ABSTRACT
The term perversion is generally used to refer to a specific type of psychopathology identified by deviant forms of sexual behaviour. This chapter considers how a particular perspective on perversion came about, by tracing the origins of the word perversion and exploring variation in use of the term, both before it enters the medical and psycho-analytic domains, and in other fields in which it has a specific, but not necessarily a sexual, meaning. An overview of the early history of perversion reveals a range of imminent or implicit ideas that might be usefully explored when considering a reshaping of the concept of perversion. Perversion is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as, 'The action of perverting or condition of being perverted; turning the wrong way; turning aside from truth or right; diversion of something from its original and proper course, state or meaning, corruption, distortion'.
