Satiation therapy: a procedure for reducing deviant sexual arousal.

Two adult men received satiation therapy. Each man masturbated for one hour while saying his deviant fantasies out loud.

The therapist recorded the men’s arousal before and after. The study ran two single-case experiments.

Both men showed lower deviant arousal after the sessions. The drop held when staff checked later.

Poling et al. (1977) also used the word “satiation,” but they let smokers puff for hours to kill cigarette desire. Their satiation did not work; shock did. The clash is only in the name—one satiates sex, the other nicotine.

Webb et al. (1999) showed you can build arousal just as you can cut it. They used brief conditioning to increase response; Wetherington (1979) used long exposure to decrease it. Both prove sexual arousal is changeable through learning.

Stein (1997) found self-esteem training lowered deviant arousal without touching fantasies. Pairing these results means you can attack the problem from two sides: cut the fantasy directly or raise the person’s self-worth.

If you work with adults who report unwanted sexual urges, satiation therapy gives you a low-tech tool. You need privacy, a timer, and a way to record arousal. Start with one fantasy, one hour, and probe before and after. Track data across weeks to see if the drop sticks.