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One giant step for man: Another look at macrophilia
Earlier this week, an article by Felicity Monk was published on the Broadly website about macrophilia (individuals derive sexual arousal from a fascination with giants and/or a sexual fantasy involving giants) and also known as giant (or giantess) fetishism. Broadly is an offshoot of Vice.com and is a website is a website “devoted to representing the multiplicity of women’s experiences”. I have been interviewed by both Broadly and Vice over the last few years on a number of topics including gambling, dacryphilia, and Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. I was interviewed for the Broadly article mainly because I’m one of the few academics ever to have written an article on the topic. I was quoted as saying in the Broadly article that “no-one has ever published even so much as an interview with a macrophile in an academic journal”.
In the Broadly article, Monk managed to interview a couple of macrophiles including Katelyn, a bisexual female in her thirties (five foot two inches tall) who has a number of co-occurring fetishes including macrophilia (in which she is sexually aroused by the thought of being a giant). She also has her own giantess website (which can be accessed here, but please be warned that the site features sexually explicit content) which she set up so that macrophiles could come and “worship” her. For Katelin, her macrophilic tendencies started from watching Tom and Jerry cartoons and the disparate size of the characters. As Katelyn said:
“The first time I had a good tingly feeling was when I was watching Tom have so much fun trying to catch Jerry. I always liked how Jerry got away so that the game would continue. I so badly wanted to be that cat. Little did I know it was the start of my sexuality. [By the time I got to high school I] was fantasising about literally crushing [my] high school crushes, swallowing [my] boyfriends and girlfriends alive, and putting [my] entire foot through the school. Most of the time I felt out of place and very alone sexually. [My preferred size of being a giant] changes depending on what mood [I’m] in. Some days I’m in the mood to play with the entire earth/galaxy, and other times I’m in the mood to attack a lone city as a 100ft woman. I rarely go below 100 feet. Most commonly, however, I’m fantasizing about being mega – 3000-plus feet tall”.
Katelyn has now monetized her fetish by turning her website into a commercial venture. As the article in Broadly notes:
“[On Katelyn’s website you] will find videos for sale – many of which feature miniature, plastic people being swallowed or crushed under huge feet. There are also stories, comics, photographs, collages, a blog, and a link to Katelyn’s Amazon wish list, so her worshippers can purchase her gifts: underwear, Starbucks gift cards, vitamins so she can ‘grow’ bigger, and non-stick saucepans. Visiting the site is free, but each month around 700 of her fans make a purchase”.
My own research into macrophilia suggests that the overwhelming majority of macrophiles appear to be heterosexual males that are sexually attracted to female giantesses. However, I’ve also noted that even non-sexual scenarios involving giants can result in sexual stimulation. Each fantasy situation is different for every macrophile as the behaviour is fantasy-based. Even the preferred heights of the fantasy giants differ between individuals. For instance, some macrophiles have a preference for people only a few feet taller than themselves, whereas others involve giants who are hundreds of feet high.
In the Broadly article, Katelyn admitted she had other sexual fetishes including an “extreme mouth fetish” of similar intensity to her giantess fetish as well as furry and hentai fetishes (anime and manga pornography). This concurs with what I noted in my previous blog on macrophilia where I said that it had also been associated with other sexual paraphilias. I claimed the most noteworthy were:
- Breast fetishism: This is a sexual fetish in which an individual derives sexual arousal from being pressed against, or placed in between, the breasts of a giant woman.
- Dominance/submission: This is a sexual fetish in which an individual derives sexual pleasure being at the mercy of a giant, or from being in control of a tiny person.
- Sadism/masochism: This is a sexual paraphilia in which an individual derives sexual pleasure from being physically harmed or even killed (in this case by a giant).
- Vorarephilia: This is a sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual arousal from the idea of being eaten, eating another person, or observing this process. Although there are cases of real life vorarephilia (that I wrote about in a previous blog), the behaviour is typically fantasy-based (e.g., fictional stories, fantasy art, fantasy videos, and bespoke video games).
- Zoophilia: This is a sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual pleasure from sex with animals (in this case, the desire is to have sex with a giant animal that is given human characteristics (i.e., anthropomorphism). This also has some crossover with furries (those individuals who – amongst other behaviours – like to dress as animals when having sex)
- Crush fetishism: This is a sexual fetish in which an individual derives sexual arousal from being stepped or sat on by a giant person, and is also a variant of sexual masochism.
When Monk interviewed me, one of the most important questions she wanted an answer for was how people develop macrophilic tendencies. I told her that the roots of most fetishes lie in childhood and early adolescence where sexual arousal is, at first, accidentally associated with giants – maybe watching a TV programme where a giantess initiates feelings of sexual arousal. Over time the giant itself is enough to cause sexual arousal through classical conditioning. However, as there are no case studies in the literature, this is complete speculation on my part. However, she also interviewed one of Katelyn’s ‘worshippers’ (‘Mark’) who appeared to confirm my speculative thoughts.
“[I remember] seeing a re-run of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman when [I] was around 13 years old. The [point of view] of Allison Hayes walking across the desert was the first time I can recall being turned on. Seeing her tear the roof off of the building to get at her husband overwhelmed my young brain at the time. Shortly after that, another movie called Village of the Giants did the same thing. I can remember one of the giantesses in the movie said something like ‘Oh, why don’t I just step on him?’ which again turned my underage mind on like nothing prior. I would be uncontrollably drawn to [the giantess’] beauty and power despite the danger such an encounter would bring. As a superior being, she would have little regard for me other than supplying her own needs. Whether it be as food to nourish her superior body, or as a sexual play toy to be used and broken after, I would have no other choice other than submit myself to her. To have my life be hers to do with as she pleased would become the sole purpose for my existence. The exhilaration, danger, fear and sexual excitement would outweigh my very instinct for survival. I only wish it would become real”.
For her article, Monk also interviewed the Australian sex and relationship therapist Pamela Supple. Supple claimed that:
“Power, domination and vulnerability are at the heart of macrophilia. It’s allowing your mind to go wherever it wants to go, whilst engaging in play to gain the maximum sexual arousal. Some want to feel and experience terror – being crushed or controlled. Everyone is different in what they want to experience.”
Both I and Supple agree that macrophilia has enjoyed a massive surge in popularity in the past few years, with both of us citing the crucial role of the internet in helping to both create and facilitate the fetish “and, in some cases, introducing the fetish to those who have been looking for a name for what they feel”. This was confirmed by another one of Katelyn’s worshippers (‘Semeraz’). As he explained:
“[I didn’t know macrophilia’ was a thing” until [I] discovered Katelyn’s website. Before then, remember being in fifth grade and playing a game where the teacher assigned team names of ‘predator’ and ‘prey’ and becoming excited when a girl taunted him saying: ‘We’re going to eat you!’ But I never thought of it as a sexual fetish until running into Katelyn’s site”.
Since writing my article on macrophilia over four years ago, the presence of maxcrophilia online appears to have grown. Katelyn claims that her website was very niche when she set it up a number of years ago:
“It only had a handful of websites and contributors, a lot of lurkers – fetishes were much more taboo a decade ago – the content production was scarce and I was the only girl who had come out of the closet with the giantess fetish. Members thought there was no way a girl could have the giantess fetish. That made me feel alone, because I was the only giantess, and a lot of people doubted my sexuality. Nowadays, there’s so much giantess fetish content that you wouldn’t be able to see everything in a lifetime. There are millions of collages, stories, artists, producers, models, videos, and more.”
I’m not sure there are “millions of collages, stories, artists, producers, models, videos” out there on the internet but macrophilia is probably a lot less rare than I thought a few years ago.
Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Biles, J. (2004). I, insect, or Bataille and the crush freaks. Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology and the Arts, 7(1), 115-131.
Bowen, J. (1999). Urge: A giant fetish. Salon, May 22. Located at: http://www.salon.com/1999/05/22/macrophilia/
Gates, K. (2000). Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex. New York: RE/Search Publications.
Love, B. (1992). Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books.
Monk, F. (2016). The men who want to have sex with actual giants. Broadly, October 26. Located at: https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/macrophilia-fetish-the-men-who-want-to-have-sex-with-actual-giants
Pearson, G.A. (1991). Insect fetish objects. Cultural Entomology Digest, 4, (November).
Ramses, S. (undated). Introduction to macrophilia. Located at: http://www.pridesites.com/fetish/mac4black/intro2macro.htm
Slothrop, T. (2012). The Bible and Macrophilia: He Thong’s Goliath Art. Remnant of Giants, February 6. Located at: https://remnantofgiants.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/the-bible-and-macrophilia-he-thongs-goliath-art/
Animal passions: Why would anyone want to have sex with an animal?
Note: A shortened version of this article was first published in The Independent.
Last month, Denmark passed a law making bestiality a criminal offence from July 1st in a move to tackle animal-sex tourism. Bestiality (also known as zoophilia) is typically defined as relating to recurrent intense sexual fantasies, urges, and sexual activities with non-human animals. At present, there are still a number of countries where zoophilia is legal including Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Finland, Hungary, and Romania. In the US there is no federal law against zoophilia although most states class it as a felony and/or misdemeanour although in some states it is technically legal (for example, Texas, Kentucky, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Wyoming, West Virginia, and New Mexico).
Over the last few years I have written articles on the psychology of many different types of zoophilia including those who have engaged in sexual activities with dogs (cynophilia), cats (aelurophilia), horses (equinophilia), pigs (porcinophilia), birds (ornithophilia), dolphins (delphinophilia), lizards (herpetophilia), worms (vermiphilia), and insects (formicophilia). Dr. Alfred Kinsey shocked the US back in the 1950s when his infamous ‘Kinsey Reports’ claimed that 8% of males and 4% females had at least one sexual experience with an animal. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a much higher prevalence for zoophilic acts among people that who worked on farms (for instance, 17% males had experienced an orgasmic episode involving animals). According to Kinsey, the most frequent sexual acts that humans engaged in with animals comprised calves, sheep, donkeys, large fowl (ducks, geese), dogs and cats.
In the 1970s, world renowned sexologist Professor John Money claimed that zoophilic behaviours were usually transitory occurring when there is no other sexual outlet available. However, research carried out in the 2000s shows this not be the case. Up until the advent of the internet, almost every scientific or clinical study reported on zoophilia were case reports of individuals that has sought treatment for their unusual sexual preference. However, the internet brought many like-minded people together and there are dozens of websites where zoophiles chat to each other online and share their videos including the Beast Forum, the largest online zoophile community in the world with tens of thousands of members.
Almost all of the recently published studies have collected their data online from non-clinical samples. All of these studies report that the overwhelming majority of self-identified male and female zoophiles do not have sex with animals because there is no other sexual outlet but do so because it is their sexual preference. The most common reasons for engaging in zoophilic relationships were attraction to animals out of either a desire for affection, and a sexual attraction toward and/or a love for animals.
For instance, a study by Dr. Hani Miletski surveyed 93 zoophiles (82 males and 11 females). Only 12% of her sample said they engaged in sex with animals because there were no human partners available, and only 7% said it was because they were too shy to have sex with humans. For the females, the main reasons for having sex with animals was because they were sexually attracted to the animal (100%), had love and affection for the animal (67%) and/or because they said the animal wanted sex with them (67%). Most of Miletski’s sample preferred sex with dogs (87% males; 100% females) and/or horses (81% males; 73% females). Only 8% of males wanted to stop having sex with animals and none of the females. Unlike case study reports of zoophilia published prior to 2000, the studies published over the last 15 years using non-clinical samples report the vast majority of zoophiles do not appear to be suffering any significant clinical significant distress or impairment as a consequence of their behaviour.
In 2011, Dr Anil Aggrawal published a comprehensive typology of zoophilia in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine. Dr. Aggrawal’s claimed there were ten different types of zoophile based on both the scientific and clinical literature, as well as some theoretical speculation. For instance:
- Human–animal role-players – those who never have sex with animals but become sexually aroused through wanting to have sex with humans who pretend to be animals.
- Romantic zoophiles – those who keeps animals as pets as a way to get psychosexually stimulated without actually having any kind of sexual contact with them.
- Zoophilic fantasizers – those who fantasize about having sexual intercourse with animals but never actually do.
- Tactile zoophiles – those who get sexual excitement from touching, stroking or fondling animals or their genitals but do not actually have sexual intercourse with animals.
- Fetishistic zoophiles – those who keep various animal parts (especially fur) that are used as erotic stimuli as a crucial part of their sexual activity (typically masturbation). (See my previous blog on the use of an animal part as a masturbatory aid)
- Sadistic bestials – those who derive sexual arousal from the torturing of animals (known as zoosadismhttps://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/stuff-love-a-beginners-guide-to-plushophilia/) but does not involve sexual intercourse with the animal.
- Opportunistic zoosexuals – those who have normal sexual encounters but would have sexual intercourse with animals if the opportunity arose.
- Regular zoosexuals – those who prefer sex with animals than sex with humans (but are capable of having sex with both). Such zoophiles will engage in a wide range of sexual activities with animals and love animals on an emotional level.
- Homicidal bestials – those who need to kill animals in order to have sex with them. Although capable of having sex with living animals, there is an insatiable desire to have sex with dead animals.
- Exclusive zoosexuals – those who only have sex with animals to the exclusion of human sexual partners.
Personally, I don’t view human-animal role players as zoophiles as this would include those in the Furry Fandom (individuals that dress up and interact socially as animals). There is no official definition of what a ‘furry’ actually is although most furries would agree that they share an interest in fictional anthromorphic animal characters that have human characteristics and personalities and/or mythological or imaginary creatures that possess human and/or superhuman capabilities. The furry fandom has also developed its own vocabulary including words such as ‘fursona’ (furry persona), ‘plushie’ (person who has sex with cuddly toys), and ‘yiff’ (furry pornography). A study by David J. Rust of 360 members of the furry community suggested less than 1% were plushophiles and that 2% were zoophiles.
Many zoophiles believe that in years to come, their sexual preference will be seen as no different to being gay or straight. This is not a view I adhere to especially because animals cannot give consent (although many zoophiles claim the animals they have sexual relationships with do give ‘consent’). The one thing we do know is that the internet has revolutionised the way we carry out our research and get access to ‘hard to reach’ groups. Thanks to online research, zoophilia is just one of many sexually atypical behaviours that we now know more about both behaviourally and psychologically.
Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Aggrawal, A. (2011). A new classification of zoophilia. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 18, 73-78.
Beetz, Andrea (2002). Love, Violence, and Sexuality in Relationships between Humans and Animals. Germany: Shaker Verlag.
Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B., Martin, C.E., Gebhard, P.H. (1953). Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders Company.
Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B., Martin, C.E., (1948). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders Company.
R.J. Maratea (2011). Screwing the pooch: Legitimizing accounts in a zoophilia on-line community. Deviant Behavior, 32, 918-943.
Miletski, H. (2000). Bestiality and zoophilia: An exploratory study. Scandinavian Journal of Sexology, 3, 149–150.
Miletski, H. (2001). Zoophilia – implications for therapy. Journal of Sex Education and Therapy, 26, 85–89.
Miletski, H. (2002). Understanding bestiality and zoophilia. Germantown, MD: Ima Tek Inc.
Williams, C. J., & Weinberg, M. S. (2003). Zoophilia in men: A study of sexual interest in animals. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32, 523–535.
A touch too much? A brief look at hyphephilia
In a previous blog I briefly examined frotteurism (in which a person derives sexual pleasure or gratification from rubbing, especially the genitals, against another non-consensual person, typically in a public place such as a crowded train, or in crowded places such as malls, elevators, on busy sidewalks, and on public transportation vehicles). This behaviour is closely related to (or a sub-type) of ‘toucherism’ depending upon which source you read. Some descriptions of toucherism claim that the individual touches or fondles other people (rather than rubbing) to gain sexual arousal. For instance, the online Psychology Dictionary define toucherism as “carnal interest and stimulation gathered from touching a stranger on an erotic area of their body, especially the buttocks, breasts, or genitalia. This is frequently done as an alleged in tight spaces”. Similarly, the Wikipedia entry says that:
“Toucherism refers to sexual arousal based on grabbing or rubbing one’s hands against an unexpecting (and non-consenting) person. It usually involves touching breasts, buttocks or genital areas, often while quickly walking across the victim’s path…[The late Czech-Canadian] sexologist Kurt Freund described toucherism as a courtship disorder”
In fact, Freund wrote numerous papers claiming that behaviours such as toucherism, frotteurism, and exhibitionism are caused by ‘courtship disorders’. According to Freund, normal courtship comprises four phases: (i) location of a partner, (ii) pre-tactile interactions, (iii) tactile interactions, and (iv) genital union. Freund proposed that toucherism is a disturbance of the third phase of the courtship disorder. Similarly, Professor John Money proposed the ‘‘lovemap’’ theory (in his 1986 Lovemaps book) suggesting that paraphiliac behaviour occurs when an abnormal lovemap develops which interferes with the ability to participate in loving sexual intercourse.
The reason why I began this article by briefly re-visiting frotteurism and toucherism is that there is a tactile fetishistic behaviour called ‘hyphephilia’ that I would argue is a sub-type of toucherism but not necessarily a sub-type of frotteurism (suggesting that toucherism and frotteurism may be two separate sexual paraphilias). In his 2009 book Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices, Dr. Anil Aggrawal defines hyphephilia as a paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual arousal from touching skin, hair, leather, or fur (although these could be very specific paraphilias – such as trichophilia that describes those individuals that derive sexual arousal from human hair). This is similar (but not the same) to the online English Encyclopedia that notes:
“In psychiatry, [hyphephilia is] a sexual perversion in which sexual arousal and orgasm depend upon touching or rubbing the partner`s skin or hair, or upon the sensations related to feeling fur, leather, fabric, or other substances in association with sexual activity with the partner”.
The Right Diagnosis medical website adds an arguably zoophilic element by claiming that the symptoms of hyphephilia are a (i) sexual interest in the feel and smell of animal skin, fur or leather, (ii) recurring intense sexual fantasies involving the feel and smell of animal skin, fur or leather, (iii) recurring intense sexual urges involving the feel and smell of animal skin, fur or leather, and/or sexual preference for the feel and smell of animal skin, fur or leather. Finally, Dr. George Pranzarone in his 2000 Dictionary of Sexology is a little more technical and says that:
“Hyphephilia [is] one of a group of paraphilias of the fetishistic/talismanic type in which the sexuoerotic stimulus is associated with the touching, rubbing, or the feel of skin, hair, leather, fur, and fabric, especially if worn in proximity to erotically significant parts of the body”.
Dr. Eric Hickey (in his book Serial Murderers and Their Victims) notes that paraphilic behaviour is very common among those that commit sexual crimes but that the two activities (sex offending and paraphilias) may be two independent constructs and that one does not necessarily affect the other. Hickey asserts that hyphephilia is one of the so-called ‘preparatory paraphilias’ (as opposed to the ‘attack paraphilias’). Attack paraphilias are described by Hickey as being sexually violent (towards other individuals including children in extreme circumstances). Preparatory paraphilias are defined by Hickey as those “that have been found as part of the lust killer’s sexual fantasies and activities”. However, Hickey notes that individuals that engage in preparatory paraphilias do not necessarily go on to become serial killers.
Like many paraphilic and fetishistic behaviours, there is no scientific agreement concerning the cause of hyphephilia. This probably depends on the person rather than a single characteristic factor. Most experts would no doubt attribute hyphephilic behaviour to an initially random or accidental touching of the specific item that the individual subsequently finds sexually arousing. Through processes such as classical and operant conditioning, successive repetitions of the associative pairings of the behaviour would then reinforce the behaviour and result in the behaviour being repeated.
One of the few references I came across that mentioned hyphephilia is an interesting paper by Dr. Stephen J. Gould in a 1991 volume of Advances in Consumer Research. He claimed the field of sex research had been overlooked by consumer research, and that John Money’s concept of ‘lovemaps’ could be applied. More specifically, he asserted:
“I want to suggest that there exist what we can call consumer lovemaps. This concept represents an adaptation of Money’s (1984) lovemap theory. He defines a lovemap as that which ‘carries the program of a person’s erotic fantasies and their corresponding practices’. Based on the lovemap concept, Money has developed a typology of paraphilias (perversions) each with their own lovemap (e.g. autonepiophilia – diaperism; hyphephilia – lover of fabrics). Each also follows certain strategies of sexual response – the two examples of autonepiophilia and hyphephilia, for instance, represent a fetishistic sexual strategy. In this context, we may define a consumer lovemap as including those aspects of the more general lovemap which involve consumption, i.e. the purchase and use of products in the process of attracting a mate, engaging in sexual activity, and developing and maintaining sexual-love relationships”.
Here, hyphephilia is simply defined as someone that derives sexual arousal from the touching of fabrics. This is not uncommon as a number of online articles also simply define hyphephilia as such. For instance, an article (‘A passion for fabrics’) by Sylvie Marot began by noting:
“[French psychiatrist Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault wrote] ‘We love to run our hand across fur; we would like silk to slide itself across the back of our hand. Fur calls for an active caress in its form: silk caresses with a uniform sweetness a skin that becomes passive; then it reveals, so to speak, a nervousness in its breaks and cries’. To classify this specific research on the aphrodisiac virtues of silk, two neologisms appeared necessary to him: hyphephilia – the erotics of fabric – and aptophilia – ecstasy of the touch. The man (the fetishist?), who loved dearly ‘the cry of silk’, was able to identify with a maniacal precision the different points of a hem – ‘scallop, buttonhole, flange, blanket stick, tab, etc.’. Like some of his patients, seamstresses by profession, he was not content to merely enjoy fabrics, conceiving for himself draped figures manufactured at his request according to his own drawings”.
Although hyphephilia is unlikely to be problematic for many, those that want therapy are likely to receive the same types of therapeutic intervention that are recommended for frotteurism (behaviour therapy, reality therapy, cognitive-behavioural therapy, etc.) – although the most critical thing is that the person that seeks such treatment must want to actively change such behaviour. The Right Diagnosis website claims that:
“Treatment [for hyphephilia] is generally not sought unless the condition becomes problematic for the person in some way and they feel compelled to address their condition. The majority of people simply learn to accept their fetish and manage to achieve gratification in an appropriate manner”
In his 1998 book Gay, Straight, and In-Between, Professor John Money described hyphephilia as a “touchy-feely paraphilia”. The case that Money described was arguably extreme and doesn’t quite fit the definitions I outlined above. He reported:
“In a particular case [a female hyphephilac] entailed the feel of…small dogs placed between the legs and rubbed against the genitals. The way of attaining orgasm surpassed that of ordinary sexual intercourse, which was so aversive that it was discontinued in the marriage. The paraphilic activity had its onset in a dismal history of illegitimacy and childhood neglect and traumatic abuse. In adolescence, there was a history of noncopulatory sexual activity with a middle-aged male relative. In the manner typical for paraphilia, the feel of rubbing a small live creature between the legs was a stratagem for preserving lust as a commodity separate from love, which, in her life experiences, had always been either unattainable or warped. The moral struggle to be rid of the paraphilia was intense and not successful”.
My own reading of this case is that it is more a case of zoophilic frotteurism than hyphephilia (although the criterion of ‘touching of fur’ for sexual arousal is arguably met). In other papers, Professor Money also described formicophilia (i.e., being sexually aroused by insects crawling and/or nibbling on an individual’s genitals) as a ‘touchy-feely’ paraphilia that belongs in the “hyphephilic subgroup of fetishistic paraphilias”. Personally, I wouldn’t class formicophilia as a form of hyphephilia on the basis of any definition that I have come across.
Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Cantor, J. M., Blanchard, R., & Barbaree, H. E. (2009). Sexual disorders. In P. H. Blaney & T. Millon (Eds.), Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology (2nd ed.) (pp. 527–548). New York: Oxford University Press.
Dewaraja, R. & Money, J. (1986). Transcultural sexology: Formicophilia, a newly named paraphilia in a young Buddhist male. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 12, 139-145.
Freund, K. (1990). Courtship disorders: Toward a biosocial understanding of voyeurism, exhibitionism, toucherism, and the preferential rape pattern. In. L. Ellis & H. Hoffman (Eds.), Crime in biological, social, and moral contexts (pp. 100–114). New York: Praeger.
Freund, K., Seto, M. C., & Kuban, M. (1997). Frotteurism and the theory of courtship disorder. In D. R. Laws & W. T. O’Donohue (Eds.), Sexual Deviance: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment (pp. 111-130). New York: Guilford Press.
Gould, S. J. (1991). Toward a theory of sexuality and consumption: Consumer Lovemaps. In R.H. Holman & M.R. Solomon (Eds.), Advances in Consumer Research Volume 18 (pp. 381-383). Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
Hickey, E. W. (2010). Serial Murderers and Their Victims (Fifth Edition). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Money, J. (1986). Lovemaps: Clinical concepts of sexual/erotic health and pathology, paraphilia, and gender transposition in childhood, adolescence, and maturity. New York: Irvington.
Money, J. (1998). Gay, Straight, and In-Between: The Sexology of Erotic Orientation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pranzarone, G.F. (2000). The Dictionary of Sexology. Located at: http://ebookee.org/Dictionary-of-Sexology-EN_997360.html
Psychology Dictionary (2014). What is toucherism? Located at: http://psychologydictionary.org/toucherism/
Wikipedia (2014). Toucherism. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toucherism
Blog-nitive psychology: 500 articles and counting
It’s hard for me to believe that this is the 500th article that I have published on my personal blog. It’s also the shortest. I apologise that it is not about any particular topic but a brief look back at what my readers access when they come across my site. (Regular readers might recall I did the same thing back in October 2012 in an article I wrote called ‘Google surf: What does the search for sex online say about someone?’). As of August 26 (2014), my blog had 1,788,932 visitors and is something I am very proud of (as I am now averaging around 3,500 visitors a day). As I write this blog, my most looked at page is my blog’s home page (256,262 visitors) but as that changes every few days this doesn’t really tell me anything about people like to access on my site.
Below is a list of all the blogs that I have written that have had over 10,000 visitors (and just happens to be 25 articles exactly).
- Coprophilia (40,001)
- Urophilia (38,933)
- Somnophilia (22,291)
- Trampling fetishes (20,651)
- Urethral manipulation (20,234)
- Scrotal infusion (20,041)
- Genital bisection (18,715)
- Felching (18,193)
- Vorarephilia (16,566)
- Insect sting fetishes (16,236)
- Transformation fetishes (15,731)
- Amputee fetishes (15,467)
- Macrophilia (15,322)
- Sexual masochism (13,937)
- Formicophilia (13,655)
- Eproctophilia (13,295)
- Lactophilia (12,656)
- Equinophilia (12,434)
- Spit fetishes (12,259)
- Menophilia (11,855)
- Paraphilic infantilism (11,590)
- Zoophilia (11,235)
- Transvestic fetishism (10,661)
- Forniphilia (10,046)
- Necrophilia (10,020)
The first thing that struck me about my most read about articles is that they all concern sexual fetishes and paraphilias (in fact the top 30 all concern sexual fetishes and paraphilias – the 31st most read article is one on coprophagia [7,250 views] with my article on excessive nose picking being the 33rd most read [6,745 views]). This obviously reflects either (a) what people want to read about, and/or (b) reflect issues that people have in their own lives.
I’ve had at least five emails from readers who have written me saying (words to the effect of) “Why can’t you write what you are supposed to write about (i.e., gambling)?” to which I reply that although I am a Professor of Gambling Studies, I widely research in other areas of addictive behaviour. I simply write about the extremes of human behaviour and things that I find of interest. (In fact, only one article on gambling that I have written is in the top 100 most read articles and that was on gambling personality [3,050 views]). If other people find them of interest, that’s even better. However, I am sometimes guided by my readers, and a small but significant minority of the blogs I have written have actually been suggested by emails I have received (my blogs on extreme couponing, IVF addiction, loom bands, ornithophilia, condom snorting, and haircut fetishes come to mind).
Given this is my 500th article in my personal blog, it won’t come as any surprise to know that I take my blogging seriously (in fact I have written academic articles on the benefits of blogging and using blogs to collect research data [see ‘Further reading’ below] and also written an article on ‘addictive blogging’!). Additionally (if you didn’t already know), I also have a regular blog column on the Psychology Today website (‘In Excess’), as well as regular blogging for The Independent newspaper, The Conversation, GamaSutra, and Rehabs.com. If there was a 12-step ‘Blogaholics Anonymous’ I might even be the first member.
“My name is Mark and I am a compulsive blogger”
Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Blog eat blog: Can blogging be addictive? April 23. Located at: https://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/blog-eat-blog-can-blogging-be-addictive/
Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Stats entertainment: A review of my 2012 blogs. December 31. Located at: https://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/stats-entertainment-a-review-of-my-2012-blogs/
Griffiths, M.D. (2013). How writing blogs can help your academic career. Psy-PAG Quarterly, 87, 39-40.
Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Stats entertainment (Part 2): A 2013 review of my personal blog. December 31. Located at: https://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/stats-entertainment-part-2-a-2013-review-of-my-personal-blog/
Griffiths, M.D. (2014). Top tips on…Writing blogs. Psy-PAG Quarterly, 90, 13-14.
Griffiths, M.D. (2014). Blogging the limelight: A personal account of the benefit of excessive blogging. May 8. Located at: https://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/blogging-the-limelight-a-personal-account-of-the-benefits-of-excessive-blogging/
Griffiths, M.D., Lewis, A., Ortiz de Gortari, A.B. & Kuss, D.J. (2014). Online forums and blogs: A new and innovative methodology for data collection. Studia Psychologica, in press.
Web browsing: A brief look at arachnephilia
In previous blogs I have examined sexual paraphilias involving those individuals who derive sexual stimulation and arousal from ants and/or insects (formicophilia), and individuals who derive sexual stimulation and arousal from bees (melissophilia) and bee stings (as a radical – and painful – way of increasing penis size). Sexually paraphilic interest by humans in insects is also known as entomophilia. As a short article about entomophilia on the Kinky Sex Questions website asserts:
“While some love to have it with spiders, bees and ants, there are those who would prefer a sexy touch of a fly, grasshopper, cockroach or a similar insect. Insects are most of the time positioned on the genitals or the other sensitive parts of the human body such as nipples. Usually by crawling they create a tickling sensation resulting in a sexual arousal. The act itself is not limited to tickling only. It may include stinging or nasty biting depending on the preferences of the individual. Flying insects can be trapped in a container and the opened end of it can be pressed against body, preferably genitals. Mosquitoes and flies are quite popular species”.
One specific insect-related sexual paraphilia is that of arachnephilia (sometimes spelled differently as ‘arachnophilia’). Dr. Anil Aggrawal, in both his 2009 book Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices and his new classification of zoophilia practices in a 2011 issue of the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, simply defines arachnephilia as “[sexual] arousal from spiders”. Dr. Ronald Homes and Dr. Stephen Holmes – in a chapter on ‘nuisance sex behaviours’ in the third edition of their book Sex Crimes: Patterns and Behaviors – also have an identical definition (the only difference being they spell it ‘arachnophilia’ although I’m not quite clear how it is a ‘nuisance sex behaviour’). Dr. Brenda Love in her Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices defines arachnephilia as referring to those individuals who “are aroused by sex play involving spiders”.
The most detailed definition of arachnephilia I have come across is that on the Right Diagnosis website that states it refers to “sexual urges, preferences or fantasies involving playing with spiders” and that the symptoms include (i) sexual interest in playing with spiders, (ii) abnormal amount of time spent thinking about playing with spiders, (iii) recurring intense sexual fantasies involving playing with spiders, and (iv) recurring intense sexual urges involving playing with spiders.
I did an exhaustive literature search trying to locate any empirical and/or clinical research that has been done on the topic and got very excited when I came a cross a paper entitled “A case of arachnophilia” by B.D. Johnson. However, my excitement turned to despair when I then discovered it was a basically a film review of the Sam Raimi directed film Spider-Man (starring Tobey Maguire). Dr. Brenda Love’s entry contains a little information but is not based on any scientific research. She seems to imply there is a sexually masochistic element to arachnephilia, as she notes that: “Spider scenes utilize a person’s fear of spiders to increase adrenalin. The bottom may be tied down and the spider either brought close to them or laced on their body crawl around” Dr. Love’s speculation appears to be (at least in part) backed up by a small online article on arachephilia (again on the Kinky Sex Questions website) that noted:
“So what is it exactly so exciting about spiders? It must be the thrill of it. Especially if the spider is large and venomous. Large spiders such as tarantula, though dangerous, they are unlikely to bite unless provoked. It all depends on the country where we live as well. What is easy to get hold of in Latin America, a paraphiliac’s needs to have a different alternative while on a different continent. Thrill equals adrenaline rush. And that’s most likely the driving force behind this paraphilia. It is an interesting fact that some individuals who practice this fetish are at the same time afraid of the spiders”
There are no statistics on the incidence or prevalence of arachnephilia (in fact there isn’t even a single published case study). In my search for papers on academic databases I did come across a few references in arachnephilia (not including the many papers that referenced a piece of software called ‘arachnophilia’). The first academic paper that mentioned ‘arachnophilia’ was a paper published by Dr. Kenneth Adams (entitled ‘Arachnophobia: Love American style’) in a 1981 issue of the Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology. The paper analyzed the tendency to equate female sexual desire, woman’s love, and the female and femininity with the “voracious spider”. This theoretical paper asserted that:
“The ontogenetic origins of arachnophobia can be traced to a dread of the mother that is structurally encouraged by the claustrophobic intensity of the nuclear family. This archaic terror also ultimately reflects the indeterminate boundaries of the ego that are incapable of differentiating self from mother. In comic books arachnophobia and arachnophilia represent the two sides of ‘Love American Style’: an ambivalent attraction to and repulsion from preoedipal, undifferentiated, mother–self, male–female dual unity”.
I can’t say I agree (or even follow) this line of argument, and as with all psychoanalytic theory, it can’t really be empirically tested as it is not falsifiable. The only other direct reference to arachnephilia I came across was in the literal meaning of arachnephilia as ‘love of spiders’ (i.e., a liking or even obsession with them but not in a sexual sense). In this capacity, an academic paper, Dr. Jonathan Sklar and Dr. Andrea Sabbadini published a paper about David Cronenberg’s 2002 film Spider in a 2008 issue of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.
For those of you who have not seen the film, the film’s protagonist, Dennis Cleg (played by Ralph Feinnes) and known as ‘Spider’, is a catatonic schizophrenic man released from a mental institution where he was incarcerated for many years after he had killed his mother. Sklar and Sabbadini discuss the roots of his (non-sexual) ‘arachnophilia’ and spider obsession:
“Related to his interest in cobwebs is Spider’s obsession with collecting and playing with strings, in the hope of making links with reality by tying them together…What fascinates Spider are … spiders! Spider-webs and egg-bags are for him wonderful yet dangerously flimsy containers of reality. His arachnophilia is so marked that his mother had created a whole fantastic spider’s world of images and stories for him. It may be noticed that the word spider sounds like spied her – as if his mother, by so nicknaming her son, was also unconsciously encouraging his oedipal voyeuristic curiosity”.
Finally, getting back to the sexually paraphilic meaning of arachnephilia, the Right Diagnosis website claims that treatment for arachnephilia “is generally not sought unless the condition becomes problematic for the person in some way and they feel compelled to address their condition. The majority of people simply learn to accept their fetish and manage to achieve gratification in an appropriate manner”. I certainly can’t deny this may be the case as there is a complete lack of any reference to treatment in any academic book or journal.
Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Adams, K.A. (1981). Arachnophobia: Love American style. Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology, 4, 157-197.
Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Aggrawal, A. (2011). A new classification of zoophilia. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 18, 73-78.
Holmes, S.T. & Holmes, R.M. (2009). Sex Crimes: Patterns and Behaviors (3rd Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kinky Sex Questions (2012). Arachnephilia. Located at: http://www.kinky-sex-questions.com/arachnephilia.html
Kinky Sex Questions (2012). Entomophilia. Located at: http://www.kinky-sex-questions.com/entomophilia.html
Love, B. (2001). Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices. London: Greenwich Editions.
Right Diagnosis (2013). Arachnephilia. March 1. Located at: http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/a/arachnephilia/intro.htm
Sklar, J. & Sabbadini, A. (2008). David Cronenberg’s Spider: Between confusion and fragmentation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 89, 427-432.
Wikipedia (2012). Brazilian wandering spider. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_wandering_spider#Toxicity
Bee-rotica: A beginner’s guide to insect sting fetishes
In a previous blog I briefly examined formicophilia (i.e., being sexually aroused by insects crawling and/or nibbling on a person’s genitals). According to both the Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices (by Dr.Anil Aggrawal) and the Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices (Dr. Brenda Love), there is a specific sub-type of formicophilia that relates to being sexually aroused by bees (i.e., melissophilia). To date, there has not been a single academic or clinical study examining melissophilia. However, what there has been are many historical, cultural, and/or academic references to the use of bee and wasp stings for sexual purposes (including the books by Dr. Aggrawal and Dr. Love that specifically make passing reference to melissophilia).
The most common reference to the use of bee and wasp stings is their use as a method of penis enlargement. There are many cults that are devoted to the phallus. Furthermore, it is known that many ancient religions (especially those that are polytheistic such as Hinduism and Greek mythology) have gods with gigantic penises. Similarly, there are also some monotheistic religions (e.g., Judaism) that make reference in the Tanakh (i.e., the canon of the Hebrew Bible) to promiscuous females that desire males with very large penises. Consequently, men belonging to these religions in various different countries have used a variety of methods for penis enlargement including penis gourds, stretching methods, and bee stings. Arguably one of the oldest reference to insect stings as a way of enlarging the penis was in the Kama Sutra (the fourth century Hindu love manual). It suggested:
“To increase the size and potential of the penis: Take shuka hairs – the shuka is an insect that lives in trees – mix with oil and rub on the penis for ten nights…When a swelling appears sleep face downwards on a wooden bed, letting one’s sex hang through a hole” (Vatsyayana).
Shuka insects are a form of wasp and the hairs are the shuka’s stingers. The Kama Sutra claims that the “swelling caused by the shuka lasts for life” (although I haven’t seen any evidence that this would actually be the case). In the 2007 book on The Miscellany of Sex, Francesca Twinn also noted that there is an Amazonian wedding ritual that involves covering the penis with bamboo that is filled with bees as an aid to penis enlargement. This very same ritual was allegedly tried by the Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger (after one of his former girlfriends – Janice Dickinson – criticized how small his penis was). The film maker Julien Temple was quoted as saying:
“It involved putting bamboo over the male member and filling it with stinger bees so that the member attained the size of the bamboo. Mick spent months in the jungle in Peru”
The medicinal effects of bee venom and stings have long been known but there are also inherent dangers. A recent 2011 paper on bee stings in the World Journal of Hepatology by Adel Nazmi Alqutub and colleagues summed the situation up concisely when they noted that:
“The use of bee venom as a therapeutic agent for the relief of joint pains dates back to Hippocrates, and references to the treatment can be found in ancient Egyptian and Greek medical writings as well. Also known as apitherapy, the technique is widely used in Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America. The beneficial effects of bee stings can be attributed to mellitinin, an anti-inflammatory agent, known to be hundred times stronger than cortisone. Unfortunately, certain substances in the bee venom trigger allergic reactions which can be life threatening in a sensitized individual. Multiple stings are known to cause hemolysis, kidney injury, hepatotoxicity and myocardial infarction”.
Despite the possible dangers, there are very few reports in the literature of penile wasp and bee stings. The few that have been reported tend to be on young children stung while playing naked in the summer. (I came across a particularly gruesome case – with photos – of a three-year old with a penile bee sting in a 2011 issue of the Turkish Archives of Pediatrics that you can check out if you have the stomach for it). However, a few academic medical papers make the point that if the penile bee stings are self-inflicted and things go wrong, such people may be just too embarrassed to seek medical help.
In a 2005 book chapter by Dr Brenda Love (in Russ Kick’s Everything You Know About Sex is Wrong) examined some of the strangest sexual behaviours from around the world. She wrote that bee stings have been used by men to extend the duration of orgasm, enhance sensations of the penis, and increase its circumference. She also recounted this anecdote related to a man who got his sexual kicks from bee stings:
“Bee stings were once used as a folk remedy for arthritis sufferers. The insects were captured and held on the affected joint until they stung. The poison and the swelling it caused alleviated much of the pain in their joints. One male, having observed his grandparents use bees for this purpose, and later having a female friend throw a bee on his genitals as a joke, discovered that the sting on his penis extended the duration and intensity of his orgasm. Realizing that the bee sting was almost painless, he developed his own procedure, which consisted of catching two bees in a jar, and shaking it to make the bees dizzy to prevent their flying away. They were then grabbed by both wings so that they were unable to twist around and sting. Each bee was placed each side of the glans and pushed to encourage it to sting. (Stings to the glans do not produce the desired swelling and the venom sac tends to penetrate the skin too deeply, causing difficulty in removing them)…Stings on the penis, unlike other areas, resemble the bite of a mosquito…The circumference of the man’s penis increased from 6.5 inches to 9.5 inches. Swelling is greatest on the second day”
This account is by no means an isolated incident as I have come across a number of similar stories online. For instance, in response to a man’s question about whether bee stings have a demonstrable effect on virility and sexual performance, one person responded:
“My boyfriend would [use bee stings] all the time and it would turn me on so much. You squeeze the abdomen of the bee to trigger it into combat mode, so it will sting and get the stinger out. You put the stinger in the urethra and keep on pinching the bee until it releases the venom and stings the penis. The reasons this works is because the venom from the bee makes your penis swell, and well, that just seems to make it harder and larger”
The next account is just an excerpt from the full account and I want to stress that I personally do not advocate trying this – I’m merely reporting this account to demonstrate that the practice appears to exist.
“After reading the text for the Kama Sutra [I] have come up with a plan to increase girth using the common paper wasp… To catch and manipulate the wasps I use a type of lab tweezers…Once I find the nest I select a worker that is alone and catch it by the wing with the tweezers. Then I place it in a small jar with small holes in the lid…After I have three wasps then I can rotate them out in a sting session. [With] a partial erection [I] use a pen to mark 1/2″ circles every 1″ around the base and a second ring of circles 1″ apart. These are your targets. Put the jars in your fridge for a minute or two. NO LONGER! You want to slow them down not kill them. Select your first wasp and grab her wing near the middle with your tweezers…Manipulate your wasp/tweezer combo to target the circle. Once you have a single sting move on to the next circle target…When you finish you WILL jump around for awhile, but the reward is worth the five minutes of discomfort…You will need to [rub your penis with] olive oil for a few minutes just after the sting treatment…After ten nights do another treatment…Do not use hornets or yellow jackets in place of paper wasps they hurt a lot more but don’t produce any better results. Do not use anything containing caffeine or aspirin during this treatment as they can retard the swelling that you want”
I should also point out there are also variations on a theme as some online accounts that I came across involved other types of insect sting being used to increase penis size and girth such as those who used the stinging properties of fire ants. In fact, I did come across some interesting academic papers from South America (by Jose Marques and Eraldo Costa-Neto, Universidade Estadual de Feim de Santana, Brazil) by examining the use of insects and animals for “medicinal purposes” and there was an example of the sting of great ants (Dinoponera) being used for “strengthening a flaccid penis”. There are also other sexual practices that use stinging insects (mainly ants and wasps) but these used in the case of sexual sadism and sexual masochism (such as those practices outlined on sites like the Slave Farm).
I’ll leave you with this final snippet. The most remarkable sexual bee stung story I have come across is that of Chloe Prince, a transgender woman from Jackson, Ohio (US) who was born male. As a male (called Ted) he married his wife, had two children, and then claimed in the national press and broadcast media that as a result of a severe reaction to a bee sting, his testosterone level dropped significantly. Prince claimed that after she had been stung, her male body developed a more womanly shape, and eventually underwent gender reassignment surgery. (However, I no of no evidence that bee stings can cause changes in testosterone levels, and Prince was diagnosed with Klinefelter’s Syndrome – a genetic condition in which human males have an extra X chromosome and that can result in the development of female sexual characteristics such as increased breast tissue [i.e., gynecomastia])
Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Alqutub, A.N. Masoodi, I., Alsayari, K. & Alomair, A. (2011). Bee sting therapy-induced hepatotoxicity: A case report. World Journal of Hepatology, 27, 268-270.
Bonnard, M. (2001). The Viagra Alternative: The Complete Guide To Overcoming Erectile Dysfunction Naturally. Rochester: Healing Press.
Abraham, T. (2012). My husband became my wife: Transgender woman reveals how a bee sting led to her sex change… and how the woman she had married stood by her. Daily Mail, February 9. Located at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2098442/My-husband-wife-Couple-reveal-extraordinary-story–started-bee-sting.html#ixzz1xba6y0eA
Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Aggrawal, A. (2011). A new classification of zoophilia. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 18, 73-78.
Gates, K. (2000). Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex. New York: RE/Search Publications.
Love, B. (1992). Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books.
Love, B. (2005). Cat-fighting, eye-licking, head-sitting and statue-screwing. In R. Kick (Ed.), Everything You Know About Sex is Wrong (pp.122-129). New York: The Disinformation Company.
Özkan, A., Kaya, M., Okur, M., Küçük, A. & Turan, H. (2011). Three-year-old boy with swelling and ecchymosis of the penis. Turkish Archives of Pediatrics, 46, 259-60.
Twinn, F. (2007). The Miscellany of Sex: Tantalizing Travels Through Love, Lust and Libido. London: Arcturus.
Havin’ it large: A beginner’s guide to macrophilia
Macrophilia appears to be an increasingly popular sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual arousal from a fascination with giants and/or a sexual fantasy involving giants. Such fantasies may include the macrophiles themselves shrinking in front of a normal sized person (male or female). Alternatively, macrophiles may fantasize about their sexual partner growing to an abnormal height while the macrophiles themselves remain unchanged.
The literal translation of macrophilia means a “lover of large” but in this context it does not refer to those in the fat admiration community (i.e., people who are sexually attracted to very fat women) but specifically refers to individuals who are sexually attracted to people much taller than themselves (i.e., it is the height rather than width that is crucial). As the scale between small and tall is not generally found in real human life, almost all macrophilic behaviour is sexual fantasy.
The overwhelming majority of macrophiles are thought to be heterosexual males that are sexually attracted to female giantesses. However, even non-sexual scenarios involving giants can result in sexual stimulation. Each fantasy situation is different for every macrophile as the behaviour is fantasy-based. Even the preferred heights of the fantasy giants differ between individuals. For instance, some macrophiles have a preference for people only a few feet taller than themselves whereas others involve giants who are hundreds of feet high.
The reason that this particular paraphilia has increased massively over the last decade is because the internet has played a crucial role in helping create and facilitate the paraphilia. Because the paraphilia is almost totally fantasy-based, much of the material from which macrophiles gain their sexual gratification is placed and distributed online. There is a wide range of macrophile artwork, photographs, and video on the internet. Applications such as Photoshop are widely used to create collages of fake giants. Photographs are also taken from low angles to make everything in the viewfinder (including people) seem much bigger. The internet is also full of home made camcorder films of people trampling and destroying model cities.
A recent online article by Tyrone Slothrop on “The Bible and Macrophilia” (on the Remnant of Giants website) examines the artwork of ‘He Thong’ a well known artist in the macrophile community.
“The phenomenon of macrophilia certainly demonstrates how wrong Edmund Burke was, in Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful (pp. 157-58), when he opined, ‘It is impossible to suppose a giant the object of love. When we let our imaginations loose in romance, the ideas we naturally annex to that size are those of tyranny, cruelty, injustice, and every thing horrid and abominable.’ He Thong’s macrophiliac art is combined with depictions of Goliath gathering slaves from his enemies, slave submission, and bondage – a common related paraphilia among a significant sector of macrophiles”
Although most macrophilic behaviour is fantasy-based, there are some macrophiles who attempt to experience the fetish in real life by dating extraordinarily tall women (so called ‘Amazons’) even if they have to pay for the privilege to do so. For instance, it was reported that Mikayla Miles (who when wearing her fetish boots nearly 7 feet in her fetish boots, and 6 feet 4 inches without the boots), provides private sessions with macrophiles to engage in behaviours such as trampling, domination, role play, and foot worship. Macrophiles can also meet their tall heroines at such gatherings as the annual Amazon Convention.
Macrophilia has also been associated with other sexual fetishes and paraphilias. The most noteworthy in this regard are:
- Breast fetishism: This is a sexual fetish in which an individual derives sexual arousal from being pressed against, or placed in between, the breasts of a giant woman.
- Dominance/submission: This is a sexual fetish in which an individual derives sexual pleasure being at the mercy of a giant, or from being in control of a tiny person.
- Sadism/masochism: This is a sexual paraphilia in which an individual derives sexual pleasure from being physically harmed or even killed (in this case by a giant).
- Vorarephilia: This is a sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual arousal from the idea of being eaten, eating another person, or observing this process. Although there are cases of real life vorarephilia (that I wrote about in a previous blog), the behaviour is typically fantasy-based (e.g., fictional stories, fantasy art, fantasy videos, and bespoke video games).
- Zoophilia: This is a sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual pleasure from sex with animals (in this case, the desire is to have sex with a giant animal that is given human characteristics (i.e., anthropomorphism). This also has some crossover with furries (those individuals who – amongst other behaviours – like to dress as animals when having sex)
- Crush fetishism: This is a sexual fetish in which an individual derives sexual arousal from being stepped or sat on by a giant person, and is also a variant of sexual masochism.
Crush fetishism has also been associated with formicophilia, a sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual arousal from insects. For instance, in the journal Cultural Entomology, G.A. Pearson (North Carolina State University, USA), described the fetishistic behaviour where people get sexual pleasure from watching insects, worms and spiders being squashed (particularly men watching women doing it). This also has macrophilic overtones. As Jeremy Biles notes in a 2004 essay on crush fetishists in Janus Head:
“Among the many obscure and bizarre sects of fetishism, few remain so perplexing or so underexamined as that of the ‘crush freaks’. At the cutting edge of the edgy world of sexual fetishistic practices, the crush freaks are notorious for their enthusiasm for witnessing the crushing death of insects and other, usually invertebrate, animals, such as arachnids, crustaceans, and worms. More specifically, crush freaks are sexually aroused by the sight of an insect exploded beneath the pressure of a human foot–usually, but not necessarily, a relatively large and beautiful female foot”
It’s also been reported that maximum sexual excitement comes the more frightened the woman, and the larger the feet doing the squashing (which again has macrophilic overtones). In her 2000 book Deviant Desires, Katharine Gates contextualizes crush fetishes as a subset of both macrophilia and macrophilic podophilia (i.e., foot fetishism). This has led to the controversial posting of many so called ‘crush videos’ online.
I haven’t come a cross a single academic paper that has been published on macrophilia although there have been some psychological speculation about the roots of macrophilia. The American St. Louis-based clinical psychologist Dr. Helen Friedman was reported as saying:
“[Macrophiles] are playing out some old, unresolved psychological issue. Maybe as a child they felt overwhelmed by a dominant mother, or a sadistic mother. Maybe they were abused. [Macrophilia] is not so much a fetish as a disassociation from reality. It’s part of an internal world. The macro’s submersion in fantasy [and] serves as a substitute for a more normalized approach to sex. Healthy sexuality is about personal intimacy. It’s about feeling good about yourself in a way that expresses caring, and feeling a connection to another person”.
However, most online accounts by macrophiles that I have read online, don’t seem to match the psychological profile put forward by Dr. Friedman. One such man interviewed by Jon Bowen for the online Salon magazine (way back in 1999) said that as a child:
“I was turned on by ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ before I knew what the birds and the bees were all about. In the book there’s a scene in the land of Brobdingnag where Gulliver gets intimate with one of the local giantesses – the enticingly named Glumdaclitch. I’ve fantasized about giantesses ever since. Like any fetish, if you don’t have it, you probably won’t get it”.
Finally, there is one article I tracked down online by Dr Samuel Ramses. He appears to talk knowledgably about macrophilia although all of his assertions are made without reference to any academic source. For instance, he says that:
“Macrophilia is a fairly widespread trait, and is found in individuals of many different ethnic and social backgrounds. No common element has yet been found that can point to an environmental cause”
He makes a number of claims that appear intuitively plausible but without any supporting evidence. He claims macrophilia begins in very early childhood and that a sexual or pseudo-sexual response to giants is exhibited before physical puberty. Macrophiles are extremely shy and isolated, and believe that few share their desires. The specific stimuli that elicit macrophilic sexual responses tend to fall into two broad categories, which are not mutually exclusive. They are summarized here as direct sexual situations and indirect sexual situations.
Direct sexual stimuli involve situations in which sexual contact occurs between people where one person is at least twice as big as the other. Typical scenarios are said to include:
- Full-body contact of the macrophile with the penis of a male giant, or full-body insertion of the macrophile into the female giant’s vagina.
- Oral contact in which the giant licks or swallows the macrophile
- Themacrophile being bathed in or being showered wih the sexual fluids of a giant
- Masturbation and frotteurism by the macrophile rubbing their body against some portion of the giant’s body
Ramses claims that in macrophilia the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality is sometimes blurred as even macrophilic heterosexuals may find themselves attracted to the images of giants or tiny persons of the same sex, and vice-versa.
Ramses also outlined the case of 30-year old white male, who since very early childhood had experienced sexual arousal (i.e., erections) whenever he watched films in which giant monsters destroyed towns and cities. The strongest sexual responses occurred when humans were being trampled to death. In adulthood, his macrophilic sexual fantasies included sadism, crush fetishes, and vorarephilia.
Dr. Ramses concluded that macrophilia is far from rare, as evidenced by the growing number of admitted macrophiles that have come forth in recent years. The number of macrophile websites certainly appears to support Ramses’ claim but – at present – there is next to nothing known empirically.
Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Biles, J. (2004). I, insect, or Bataille and the crush freaks. Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology and the Arts, 7(1), 115-131.
Bowen, J. (1999). Urge: A giant fetish. Salon, May 22. Located at: http://www.salon.com/1999/05/22/macrophilia/
Gates, K. (2000). Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex. New York: RE/Search Publications.
Love, B. (1992). Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books.
Pearson, G.A. (1991). Insect fetish objects. Cultural Entomology Digest, 4, (November).
Ramses, S. (undated). Introduction to macrophilia. Located at: http://www.pridesites.com/fetish/mac4black/intro2macro.htm
Slothrop, T. (2012). The Bible and Macrophilia: He Thong’s Goliath Art. Remnant of Giants, February 6. Located at: https://remnantofgiants.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/the-bible-and-macrophilia-he-thongs-goliath-art/
Trample leaning: A beginner’s guide to crush fetishism
Crush fetishism is a sexual fetish in which an individual derives sexual arousal from watching (or fantasizing about) someone of the opposite sex crushing items (e.g., toys, cigarettes, mobile phones, laptops), food (e.g., fruit), and (in extreme cases) small animals and insects, and/or being stepped on, sat upon, and/or crushed on by a person. The latter variant is a type of sexual masochism. There are also dedicated phone sex services that cater for crush fetishism suggesting overlaps with telephonicophilia (i.e., being sexually aroused from telephone sex talk).
Another similar fetish appears to be ‘trampling fetishism’. This comprises paraphilic fantasies and/or practices of being trampled underfoot by another person (and is found in both homosexual and heterosexual acts). As the trampling often produces pain, trampling fetishes are considered a variant of sado-masochism.
Crush fetishism has also been associated with formicophilia, a sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual arousal from insects. For instance, in the journal Cultural Entomology, G.A. Pearson (North Carolina State University, USA), described the fetishistic behaviour where people get sexual pleasure from watching insects, worms and spiders being squashed (particularly men watching women doing it). If the fantasy or behaviour involves giant people, it is often considered a variant of macrophilia (i.e., a sexual paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual arousal from a fascination with giants and/or a sexual fantasy involving giants). As Jeremy Biles notes in a 2004 essay on crush fetishists in Janus Head:
“Among the many obscure and bizarre sects of fetishism, few remain so perplexing or so underexamined as that of the ‘crush freaks’. At the cutting edge of the edgy world of sexual fetishistic practices, the crush freaks are notorious for their enthusiasm for witnessing the crushing death of insects and other, usually invertebrate, animals, such as arachnids, crustaceans, and worms. More specifically, crush freaks are sexually aroused by the sight of an insect exploded beneath the pressure of a human foot–usually, but not necessarily, a relatively large and beautiful female foot”
Crush fetishes comprise two types – hard crush and soft crush. Soft crush fetishes are apparently more common and typically refer to the crushing of invertebrates (e.g., spiders, beetles, worms, etc). Hard crush fetishes typically refer to the crushing of larger (vertebrate) animals (e.g., reptiles, birds, mammals). Some crush fetishists are very specific about how they like to see the insects and/or animals crushed (i.e., some prefer the person doing the crushing to be wearing particular types of footwear [e.g., high heels, flip-flops, etc.] or no footwear at all). Hard crush fetish videos have recently attracted worldwide media attention and have prompted criminal actions in a number of jurisdictions.
For instance, back in August 2011, police in the Philippines arrested Vicente Ridon and Dorma Ridon, a married couple that had filmed dozens of ‘crush fetish’ videos (often referred to as ‘animal snuff’ films). These films showed six female teenagers (aged between 12 and 18 years) torturing and killing animals before being posted onto online “crush fetish” websites all over the world. The case was initiated by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) who helped track the couple down over the course of a year’s detective work. Mr and Mrs Ridon were eventually charged with animal cruelty, child abuse and human trafficking.
This is by no means an isolated incident and is not the product of mentally ill people. Earlier this year in Milan (April 2012), a 40-year old mother of three children (“Anna B”) was given a $5400 fine and a four-month suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of being sexually aroused by crushing animals while wearing stockings and stiletto heels. She had posted dozens of online videos of herself crushing rabbits, mice and chicks. Following the banning of crush videos in 2010, this case was the first prosecution under the new law in Italy Paolo Iosca, the lawyer representing the Italian Anti Vivisection League said:
“This case was brought to our attention following a tip off to us and we acted immediately to bring this woman to justice. The videos she posted showed her semi-naked, wearing tights and high heels and crushing innocent animals such as rabbits, chicks and mice to death. They were particularly crude and offensive. This woman, who is a mother of three children, was clearly enjoying herself as she was slaughtering these animals and filming their agony”.
The legality of erotic crush films and the actual practice of crushing animals vary by region and country. For instance, China does not have any animal cruelty laws, and therefore no criminal acts are being violated in that jurisdiction. Here in the UK, crush videos are illegal. However, as far as I have been able to ascertain, there are currently no laws forbidding the crushing of insects in any country. In November 2010, a Chinese crush fetish video was posted online featuring a young attractive girl, sitting on the rabbit, and crushing it to death. In a journalistic investigation by China Hush, an online user with the pseudonym “Sound of Heaven” (天堂之音) said that:
“People who like Crush Fetish are not promoting and encouraging violence and murdering people, but it is an extension to [sadomasochism], a state, crushed to death by a woman, a spirit of sacrificing oneself for her”.
Other similar videos including the abusing and killing of cats and dogs have also appeared online. Although these acts of killing could be viewed as acts of zoosadism (because of the sexual element), the person doing the killing of the animals is usually paid for their “services” and does not appear to get any sexual satisfaction from the act itself. It is the person watching the ‘hard crush’ videos that typically derive the sexual pleasure from it. In this sense, the act could be described as a type of ‘zoosadism by proxy’ (at least that’s my own take on this).
Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
Further reading
Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Biles, J. (2004). I, insect, or Bataille and the crush freaks. Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology and the Arts, 7(1), 115-131.
Inquirer Global Nation (2011). Police nab Filipino ‘crush fetish’ couple. Located at: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/8219/police-nab-filipino-crush-fetish-couple
Intentious (2011). Rabbit crushing outrage – Animal snuff film offends. December 9. Located at: http://intentious.com/2011/12/09/rabbit-crushing-outrage-animal-snuff-film-offends/
Pearson, G.A. (1991). Insect fetish objects. Cultural Entomology Digest, 4, (November).
Pisa, N. (2012). Animal crushing fetish mum fined. Herald Sun, April 25. Located at: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/animal-crushing-fetish-mum-fined/story-e6frf7lf-1226337848931
drmarkgriffiths 