The psychoanalytic community is challenged by changing cultural opinions on sexuality and on the term perversion. This paper answers to this challenge by distinguishing two different logical categories: “Sexuality as it is”, describing an aspect of an individual's personality, and “sexuality as it happens” in behavior as well as in fantasy.

“Sexuality as it is” subsumes conditions traditionally called perversions on a par with hetero- and homosexuality and calls them “adult sexual organizations”. This term avoids any pathologization or stigmatization and suggests the same abstinence from speculations about psychogenetic derivations as usually applies for heterosexuality. The term imprinting as used e.g. by Stoller is revaluated instead.

In contrast, the term perverse is restricted to a specific mode of “sexuality as it happens”, i.e. when, in sexual activities, non-sexual functions have priority over sexual drive satisfaction. This distinction doesn't aim at “rating” those activities of individuals, but proposes a shift in the conceptual framework of individual psychoanalytic scrutiny that hopefully helps both partners to approach more easily a value-free working attitude. It further may clarify which sexual activity may be an issue of psychoanalytic therapy and which not.

Two case examples and a brief look into psychoanalytic literature illustrate the proposal.