Chapter 4: Coleman et al., 2018

"Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder is characterized by a persistent pattern of failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses or urges resulting in repetitive sexual behaviour."

Coleman, E., Dickenson, J. A., Girard, A., Rider, G. N., Candelario-Pérez, L. E., Becker-Warner, R., ... Munns, R. (2018). An Integrative Biopsychosocial and Sex Positive Model of Understanding and Treatment of Impulsive/Compulsive Sexual Behavior. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 25(2-3), 125–152. doi: 10.1080/10720162.2018.1515050

***

KAYDEN

They aren't even serving beer at this thing.

The Undergraduate Psychology Students' Association booked the bright, modern, glass-and-steel atrium of U of E's Interdisciplinary Sciences Centre for their faculty event.

The place is actually surprisingly packed. Pretty much every researcher and lecturer in the department is here, alongside a hundred or so undergrad students.

I lean against a wall on one side of the room sipping some lukewarm coffee as the MC, some lanky ginger kid, tries to get people's attention over the mic.

He succeeds after a couple minutes and then introduces the UPSA president. Layla Mitchell.

Something about her is undeniably captivating. Her soft, wavy brown hair seems threaded with bright strands of copper and gold beneath the warm lights shining down on her as she strides across the space towards the podium.

She's wearing a slim-fitting grey skirt that falls just above her knees, a long-sleeved maroon blouse, black heels that should all be so nondescript and prudish, but somehow make her look poised and confident and bizarrely sexy.

Since when did I have a kink for stuffy businesswear?

I need to get laid.

But hell, if I thought she was enthralling before, then she opens her mouth and starts speaking and fuck, I swear the entire room goes stock-still listening to her.

She graciously thanks everyone for coming, gives a standard run down of the event, describes the UPSA's achievements last year and their goals for the upcoming term. She even makes a corny psych joke that gets the room roaring and maybe even puts a twitch at the corner of my lips. Something witty about Pavlov and classical conditioning that I've actually never heard before.

Her voice is like... liquid honey. Smooth, rich and sweet but with a faintly rasping edge that I know would sound super sexy calling my name as she comes.

I really have to stop thinking of her like that, but I can't fucking help it. I study sex for a living, so it's never far from my mind.

Or you're a fucking perv. Undecided.

I wonder what kind of research she's doing for her thesis if Zabina thinks my 471 class would be relevant. He's a developmental psychologist... hm.

This is a research event, after all. I could ask her.

I'm still pondering whether or not I want to discover if jailbait is as engaging in person as she is from afar even after she's left the spotlight and leaves everyone to eat hors d'oevres and mingle.

I head to one of the tables to top off my coffee from the huge metal canister. I put the cup onto the plastic table-cover as I reach for a pack of cream in the hopes it'll taste less instant when someone's arm bumps into mine, and the useless Styrofoam topples over, spilling weak brown liquid all over the table and floor.

"Oh, shit," a now-familiar female voice laments. I glance to my left and set my gaze on a pair of sharp, sparkling golden-brown eyes that scrunch together with disbelief and irritation.

What is it with this girl and spilling coffee all over me?

"You're kidding, right?" I grumble. "Is this gonna become a regular thing? Because if so I should really bring extra clothes."

She flushes a little, gives me an apologetic frown. "I'm so sorry, Dr. Hall. I promise I'm not always so... idiotic."

I briefly wonder if her fingers and mouth are as clumsy and uncoordinated as the rest of her but somehow I doubt it.

She reaches for a huge wad of papery-brown napkins and begins to sop up the mess.

For some reason I'm not as pissed at the inconvenience of it as I normally would be.

"It's Layla, right?"

"Yes. Nice to meet you... again."

We step away from the refreshments to make room for other people, wander a few feet over to some empty floor space against a banister at the edge of the room.

"You're in my 471 class?"

"Yes, I am. It's... interesting so far."

There's a gentle pink glow to her golden skin and I wonder if it's because thinking of the class's material scandalizes her, even just a little.

My lips tilt up into a wry smile. "Sometimes it looks like half you guys are zoned out or something. Is it because the class is at the end of the day, or am I really that boring a lecturer?"

Her face lights up as if she has some kind of secret knowledge and her flush deepens, and she purses her lips a little to suppress a smile. "My theory is rather that... the material is a little too interesting and the majority of the class is..." A gentle breath and small, dry chuckle, "Busy visualizing."

It takes me a second to understand her meaning and when I do my eyebrows shoot upwards, and a rough laugh leaves the back of my throat. "Fantasizing?"

Her eyes are bright and glimmering with laughter and I swear there's something so deliciously naughty hiding behind her neutral mask that I can't help but continue, low and taunting, "About anything in particular?"

Her teeth pierce softly into her bottom lip as she considers her response and I try my best not to focus on the full, plush pink flesh of her mouth. "Just... about whatever visual stimulus is readily available."

"My PowerPoint slides are hardly an aphrodisiac, Ms. Mitchell."

"No, your PowerPoint slides certainly are not, Dr. Hall."

Yeah, she's so fucking naughty.

A moment of charged silence before she takes a steadying breath and comments, "I took a quick look at some of your PhD research. It was... novel."

She's full of surprises, apparently. "It's definitely a very niche area of focus," I reply.

"Really, it seemed to propose more questions than answers, didn't it?" she notes shrewdly.

So she seems to be as intelligent as the entire faculty is convinced she is. "That's the unfortunate reality of research, I'm afraid."

She shrugs. "It seemed like you laid the framework for future discoveries regarding the essential nature of sexual deviance, right? Your dissertation outlined the distinction between deviance and disorder and your future research can... explore deviance more thoroughly as a result?"

"Precisely," I confirm, actually surprised. My dissertation is painfully technical and over 100 pages long and I have the sudden, intriguing notion that she's read a sizeable amount of it. "Although the question most people seem to have is why study a range of deviance at all? My current research focuses on more than just the disorder, but rather the aspects of deviant behaviour, which is actually quite a spectrum."

It's almost like I can see the gears whirring in her head. "To me it makes a lot of sense, actually. In almost every subject area, we study 'normal' in the attempt to understand the 'abnormal', right? Like examining a healthy body to understand disease. Isn't that exactly what you're trying to do?"

I pause for a second, study her. When I try to explain the validity and relevance of my research to some members of psychology's academia, I get mixed reception. But she seems so convinced and I haven't even tried convincing her. "Exactly."

She takes a sip of water from a red plastic cup and then slowly begins, "Although..." She meets my gaze and the brightness in her eyes is gripping. "It does make me wonder what would motivate someone to be so interested in unorthodox sexual behaviour in the first place."

The hidden question behind her inquiry is bold and inappropriate and it heats my blood to a hungry boil in my veins. "Psychologists do have a habit of analyzing the motive behind every behaviour, huh? You're well on your way to becoming a successful head-doctor, Ms. Mitchell."

She arches a questioning brow. "And why do you think I'm interested in clinical work rather than research?"

"Am I wrong?"

An obstinate second of silence before she admits, "No."

I toss her a short wink. "I'm a little more experienced at this psychoanalysis thing than you are, apparently."

"Sounds like a challenge, Dr. Hall."

Fuck, she has a quick tongue.

The image that observation conjures is highly NSFW.

"Well, I could ask, similarly, why someone like yourself is interested in such a seemingly taboo area of research enough to take an entire course on it."

A noncommittal shrug. "My honours thesis is actually about development of sexual attitudes in young adulthood. Deviance can be considered an attitude, I suppose, so, it fits."

She seems like a very interesting blend of innocent and inappropriate and it makes me indecently curious. "Is it the sex part that interests you, or the development part?"

I can tell the question surprises her, but in a good way. "Well, I'm definitely interested in abnormality from a clinical perspective, but... what really fascinates me is how early experiences affect later development, especially abnormal development."

I think she's gonna completely ignore the not-so-subtle flirtation behind my question but then she adds, "And sex is fascinating. So I suppose my answer is both."

And the dark, almost smoky suggestion in her eyes is wrong, and me being so forward is wrong, but I've never been one to follow preset norms and I suddenly wonder why I should start now.

"Sex is definitely fascinating," I agree.

There's more loaded silence between us before she asks, "So... how do you study deviant sexual behaviour in a normal population of people? It doesn't seem like a topic that lends itself well to experimentation."

"You'd be surprised."

She stifles an incredulous, amused laugh. "A randomized control trial for BDSM?"

Okay, yes, the idea is absolutely ridiculous and I chuckle with her. "Alright, so at this point I'm mostly relying on self-report measures and attempting to draw inferences from there."

She nods, understanding. "Much less exciting."

"Indeed."

Before we can continue our conversation, a pair of students comes to bug Layla about some UPSA technical difficulty or other and she has to go deal with a problem.

So, maybe not all undergrads are insipid, mindless GPA-hounds.

***

A/N:

Okay, so, how much of that stuff (0 to 100%) do you understand? I'm gonna try and make it more clear to you but... uh... I guess I'm hoping that my readers are reasonably intelligent? Y'all are smart, right?

EXPLANATIONS FOR MY NON-SCIENTIFIC READERS:
- Randomized control trial: an "experiment" in the classical sense, where you'd assign people to different groups and test out a theory by changing a variable and seeing what happens. E.g. One group has normal sex, one group has kinky sex, you see who enjoys it more. (Not scientifically valid in this case, lmao).
- Self-report measures: surveys and questionnaires. Boring but, uh, useful for studying things that don't experiment well.
- How early experience affects later development: like, if you're abused as a kid, how will that affect your adult behaviour?
- DSM-V: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5 — a guide for North American clinicians about diagnosing and treating psychological/psychiatric conditions and disorders.

Hope that helps.

XOXO Ami