Why men use masturbation to harass women

CNN - What could be going on in the minds of powerful men who feel the urge to masturbate in front of women in a professional or professionally connected setting? The scientific literature doesn't say much about this particular kind of behavior. It does, however, address exhibitionist disorder: someone acts on an urge to display, fondle or stimulate themselves in front of a stranger. The disorder is one of the paraphilias, defined by science as "recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, urges, or behaviors that are distressing or disabling and that involve inanimate objects, children or non-consenting adults, or suffering or humiliation of oneself or the partner with the potential to cause harm."

James Cantor, the director of the Toronto Sexuality Centre and an associate professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, said he treats and has treated many men with all sorts of exhibitionism and other paraphilias, including men who masturbate in this fashion. "This is exhibitionism, an extreme form of it," said Cantor. "They rarely escalate. The exhibition, the actual displaying of the genitals is the goal."

For exhibitionism alone, the behavior can range from leaving dirty notes behind for someone to see, to flashing someone with and without an erection, to masturbating in front of others. The last, said Cantor, can be very frightening for the victim, because they don't know what's going to happen next.

"The rules have gone out of the window and she doesn't know if this will escalate into violence or rape," he said. "But for these perpetrators, showing off their genitals is the goal, and they are more interested in that than in hands-on sex."

David Ley, a clinical psychologist and author of "The Myth of Sex Addiction," said it is hard to know what motivates someone to do this. "We oftentimes want to take this kind of sexual behavior and separate it out like a thread from a rope and pretend that we can evaluate and understand this sexual behavior separate from everything else. We really can't," said Ley.