about. I liaisoned with the work group and supplied a great deal of information about the real-world discrimination and persecution that takes place against BDSM-fetish practitioners because of the DSM.

This change is a huge step for our community - they're separating the behavior from the disorder. According to the new DSM, you can be a fetishist, a sadist, a masochist, or an exhibitionist without having a mental disorder. The work group intends to make it crystal clear that "non-normative" sexual behavior is practiced by millions of healthy people.

NCSF deals with alternative sexual expression, which is why we haven't commented on the other sexual disorders like hypersexual disorder (I do have my personal opinion - it's another word for sexual addiction, which isn't a good addition to the DSM). NCSF is concerned with the Paraphilias - whether we like it or not, we already are considered masochists, sadists and fetishists and are labeled that way in medical and mental health records. But there's a big difference between an observation of sexual behavior and a mental health diagnosis, and now that difference is being codified by the DSM.

Would I have liked to see the paraphilias removed entirely? Yes, but like the gradual removal of homosexuality - to ego-dystonic and then finally gone in 1987 - this is a huge victory for the BDSM community.

Please take a peek and comment appropriately. Please be respectful and clear.

Thank you, NCSF!