Cattle-star gallactica: A brief look at ‘hucow’ fetishism

According to the online Urban Dictionary, a ‘hucow’ (a portmanteau of ‘human cow’) is “a woman who chooses to be objectified for her large mammaries and ability to lactate constantly”. It also features ‘human cow’ separately and defines it as “a lactating female who allows herself to have her jugs [breasts] hooked up to a cow milking machine, usually wearing a cow mask and cow print leather chaps”. In the writing of my previous blogs on lactation fetishes and furries, I had come across ‘hucow’ fetishism but at the time there was little on which to write about. A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by Mark Hay of Vice magazine who wanted my views about the behaviour so this provided a spur for me to write this article. There is obviously nothing in the academic literature concerning the phenomenon (and to be honest, little anywhere else). A small article on the Kinkly website makes the following observations:

“A hucow is a submissive person, usually a woman, who enjoys participating in forced lactation. A hucow’s breasts are milked by a dominant partner, usually a man, as a real cow is milked by a farmer. Milking techniques can vary…A dominant partner may use a variety of techniques to milk a hucow. They may milk her by hand, by suckling her breasts with their mouth, or by using a breast pump. Some hucows and their partners stick to one preferred technique while others like to mix things up. Some people become hucows following childbirth, when they are lactating naturally. Others bring on lactation using a variety of techniques including using a breast pump, manual stimulation, suckling, and taking supplements including fenugreek powder”.

It’s hard to know where the person writing this article got their information although my own viewing of online hucow videos confirm much of what is claimed above although it’s questionable whether the women in such videos “enjoy” what they are doing because they may just be doing it for money. The article goes on to say:

“Hucows enjoy being cared for like a pet because it takes them away from their regular lives with adult responsibilities. The breast stimulation that comes with lactating is also very sensual. Men with hucows enjoy the dominance and power that comes from their role in the forced lactation. When women lactate, their breasts increase in size, which is also a real perk for many men. Some men also have breastfeeding fetishes and lactation fetishes that their hucows can satisfy. As with many alternative lifestyles, there are communities for hucows and erotic fiction and videos focused on their activities. Several erotic writers and bloggers focus their works on hucows. Their writing might include fictional accounts and scenarios or non-fiction posts about their own experiences as a hucow. Hucows are also represented on niche dating websites, including Fetlife, and social media platforms like Reddit and Tumblr”.

Again, some of this I’ve confirmed for myself as I found many examples of hucow fan fiction online as well as many porn sites catering for hucow fetishism. Another short article on the Manic Love website was written after its anonymous author was reading through the personal ads on Craig’s List and came across a personal ad that “depicted a cow milking machine on a woman and turned into someone’s personal hucow”. They wrote that:

“As you can imagine, a hucow is a woman pantomiming the experiences of a dairy cow. These particular women’s vaginas gush at the thought of having a slave collar put on their neck and having a milking machine hooked up to their nipples for hours at a time. Another facet of this fetish is the concept of breeding the hucows by the hucow milker. This is when the hucows partner (the Bull) mounts her and begins to [have sex with her]. All the while this lovely faux bovine is attached to an industrial device that is collecting her milk from the opened faucets of her [breasts]. The hucow fetish is a marvellous fusion of BDSM and lactation kinks”.

Again, how the writer knows the women involved like such activity is unknown. The author found a personal testimony from a hucow (a “baby-faced blonde with a curvy figure” called ‘Kate’) who described her hucow experiences:

“Once lactation had been induced on Katie the milking began. At first she used a simple breast pump to wring her mammary glands dry, but once Katie was used to the sensation of the pump she graduated to a milking machine that would be at home on a dairy farm. Katie related the sensation she felt while being milked…At first it was uncomfortable but the feeling grew on our dear Katie and before long she loved being a hucow. With the machine being attached to Katie’s nipples for hours she described how her nipples were becoming elongated – all the better for suckling… not only was her milking erotic but it also gave her a sensation of relief. Whenever a milking session was occurring Katie was always restrained; whether handcuffed to a rack or wearing a slave collar…Once the Bull [has sex with] Katie they begin to treat each other like true animals. They begin to rut like they belong on a farm”.

I was contacted by Mark Hay (with whom I’ve done various interviews in the past including ones on sea monster pornography, giantess pornography) who knew I’d written about lactation fetishes in my blog in the past. He asked me if I had ever come across hucow fetishes where “individuals fantasize about or play out scenes in which (usually) men treat (usually) women as livestock, forcibly milking them. Sometimes the women dress up like cows”. I told him that I had but that I’d never written about it. I told him that from a definitional perspective, ‘hucow’ fetishes were originally was the same thing as lactation fetishes. However, I told him that hucow fetishes now appeared to have expanded to include women dressing and/or acting like cows in which the milking was at the core of the fetish. I went on to say that this was not a type of furryism (where individuals dress up as animals and often have sex with other as animals) but was more akin to ‘pony play‘ because both ‘ponyplay’ and ‘hucow’ tend to have women in submissive modes and both have the animals’ most well-known type of behaviour at the heart of the fetish (i.e., milking in cows and riding/equestrianism in horses).

I was aware that there is a big niche market for this type of porn (even on mainstream porn sites like Pornhub). He was interested to hear that I thought the fetish had evolved and asked me (i) when, how, or why that might have happened, and (ii) whether I thought the fetish was especially visible, accessible, or common, and what that might say about the audience for it and the scale of its appeal. I have to admit I hadn’t many answers for these questions. I also had to clarify that I didn’t say the fetish had evolved but the definition of hucow had evolved (in my view, a subtle but important distinction). I believe the internet itself has played a major role in the dispersal of material that individuals can fetishise and hucow appears to be one of them. Most fetishes appear to have sub-divisions and at the edges they sometimes cross over into completely different fetishes. Hucow fetishism clearly has crossovers with lactation fetishism, pregnancy fetishism, infantilism/diaper fetishism (adults dressing up as a baby), transformation fetishism, and sadomasochism/BDSM, as well as having similarities with furries and ponyplay. Personally, I don’t believe it’s a common fetish because individuals have to go looking for it (as I did in researching this article).

Within five minutes of searching on the internet I located dedicated hucow porn (including material at sites including Pornhub, Heavy-R, Xvideos) as well as bespoke hucow fiction (Kobo, Literotica, and Amazon) and fantasy art (on Deviant Art). Hay’s article in Vice reported that the hucow Tumblr site has over 10,000 followers and that the hucow Reddit site has over 23,000 subscribers. Hay interviewed ‘Ed’, the person that runs the hucows.com website. According to Hay:

“[Ed] says his fans seem most excited by women being milked than anything else in his clips. Ditto Sally Anon, an amateur lactation fetish producer, who first encountered HuCow fetishists on lactophilia Reddit communities, who asked her to cross-post to their groups even though she didn’t dress up or act like a cow in the content she produced”.

In addition to interviewing me for the article. Hay also interviewed the ethicist Rebecca Kukla who has written about cultural perceptions of breastfeeding and made some interesting observations. She was quoted as saying:

“Lactation, of course, leads to increased breast size, which explains its appeal to some. Some women enjoy the breast stimulation of milking, so such fetishes are likely to be more about reciprocal pleasure than many others. Consuming breast milk plays into a common kinky urge to be infantilized. Perhaps most importantly, sexualizing something culturally asexual is an appealing form of transgression and re-appropriation. Many kinksters get erotic pleasure from playing at what they fear most, or find most violating of the proper order…[However] cows aren’t only good for milk production. They are the ultimate animals produced specifically for consumption, bred into highly artificial-looking consumer products. In HuCow, the cow-woman is simulating an object produced specifically to be consumed by her partner”.

This concurs with what I have written myself about why dominant and submissive types may enjoy hucow fetishism. As noted in my previous blogs, animal play in general often toys with transforming a complex human into a wholly service-oriented beast. Hay then goes on to say:

“As with many hard submissive fetishes, this may sound terrifying to those looking in from the outside. But even on their own fetishist-facing blogs, HuCow practitioners often acknowledge this is a well-negotiated fantasy, ideally built on mutual respect and desire in participants’ wider lives”.

Hay also quotes Sunny Megatron, an “adult sexuality educator and pleasure advocate” who asserts:

“Remember this is just fantasy role play where turning humans into fantasy cattle is fetishized. And just like any other kind of BDSM or fetish play, this is carefully negotiated by all participants and done consensually. Treating a woman – or anybody – as just a mere object is very wrong if it’s done without their consent. But if objectification is mutually desired by both partners, they’ve thoroughly and clearly talked about it ahead of time and then they play it out in a healthy fun fantasy sense, then that’s different…When BDSM scenes are negotiated they are done so according to the desires and limits of the submissive. The submissive calls the shots”.

As I know from my own empirical studies on eproctophilia (sexual arousal from flatulence) and dacryphilia (sexual arousal from crying), even within very niche fetishes, many sub-types start to develop and cross-fertilise with other more established fetishes and paraphilias, and hucow fetishism appears to be another niche sexual behaviour that (with the help of the internet) is continuing to evolve.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Good Reads (2014). Definition of a Hucow. Goodreads.com, October 3. Located at: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/7114274-definition-of-a-hucow

Greenhill, R. & Griffiths, M.D. (2015). Compassion, dominance/submission, and curled lips: A thematic analysis of dacryphilic experience. International Journal of Sexual Health, 27, 337-350.

Greenhill, R. & Griffiths, M.D. (2016). Sexual interest as performance, intellect and pathological dilemma: A critical discursive case study of dacryphilia. Psychology and Sexuality, 7, 265-278.

Griffiths, M.D. (2012). The use of online methodologies in studying paraphilias: A review. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 1, 143-150.

Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Eproctophilia in a young adult male: A case study. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 42, 1383-1386.

Hay, M. (2018). Inside HuCow, the fetish that imagines women as cows. Vice, April 24. Located at: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3599y/inside-hucow-the-fetish-that-imagines-women-as-cows

Kinkly (2018). Kinkly explains Hucow. Kinkly.com. Located at: https://www.kinkly.com/definition/15836/hucow

Manic Love (2017). Learn about hucows. October 12. Located at: https://maniclove.com/free-blog/hucows

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 range of air styles: A brief overview of inflatophilia

According to the online Opentopia encyclopedia, inflatophilia refers to a sexual fetish in which individuals derive sexual attraction to (or are sexually aroused by) inflatable objects and/or toys. Most people’s conception of an inflatophile may be rooted in fictional characters from popular culture. For instance, I remember very vividly listening to the track Be My Girl – Sally on The Police’s debut LP Outlandos D’Amour about a man who fell in love with an inflatable doll.

And then by lucky chance I saw in a special magazine

An ad that was unusual, the like I’d never seen

“Experience something different with our new imported toy

She’s loving, warm, inflatable and a guarantee of joy.”

She came all wrapped in cardboard, all pink and shrivelled down

A breath of air was all she needed to make her lose that frown

I took her to the bedroom and pumped her with some life

And later in a moment that girl became my wife

And so I sit her in the corner and sometimes stroke her hair

And when I’m feeling naughty I blow her up with air

She’s cuddly and she’s bouncy, she’s like a rubber ball

I bounce her in the kitchen and I bounce her in the hall

And now my life is different since Sally came my way

I wake up in the morning and have her on a tray

She’s everything they say she was and I wear a permanent grin

And I only have to worry in case my girl wears thin

A more literary (but ultimately similar) account was provided by Bryan Ferry when he sung on Roxy Music’s In Every Dream Home A Heartache (and featuring the seminal concluding lyric “I blew up your body/but you blew my mind!“). However, inflatophiles are not restricted to blow-up dolls but may be sexually aroused and excited by one or more inflatable objects such as beach and swimming pool inflatables (beach balls, swimming rings, air mats, lilos, etc.) and animal inflatables (e.g., blow up dolphins). The Opentopia article claims that inflatophiles are most attracted and turned on by inflatables that are animal-shaped (although there is no supporting evidence for the claim).

The fetish appears to have psychological and behavioural overlaps with balloon fetishism (that I covered in a previous blog), and like ‘looners’ (i.e., balloon fetishists), inflatophiles have been categorized into one of three sub-types. According to the Opentopia article, these three groups are based on the activity preference related to the inflatable object(s) and comprise:

• Poppers: These individuals derive sexual pleasure and arousal from ‘popping’ (i.e., puncturing) their inflatable objects and/ or trying to re-inflate the inflatable that has popped.
• Inflators: These individuals derive sexual pleasure and arousal while their inflatable objects are filled with air while sitting or lying on top of them.
• Deflators: These individuals derive their sexual pleasure and arousal from releasing the air in their inflatable objects while sitting or lying on top of them.

These groups are not mutually exclusive and inflatophiles may belong to one or more of the three sub-types. The inflating or deflating may be carried out by the inflatophiles themselves or may be done by others (e.g., their sexual partners). The Opentopia article is the only article I am aware of that tries to theorize about the origins of inflatophilia. Personally, I feel that the behaviour is best explained through various behavioural conditioning processes that occur in childhood and/or adolescence (most notably, classical conditioning), but the Opentopia article claims:

“Likings for inflatable objects are generally both Freudian and Proustian and arise from an early age linked to associations with innocent happy experiences. These can extend as far as the first experiences of babyhood and childhood, associated with senses of texture and smell. The associated senses include the feel of mother’s skin, feel and smell of materials in early childhood (of blankets, sheets, satin, vinyl linings of perambulators), birthday parties with balloons, happy holidays at the beach, distinctive smells of inflatable toys merged with smells of brands of skin care worn by the mother. These take on a new meaning during puberty when other outlets for sexual needs are unavailable and preferences of interaction with inflatable objects develop”.

To me, the associations listed in the above quote could still form the basis of classically conditioned responses rather than some psychoanalytic explanation (in fact, I’m still not sure where the Freudian or Proustian perspective is in the quote as to me, it reads like classic associative learning). The Opentopia article also speculates on the differences between the sub-types of inflatophile. The article claims that”

“[The] division between ‘poppers’ and ‘non-poppers’ probably derives from associations of the event at which balloons were enjoyed or not enjoyed, or whether they were burst and caused excitement or whether they survived the party and were enjoyed for their ‘skin feel’ at a later time afterwards. The associations with memories of former happy experiences coupled with the intense pleasure of first sexual experience is a potent recipe for a lasting impression which will be carried forward into activity throughout adulthood. Many comment that the bouncing or changing shape of a balloon when squeezed, or other types of inflatable, gives the illusion of the object being ‘alive’ in some way, so the object is not merely inanimate. A predisposition to the fetish is enhanced by the packaging of lilos or beach airmats with photographs of attractive semi-naked bikini clad women displaying the object. This reinforces the concept of femininity with the object and allows a fantasy of substitution in the fetishist’s psyche in the absence of a real female”.

Again, the theoretical underpinning for the sub-types of inflatophile appears (from the above description at least) to be rooted in classical conditioning (i.e., associative pairing). Finally, the article also claims that inflatophiles are “usually open to non-fetish sexual activity, so their fetish does not generally get in the way of their involved relationships”. It also claims (without any supporting evidence) that:

“Partners of inflatable fetishists are more secure in the knowledge that their partner has a satisfying outlet for excess sexual needs during times of sexual unavailability of the partner rather than seeking additional or other partners. For this reason they usually make reliable and well-balanced life partners”.

After reading about inflatophiles, I went in search of inflatophiles online and came across numerous self-confessions to engaging in the fetish. Here are a few typical examples that seem to confirm some of the claims made in the Opentopia article:

• Extract 1: “Anyone else have a Inflatables fetish? [Such as] riding or having sex with inflatable things like vinyl pool toy animals, blow-up dolls, kids’ swim floaties, etc. I am one of these fetishists, how many of us are there?”
• Extract 2: “I have been humping beach balls since I was a kid I have humped the head rest of inflatable rafts also. If we went swimming at someone’s house and they had a beach ball I would always sneak off with it, hump it and never got caught though the possibility of getting caught was part of the thrill. I also have an exercise ball that I have humped. Next is a blow up doll. I just have a fetish for inflatables”.
• Extract 3: “So all of you men help me out here, my husband has this fetish and I’ve done my very best to go along and have fun with it to excite him the best I can…but I know that he had dolls in the past and wants one but has made me feel like he enjoys the feel of a doll or inflatable more than me??? He’s actually very shy about it, I even asked for suggestions. Is there a way I could make myself feel like the doll does??”
• Extract 4: “I’m a teenage guy and inflatable stuff feels like heaven to me! Anything soft and shiny, pool toys mostly. Beach balls, air Mats, inner tubes, when my body comes in contact with it I get all aroused and hard and can really get freaky with them. I also like inflating and deflating them…I know weird”

Another article that explored inflatable fetishism was a journalistic account by Daniel Rolnik in the Los Angeles based After Dark magazine. Rolnik wrote that:

“My discovery of this strange sub-cult [of inflatable fetishism] began when I innocently favorited a photo of an inflatable horse toy on a popular art website. I simply thought it looked hilarious and judging by the user’s other pics, it didn’t seem like anything “alt” was going on. But that all changed when I got a message from the photographer featuring a link to the blog Hollow Paws, which had a discrete sentence in the upper right hand corner that made it all clear: A website for furries who love inflatable critters…I asked the blogger what people exactly did with the inflatables featured in [the featured articles]…Moments later I received an answer: ‘…Sometimes they hump them’. Horrified, yet intrigued, I began to uncover a secret world of anonymous patrons who do everything from wear full motocross gear and aggressively hump vinyl Shamu pool rafts until they explode, to fabricators who design prosthetic vaginas for plastic dolphins”.

Rolnik also observed that inflatophiles can be differentiated into sub-types (‘poppers’ and ‘non-poppers’) but claimed the two types “detest” each other based on the very specific online forums devoted to various inflatable fetishes (such as the Blow To Pop website). Rolnik also interviewed psychiatrist Dr. Soroya Bacchus about the psychology of inflatophilia, and Dr. Bacchus was quoted as saying:

“When I heard about this fetish, they didn’t seem too different from the people who have intercourse with blow-up dolls. They both suffer from a sexual function disorder that is categorized in the realm of paraphilia — meaning a love of some object, whether it’s an inanimate one or a non-consenting partner. The basic component is arousal, so sometimes there might be actual ejaculation on the toys, but oftentimes in cases of paraphilia it happens afterwards during masturbation. These kinds of disorders tend to feed on themselves”.

Dr. Bacchus appears to castigate all inflatophiles as suffering from sexual function disorder. However, my anecdotal reading suggests that most inflatophiles use inflatables as an adjunct to their ‘normal’ sex life rather than as a replacement. If this is the case, I personally don’t see the person as suffering from a sexual function disorder. As with many idiosyncratic fetishes, there has been no empirical or clinical research on inflatophilia, so nothing is known about how prevalent the behaviour is. The existence of more than a sprinkling of dedicated online forums and websites certainly suggest there is a small and committed inflatophile community. It would appear that the fetish is relatively benign and of little problem to its participants, which probably explains why there has been little interest from psychologists and clinicians.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Abel, G.G., Coffey, L. & Osborn, C.A. (2008). Sexual arousal patterns: normal and deviant. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 31, 643-655.

Brundage, S. (2002). Fetish Confessions: Telling loved ones about your fetish is as easy as solving fractured quadratic equations. The Wave Magazine, July 31. Located at: http://web.archive.org/web/20071110095616/http://thewavemagazine.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=22026

Gates, K. (2000). Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex. New York: RE/Search Publications.

Malfouka (undated). So hot and ready to pop: The world of looners. Maximum Awesome. Located at: http://www.maximumawesome.com/pervfriday/looners.htm

Rolnik, D. (2012). Exploring the looner fetish – People who f*ck inflatable pool toys. After Dark LA, July 17. Located at: http://blogs.laweekly.com/afterdark/2012/07/people_actually_hump_inflatabl_1.php

McIntyre, K.E. (2011).  Looners: Inside the world of balloon fetishism. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley, 27 April. Located at: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/40c3h6kk

Opentopia (2013). What is inflatable fetishism? Located at: http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Inflatable_fetishism

Wikipedia (2012). Balloon fetish. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_fetish

Womb raiders: A brief look at ‘unbirthing’

In a previous blog on vorarephilia and ‘vore’ (individuals who are sexually aroused by the thought of being eaten, eating another person, or observing this process for sexual gratification; sometimes referred to phagophilia), I noted that one of the sub-categories of this sexually paraphilic behaviour was ‘vaginal vore’ in which an individual is sexually aroused by the thought of being consumed by the vagina and taken into the womb. This is commonly referred to as  ‘unbirthing’ or a ‘reverse birth’ if the participants are human. Among the Furry Fandom who dress up and fantasize about being animals, the process is known as being ‘re-whelped’). A short article on unbirthing at the Oh Internet website claims that “unbirthing fetishes are most commonly found in the furry community” (although there is no evidence to support the claim).

The simplest definition of unbirthing is that it is a sexual paraphilia that involves being ‘swallowed’ alive by female genitalia. As with most forms of vorarephilia, the paraphilia is fantasy-based as it is not humanly possible to be unborn. Most unbirthing websites feature masses of fan art and fan fiction (such as the Mindless Consumption website). However, there are also some very specialist types of unbirthing website such as the Pony Inside Story website that (predictably) only features unbirthing pony stories and art. According to the Wikifur article on unbirthing:

“A less-common but still significant minority also practice UB-Vore, wherein the female unbirther’s body ultimately consumes the unbirthed. Another variant on this is males absorbing others (generally other males) as a form of male pregnancy. This is known as cock vore and often involves hypertrophilia and/or macrophilia”.

[Macrophilia – which I covered in a previous blog – refers to individuals that are sexually aroused by giants. Hypertrophilia describes individuals – usually macrophiles – who are sexually and/or emotionally attracted to ‘hyper-endowed’ characters. Hypertrophic individuals typically feature over-exaggerated (and impractically large) sexual and erogenous characteristics]. The article on unbirthing in the online Encyclopedia Dramatica says that US grunge group Nirvana may have unwittingly started the fetish in their 1993 hit single Heart-Shaped Box from their final studio LP In Utero when they sang “Broken hymen of ‘Your Highness’/I’m left black/Throw down your umbilical noose/ So I can climb right back”. However, I know of no academic research on unbirthing although there are a number of online articles that examine the phenomena and its underlying motivation and meaning. For instance, the Wikifur article makes a number of interesting observations:

“For many, unbirthing is attractive in its symbolic meaning. The opportunity to trust someone quite literally with one’s entire life, to be nurtured and protected, is what attracts the unbirthed. On the other side, the unbirther can demonstrate her care for another in a deep, trusting way, and enjoy something living inside her, a sensation often attractive in and of itself”.

For others, unbirthing has dominant, controlling and almost sadistic elements where the person being unbirthed becomes dependent upon the vaginal enveloper for oxygen and sustenance. Those undergoing unbirthing become restricted in what they can do as movement is almost totally inhibited and the senses are all but redundant having been enveloped and swallowed. For some, the age regression aspect and returning to the womb is said to be sexually arousing. As the Wikifur article notes:

“Returned to the womb, an unbirthed creature grows younger; the unbirther may choose to rebirth their guest at any point or simply regress the unbirthed past the point of conception, effectively erasing their existence. There are many variations on this theme, some overlapping with the oviposition [paraphilia]. [For others there an] overlap between fans of unbirth and those of vore lies in the endosomatophilia paraphilia, or attraction to fantasies involving complete encapsulation of a living thing within the body of another living thing. A second overlap between the two lies in absorbing or digesting an unbirthed creature: a form of genital vore”.

According to the online Nation Master encyclopedia, the term endosomatophilia (and sometimes shortened to ‘endosoma’) was coined in 2004 (although it doesn’t say by who and in what context), and is a sexual attraction to “fantasies involving complete encapsulation of a living thing within the body of another living thing” and is therefore a critical part of unbirthing and other similarly related behaviours such as vorarephilia and ‘insertion fantasies’. [According to a Wikipedia entry, ‘insertion fantasies’ refer to “the sexual desire or fantasy of having something inserted into a person in the pelvic region; usually referring to something out of the ordinary like specifically shaped foods, abnormal objects, or even people”]. The Nation Master entry also claims that:

“Due to its relative youth as a fetish term, there are currently no known websites or references with focus on endosoma. Because of this, many vore sites host endosoma material unrelated to vorarephilia itself. Because vore fantasies often involve violence and/or snuff, endosomaphiles are often daunted by the overwhelming presence of vore, as opposed to other forms of endosoma. The term was created in the hopes of forming more endosoma-oriented web content, communities, and chat rooms. Endosoma is often associated with macrophilia and microphila [which I also covered in a previous blog] as a large size difference can facilitate bodily containment. Currently, endosomatophilia is most well known among furries…Endosomatophilia is sometimes misdefined as soft vore in which the prey is not digested. Also, it was originally coined as endosomaphilia, which was later found to be incorrect”.

Compared to other sexual paraphilias that have not been researched empirically, the number of online forums that cater for vorarephilia in all its sub-varieties (including unbirthing) appears relatively large with relatively large numbers of members. It is certainly an area that I would personally like to carry out some research.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Encyclopedia Dramatica (2011). Unbirthing. August 14. Located at: https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Unbirthing

Oh Internet (2012). Unbirthing. Located at: http://ohinternet.com/Unbirthing

Nation Master (2012). Endosomatophilia. Located at: http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Endosomatophilia

Nation Master (2012). Unbirthing. Located at: http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Unbirthing

Wikifur (2010). Hypertrophilia. November 11. Located at: http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Hypertrophilia

Wikifur (2009). Unbirth. March 19. Located at: http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Unbirth

Wikipedia (2011). Insertion fantasies. September 4. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Xomic/Insertion_fantasy

Strangers on the score: A brief overview of xenophilia

Over the last year, I have examined many different forms of sexual paraphilia in my blog. One of the least researched of these paraphilias is xenophilia. One of the real problems from an academic perspective is that there doesn’t appear to be common agreement on what xenophilia actually is. A number of reputable sources – including Frances Twinn’s 2007 book, Miscellany of Sex, and the Right Diagnosis website – define xenophilia as a sexual attraction to strangers. The Psychologist Anywhere Anytime paraphilia website page defines xenophilia as “sexual attraction to foreigners” but also adds that “in science fiction, [xenophilia] can also mean sexual attraction to aliens”. (I actually examined sexually paraphilic attraction to aliens in a previous blog on exophilia – a sexual paraphilia that relates only to alien sex).

Dr. Karen Franklin (in a 2010 paper in the journal Behavioral Sciences and the Law) also defines xenophilia as “erotic attraction to…foreigners or extraterrestrials”. According to Dr. Anil Aggrawal (arguably the most knowledgeable source of information concerning sexually paraphilic behaviour),  xenophilia is defined as individuals who gain sexual pleasure and arousal “from strangers…foreign customs, traditions, and foreigners” (as defined in his 2009 book Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices).

One of the reasons that there are so many different definitions is that xenophilia was probably first termed as the opposite of xenophobia, and the literal translation of xenophilia is the love of anything foreign. From this perspective, “foreign” can mean different things to different people, which is why all of the definitions of xenophilia are slightly different. The Wikipedia entry on xenophilia has (arguably) the widest definition of xenophilia as  “it generally refers to a social or sexual attraction to cultures, lands, or beings which are different from one’s native experience”. Given this wide definition, Wikifur (the online encyclopedia for those in the Furry Fandom) claims that human sexual attraction towards furry characters is a form of xenophilia (although I doubt if members of the Furry Fandom would agree).

To date, academic and clinical work into xenophilia has been extremely limited. In a previous blog on sexual fetishism, I wrote about a study led by Dr G. Scorolli (University of Bologna, Italy) on the relative prevalence of different fetishes using online fetish forum data. It was estimated (very conservatively in the authors’ opinion), that their sample size comprised at least 5000 fetishists (but was likely to be a lot more). Their results showed that there were 2681 fetishists (3% of all fetishists that they encountered) with a fetishistic and/or paraphilic sexual interest in ethnicity (including – but not exclusively – those with xenophilic sexual interests).

In an online essay about xenophilia, Lori Smith described xenophilia as “an affection for unknown objects or people…[and] could be used to describe those who enjoy swinging or cruising”. Personally, I think this stretches the definition of xenophilia beyond what is was originally envisaged as, but both swinging and cruising can include having sex with complete strangers (especially cruising). As the Wikipedia entry on ‘cruising for sex’ notes:

“Cruising for sex, or cruising is the act of walking or driving about a locality in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one-time variety The term is also used when technology is used to find casual sex, such as using an Internet site or a telephone service”.

Smith also makes reference to xenophilia being associated with people who are sexually attracted to foreigners (and cites the same fictional example included in most online references to xenophilia – Wanda Gershwitz’s [played by Jamie Lee-Curtis] immediate sexual arousal whenever her boyfriend Otto [played by Kevin Kline] spoke in a foreign language (in the film A Fish Called Wanda). I have no idea how prevalent this type of sexual attraction is although I can think of two of my own past girlfriends who found the French language very erotic. (However, being sexually attracted to someone speaking with a foreign accent can hardly be classed as sexually paraphilic and/or fetishistic behaviour). Smith also makes reference to xenophilia involving alien sex (although her main examples are fictional and involve humanoid aliens such as Dr. Who). Other fictional characters are non-subtle including Phil Foglio’s ‘adult’ comic book XXXenophile, and the Harry Potter character Xenophilius Lovegood (in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) who Wikipedia describes as “characterized by his interest in unusual or unknown objects, animals, and concepts”.

Smith’s article is similar to an article on xenophilia at the Sex Obsessed website although steers clear of alien sex and restricts all observations to sex with strangers. There are a number of totally unsubstantiated claims made including the assertion that some heterosexual men who use travelling opportunities within their job “to experiment with men and children”. Although homosexuality and paedophilia may be xenophilic, there is no empirical literature to support the claims made in the article. It is also alleged that sexual role play (including dressing up and wearing wigs) satisfies xenophilic needs. The same article also claims (again without citing its sources) that:

“There were reports of English sailors who used to visit the West Indies and it was observed how much they enjoyed black boys on their annual visits. So much in fact that pharmacists had to keep a large supply of lubricant for them (the obvious racist ideologies and pedophile behaviors that were evident in this practice were clearly overlooked for the greater good”.

The Sex Obsessed article is one of the few I have read that speculates about the motivations of xenophiles. It says that xenophiles might be a “group of people who are allergic to commitment”. I very much doubt such motives would be universal to xenophiles, and such a speculation would only apply to a very loose definition of what xenophilia means in sexually paraphilic terms. Obviously this is an area that would benefit from some academic research but any researchers with a desire to examine the area would have to be very clear about the operational definition of xenophilia they used to examine such people.

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.

Franklin, K. (2010). Hebephilia: Quintessence of diagnostic pretextuality, Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 28, 751–768.

Right Diagnosis (2012). Xenophilia, February 1. Located at: http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/x/xenophilia/intro.htm

Sex Obsessed (2009). Xenophilia. December 23. Located at: http://sexobsessed.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/xenophilia/

Smith, L. (2012). The alternative A-Z of sex: Xenophilia. Rarely Wears Lipstick, January 11. Located at: http://www.lori-smith.co.uk/2012/01/alternative-to-z-of-sex-xenophilia.html

Twinn, F. (2007). The Miscellany of Sex: Tantalizing Travels Through Love, Lust and Libido. London: Arcturus.

Wikipedia (2012). Cruising for sex. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruising_for_sex

Wikipedia (2012). Xenophily. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophily

S’tuff love: A beginner’s guide to plushophilia

I’ve only come across one academic reference to plushophilia and that was in a comprehensive list of paraphilias in the 2009 book Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices by Dr.Anil Aggrawal (Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India). I also checked out Dr. Brenda Love’s (normally very reliable and all encompassing) Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices but there was nothing on plushophilia at all. Dr. Aggrawal defines plushophilia as a “sexual attraction to stuffed toys or people in animal costume, such as theme park characters”. However, other online sources simply define plushophilia as a sexual paraphilia involving stuffed animals. Sexual and pornographic activities involving animal anthropomorphism (including plushophilia), is known among the plushophile community as ‘yiffing’.

Plushophiles are often referred to as plushies, although as I noted in a previous blog on the Furry Fandom, the term can also refer to stuffed animal enthusiasts who have no sexual interest at all (i.e., people who just love cuddly toys). Because of an infamous 2001 article by George Gurley in the magazine Vanity Fair, plushophilia is often assumed to be a common practice among members of the Furry Fandom. However, survey research has shown this not to be the case. For instance, an old and unpublished survey from data collected in the late 1990s by David J. Rust of 360 members of the furry community (325 respondents from furry conventions and 25 respondents online) suggested less than 1% of them were plushophiles (0.3%).

In a more recent attempt to replicate Rust’s study, Kyle Evans carried out a survey in 2008 on 276 people who self-identified themselves as being furries and who were recruited from furry or furry-related online message boards and forums. Evans reported a much higher prevalence rate of plushophilia (7%) than the study by Rust (although this was still a low prevalence rate suggesting that the overlap between plushophilia and the Furry Fandom is minimal). Evans claimed that because the majority of Rust’s survey was conducted in person at conventions, participants were susceptible to the social desirability bias when it came to plushophilia. Many plushies do not want any association with furries whatsoever.

Many plushophiles are avid collectors of cuddly toys and many began accumulating their collections in childhood (although some have already reached adulthood before their interest in stuffed toys begins). Some plushies are said to be totally obsessed with their hobby and may share behavioural similarities with pathological hoarders. Among a small minority of plushies, the collecting may border on being an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Like many collectors, plushies may focus their collecting behaviour on very specific types of cuddly toy such as teddy bears. For some plushies, their passion for collecting may lead them to careers that involve making and/or trading plush toy animals. The online Wiki Fur website claims that:

“A common practice among plushophiles who are serious collectors is to purchase two of each plushie; one for display and use, and another for safe keeping and preservation. Many plushophiles consider their toys very dear and rarely trade or sell them, even when there are concerns such as limited space and storage”.

As mentioned earlier, a small number of furries consider themselves plushophiles. Some furries and/or plushies have specific animistic beliefs (i.e., a set of beliefs concerning the existence of non-human “spiritual beings”) that cross over into their love of toy animals. Furthermore, for some furries, toy animals are said to serve as representations of totem animals. The Wiki Fur website defines an animal totem as:

“An important symbolic object in furry spirituality used by a person to get in touch with specific qualities found within an animal which the person needs, connects with, or feels a deep affinity toward. Some Furry lifestylers find they draw spiritual energy from a totem animal which guides their lives and causes them to imitate behaviors of that animal”.

Role players among Furry Fandom members may also create characters based on the idea of living toys and stuffed animal characters. Plushies frequently enjoy interacting with furries whose primary avatar is a toy character. However, as the Wiki Fur website asserts “not everyone who enjoys playing as or with such an avatar is necessarily a plushophile or collector of stuffed animals in real life”.

The sexual element of plushophilia has been overplayed and sensationalized by both the print and broadcast media. However, there are plushie sex and dating sites (such as Plushie Love and Plush Yiff), and for those plushies where sex is an important part of their activity, their behaviour has been argued by the Wiki Fur website to be a genuine sexual paraphilia.

“Depending on the individual, sexual stimulation and plush toys may arise from purely sensual enjoyment, may act as an aid for fantasy gratification and physical or mental stimulation alone or with another person, or may have an animistic and spiritual component. For example, some plushophiles who make use of their toys in intimate ways do so with a partner, while others only experience such feelings toward a plush animal that they view as more than an inanimate object. A common practice among sexual plushophiles is to modify a plush toy in order to make it sexually accessible or to minimize damage to it from such use”.

However, Wiki Fur is quick to point out that not all plushies who relate to their toys sexually modify them, and not plushies actually make direct contact with their stuffed toys for intimate stimulation. One infamous plushophile is FoxWolfie Galen who has his own website was interviewed for Salon magazine. He was first asked how he had sex with a stuffed animal:

“Well, none of [my toy animals] have an SPA [strategically placed appendage]. It’s been thought of a couple of times, but part of the difficulty would be constructing one and not having it fall off the plushie. That’s a problem people have dwelled on for a long time. It’s usually just cuddling and rubbing with me. There’s usually no need for the penetration. Most of [my toy animals] don’t have an SPH [strategically placed hole], but some do. It’s not a requirement for me – if’s there I’ll use it, and if not, I’m just as happy without it. It all depends on what you allow happen to them. Some people wear condoms for complete protection”.

Galen has more than a 1000 stuffed animals and he was asked how he chooses his “sexual partners”. He said:

“It’s basically the same as with people,” Galen says in explaining how he chooses his lucky winners. Some you’re attracted to sexually and some you’re not. I’m not interested in just human-human [sex]; it’s gotta be human-plushie-human. The person would have to be interested in plush”.

Academic research is beginning to be carried out on plushophilia (but only in relation to Furry Fandom and/or zoophilia). There are some aspects of plushophilia that might have psychological resonance with pathological collecting and hoarding, but most research is likely to examine the more sexual elements of plushophiles’ lifestyle.

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.

Evans, K. (2008). The furry sociological survey. Located at: http://www.furrysociology.net/report.htm

FoxWolfie Galen’s Plushie Page (2012). Definitions. Located at: http://www.velocity.net/~galen/furrydef.html

Gerbasi, K. C., Paolone, N., Higner, J., Scaletta, L. L., Bernstein, P. L., Conway, S., & Privitera, A. (2008). Furries from A to Z (anthropomorphism to zoomorphism). Society & Animals, 16(3), 197-222.

Hill, D. (2000). Cuddle time: In the world of plushophiles, not all stuffed animals are created equal. Salon, June 19. Located at: http://www.salon.com/2000/06/19/plushies/

Rust, D.J. (2001). The sociology of furry fandom. Located at: http://www.visi.com/~phantos/furrysoc.html

Wiki Fur (2012). Animal totem. Located at: http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Animal_totem

Wiki Fur (2012). Plushophilia. Located at: http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Plushophilia

Horsing around: A beginner’s guide to pony-play

In a previous blog I examined the Furry Fandom (FF) and the people who like to dress up as animals and have sex dressed as animals. One particular subset of the FF is a group of people who engage in ‘pony-play’ (PP). PP is overtly more sexualized than FF and is a form of bondage that involves a person dressed as a ‘pony’ and a ‘rider’. The human pony (the submissive partner) can comprise ‘ponyboys’ or ‘ponygirls’ typically wears stylized horse adornments including riding straps, a leather saddle, reins, and a bit in the mouth. The human rider (the dominant) also wears stylized riding accessories such as a riding crop or a horse-whip. The riders may sit on the human pony and/or get the pony to cart them around. In his 2010 book, Pony training: Five case studies on pony play, ownership and kinky submission, Dr. Garth Mundinger-Klow notes that “Ponygirl, Ponyboy” was:

“A classic [sadomasochistic] fantasy immortalized in the drawings of of John Willie and used in the Sleeping Beauty Triology by Anne Rice. Typical pony garb includes a horsehair tail attached to a butt plug, a bit gag and/or bridle head harness, and reins. Often very high heels, a corset, and feather plumes in the hair are added. The arms are typically bound behind the back”.

However, many people’s views of PP (if they even have them) may have come from the documentary film Born In A Barn. This film was:

“An intimate and occasionally humorous look into the extraordinary erotic lives of four seemingly ordinary people. Born In A Barn takes us deep into the world of pony play, a fetish in which enthusiasts role-play as human ponies and handlers. Revealing the complex motives that drive each character to pursue this unusual passion and following them as they each confront the questions that being an erotic equine present, Born In A Barn is a film about finding an identity in the pursuit of an unconventional desire”.

Role-play is nothing new and the Greek philosopher and polymath Aristotle is alleged to have loved being ridden like a horse. In fact, PP is (in some circles) referred to as ‘The Aristotelian Perversion’. In her 2000 book Deviant Desires, Katharine Gates makes reference to the fact that ponyplay was depicted in Assyrian art dating back to 2000 B.C. More recently Gates notes that in the 19th century human ponyplay existed as an erotic amusement for the upper classes in British colonies.

As mentioned in my previous blog on the FF, the primary theme of such animal role-play is often the voluntary (and sometimes) involuntary reduction (or transformation) of human beings to animals, and a subsequent focus on the altered mind-space created by the transformation. The ponies in PP comprise three different groups although the activities are not mutually exclusive for the participants.

• Cart ponies: These are human ponies that pull a sulky with their rider (A sulky is a lightweight two-wheeled cart with a seat for the rider). These ponies wear bit-bridles and harnesses, blinkers, walk standing up, and have their hands secured behind their backs.
• Riding ponies: These are human ponies that are ridden on while they are on all fours or partly standing up on two legs by their rider (custom made saddle or bareback). Some (usually male) ponies prefer their riders to be on their shoulders. Riding ponies are harnessed, bridled and may wear blinkers.
•  Show ponies: These are human ponies that show off their skills in dressage (e.g., choreographed pony-dance, cantering, etc.), can walk standing up or on their hands and knees, and typically wearing ornate and elaborate harnesses, plumes, etc.).

For the human pony, the sexual thrill rarely involves normal sexual contact. The sexual thrill is the fantasy of actually being a horse under the control of their dominant rider. The only time that actual sex takes place in PP is when the human ponies are engaged in a ‘stud service’ and one pony is bred to another. This requires explicit permission from the human pony’s “owner”. The practice of stud farming may also be role-played and fantasy-based (i.e., no real sexual intercourse taking place). It is believed that many submissive human ponies and their dominant riders are in a romantic, emotional and/or sexual relationship outside of PP although some only know each other in the context of PP.

In an online essay on PP, Malfouka makes the point that this particular fetish is “not for the lazy” as the preparation involved for all PP participants (i.e., trainers, owners, groomers and riders) is time intensive. Malfouka gives a detailed description of the main PP protagonists.

• Trainers: These are the people who actually train the human pony (and may train many such people). The trainer is responsible for turning those who wish to be pony into an actual pony. Malfouka says “this distinction is important in that in the world of ponyplay, there is protocol to follow”. The most important thing to take on board is that no-one is a pony simply because they pretend to be one. It takes a long time of training for the human pony be taught the appropriate stance, demeanour, behaviour, showmanship and submission. Trainers can also be owners, riders, and/or groomers.
• Owners: These are the people who “own” the human pony and are typically the riders too (i.e., the masters or mistresses). Owners plan the pony’s schedule, dress, and all associated activities (including which other riders can access the pony). Owners can also be trainers, riders, and/or groomers.
• Groomers: These are the people (often trainers and/or owners) who take charge of pony care (washing, bathing, petting, massaging, brushing hair), bathing.
• Riders: These are the people who ride the pony. Riders can comprise anyone that the owner and/or trainer have given permission to ride.

To date, there has been little empirical research on the topic of pony-play. An anthropological paper by Margot Weiss (Wesleyan University, US) in a 2006 issue of Anthropologica, examined the BDSM community in the San Francisco Bay Area (US). Her interviewees included people who identified themselves primarily as a pony (within a BDSM context). She argued that BDSM sexuality (including those who self-identified as a pony) should be conceptualized as a form of ‘working at play’ (WAP). WAP recognizes the ways that BDSM practitioners move between registers of work (productive labour) and play (creative recombination). Weiss’ analysis situates BDSM (and other sexualities) within “the shifting cultural geography of U.S. late-modernity, drawing attention to the ways sexuality blurs boundaries between individual-social, real-pretend and leisure-labour)”.

At the end of 2011, Dr Anil Aggrawal (Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India) published an interesting paper on zoophilia in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine (which I examined in a previous blog) and categorized those into pony-play as Class I zoosexuals (i.e., human–animal role-players). According to Aggrawal, Class 1 zoosexuals never have sex with actual animals but become sexually aroused through wanting to have sex with humans who pretend to be animals and who engage in pseudo-zoophilic acts (e.g., pet play, pony play, ponyism or pup-play). Personally, I don’t class this as a type of zoophilia at all but I can see Aggrawal’s logic in including the Furry Fandom and PP communities.

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.

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.

Malfouka (undated). My Little Pony: The Aristotelian Perversion. Maximum Awesome. Located at: http://www.maximumawesome.com/pervfriday/ponypeople.htm

Mundinger-Klow, G. (2010). Pony training: Five case studies on pony play, ownership and kinky submission. Olympia Press.

Weiss, M.D. (2006). Working at Play: BDSM Sexuality in the San Francisco Bay Area. Anthropologica, 48, 229-245.

Ch-ch-changes: The weird world of transformation fetishes

While researching some other articles on my blog – most notably those on the furries (sexual pleasure from dressing up as an animal and having sex with others dressed up as an animal), technofetishism (sexual pleasure and arousal arising from humanoid or non-humanoid robots), macrophilia (i.e., sexual arousal from a fascination with giants and/or a sexual fantasy involving giants), and agalmatophilia (sexual arousal from an attraction to statues, dolls, mannequins and/or other similar body shaped objects) – I constantly came across various references to ‘transformation fetish’ (TF). Basically, a transformation fetish is a form of sexual fetishism in which an individual derives sexual arousal from descriptions about (and depictions of) transformations (usually of people being transformed into other beings or objects).

The internet has a very active TF community, although some “TF fans” (as they seem to like being called) have no sexual interest as such but take an active interest in ‘transformation art’ and ‘transformation fiction’. After looking at the posts on such sites, there doesn’t seem to be any distinction between fetish and non-fetish fiction but some members of the online TF community are far more sexually orientated in their postings. For instance, one website I checked out was set up to house fetish inspired work comprising “stories, drawings, renderings, and photo-manipulations depicting many transformation fetishes. These fetishes include, but are not limited to: Transformation into toys, latex/rubber, spandex, balloon, zentai, clowns, toons, mannequins, robots, and statues”.

In his 2009 book Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices, Dr Anil Aggrawal (Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India) notes that TF can include:

“Examples are animal transformation, fantasies, and doll fetish. The former include fantasies in which human beings change to animals, or behave as animals (e.g., lycanthropy, vampires). Animal transformation fantasies are popular among those who participate in pony play. Doll fetish is a transformation fetish of being transformed into a doll or transforming someone else into a doll. It is often played out as role-play between two or more people. One partner – often the female – is dressed to look like a Barbie doll in shape with bold hair, enhanced breasts small waist, high heels, and a very revealing outfit made from rubber, latex or spandex”.

The posts I have read on various TF websites indicate that the transformations typically involve a human (that can be either gender, but seem to more often involve females) being transformed into some other form. For instance, check out the stories at the Experience Project  or the Fetish Transformation website.

I was interested in how the transformation takes place and there appears to be a lot of thought into how it happens. This might involve having fantasy sex in ritualistic ways with specific people, and/or certain creatures (in fact it is common for TF fans to report transforming into the creature they have had sex with). Other non-sexual ways that people can transform include magic spells, curses, viruses, and strange chemicals. In fact, one TF site provided an innovative list of how the transformation can manifest itself. This included:

• TFs caused by entering a cursed location
• TFs by injection
• TFs by bite or attack
• TFs from touch (whenever someone is touched by something the person start to turn into them – known as the “TF virus”)
• Inanimate TFs (e.g., transformations into statues)
• Second Skin TFs (e.g., where a person picks up a semi-sentient blob that soon covers their body, changing them into something else)
• Costume TFs (where the person gets trapped in a suit that soon begins to tighten and become their new body)
• Body alteration TFs (such as only growing fur, having only a face change)

I also read that the transformations are typically non-consensual, with “the transformer often becoming confused, scared, or angry as the changes take place, although some transformations are gladly accepted and even chosen by their victims”.

The most common form of TF appears to be transformation from humans into animals (but I’m only basing that on the number of websites that seem to cater for animal TF compared to other types of TF). As I mentioned in my previous blog on the furry fandom, the most common transformations are from humans to mammals (e.g., dogs, horses, cattle), and less common to other types of animal (e.g., birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles). The primary focus of role-play is often the “voluntary or involuntary reduction” (i.e., transformation) of humans to the status of an animal, and “focus on the altered mind-space created”. For instance, I came across this interesting quote from a TF fan:

“I don’t identify at all with the ‘furry’ thing. I mean, no offense to those of you that do. I think the main difference with my animal-TF interests is that I don’t really identify with any particular animal or animals. For me, it’s merely a curiosity about [a particular] form would physically feel like. And in some cases, there’s even a slight element of humiliation at no longer being ‘entirely human’ which is the only element of the TF that has a possibly erotic element. I’ll say ‘transformation fetish’ but in actuality, transformation alone is mostly just a fascination for me that’s non-sexual in nature. It’s when some element of control (whether being controlled, or just fighting against the changes to one’s body or impulses) and/or some slight humiliation that it becomes erotic. In fact, I’ve noticed one common theme in all the transformation scenes in various shows or movies that have caught my attention growing up. It’s that the scene typically focuses on the character’s reaction which is often a sense of ‘my own body is betraying me!’”

TF websites contain many examples of “conversion” across both animal type and developmental stages. Common conversions include felines (kittens, cats, lions, tigers), canines (puppies, dogs, foxes, wolves), and equines (foals, ponies, horses). However, many are depicted as half-human, half-animal hybrids, with the appealing characteristics of both highlighted. As one TF fansite asserted:

“Furries are usually bipedal and have the ability to speak, walk, talk, and think like a normal human. Many in the TF community, even those with an interest in TFs other than animal, adopt a made-up identity as a furry, known as a fursona. It should be noted that like the TF community not all Furries are involved with the fetish aspects of anthropomorphic media. There are some large differences between the communities”.

Another type of TF is common among ‘technosexuals’ (i.e., robot fetishists). A common fantasy among such people involves transformation into a robot. Some have argued this is most similar to agalmatophilia (i.e., attraction to or transformation into statues or mannequins) and in this sense could be viewed as a form of erotic anthropomorphism.

Looking at TF across the whole sexual fetish spectrum, some would argue that there are many different core types of transformation including transforming into inanimate everyday objects, transforming into other humanoid-looking forms (e.g., statues, dolls, robots), transforming into other living things (e.g., animals, animal hybrids, alien life forms), transforming into different and/or extend versions of the self in either fantasy (e.g., becoming a giant, the body aging years in just a few seconds) or reality (e.g., via body modification and/or gender reassignment sex changes).

Finally, in 1989, Dr. Ray Blanchard introduced the concept of autogynephilia, which refers to ‘‘a male’s propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female’’. This formed the basis of Blanchard’s hypothesis that there are two distinct manifestations of male-to-female transsexualism (i.e., homosexual and autogynephilic). It could also be argued that such thinking may be akin to transformation fetishes.

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.

Blanchard, R. (1989). The concept of autogynephilia and the typology of male gender dysphoria. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177, 616-623.

Holliday, K. (2011). Jimbo explains his transformation fetish. The Beautiful Kind, May 17. Located at: http://thebeautifulkind.com/jimbo-explains-his-transformation-fetish/

Pollack, N. (2004). Wonderlust: My transformation fetish. Nerve, April 21. Located at: http://www.nerve.com/personalessays/pollack/wonderlust

Animal magnetism: Inside the world of the furries

Back in the early 1995, one of my good friends (who knew that I had an academic interest in sexual paraphilias) asked me if I knew of any psychological research on ‘furries’. He told me that his girlfriend preferred to have sex with him when she was dressed up in animal clothing (in this case, a fox). At the time I knew absolutely nothing about the ‘furry fandom’ community but I always kept an eye out for academic research on the topic.

It wasn’t until 2001 that I saw the first article on the phenomena – a journalistic feature by George Gurley in Vanity Fair. Gurley proclaimed “This is no hobby. It’s sex; it’s religion; it’s a whole new way of life”. Although I didn’t know anyone personally in the furry community, I was led to believe that they weren’t very happy with the way that Gurley had portrayed them. My next memory of furries in the mainstream was when I watched a 2003 episode of ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’ (called ‘Fur and Loathing’) where furries were the main focus of the show when a man was found dead fully dressed as a raccoon.

The furry fandom community has also developed its own vocabulary including words such as ‘fursona’ (furry persona), ‘plushie’ (person who loves cuddly toys), ‘fleshie’ (a non-furry person), ‘fursuiters’ (people who dress in animal costumes), ‘yiff’ (furry pornography), and ‘skritching’ (scratching and grooming). It should also be noted that the word ‘plushie’ has also been used to describe someone who has a sexual paraphilia concerning sexual arousal to stuffed animals. However, an old and unpublished survey from data collected in the late 1990s by David J. Rust of 360 members of the furry community (325 respondents from furry conventions and 25 respondents online) suggested less than 1% of them were plushophiles (0.3%). It was also reported that 2% of the sample were also zoophiles.

In a more recent attempt to replicate Rust’s study, Evans (2008) carried out a survey on 276 people who self-identified themselves as being furries and who were recruited from furry or furry-related online message boards and forums. Evans reported much higher prevalence rates of both plushophiles (7%) and zoophiles (17%) than the study by Rust. Evans claimed that because the majority of Rust’s survey was conducted in person at conventions, participants were susceptible to the social desirability bias when it came to zoophilia and plushophilia.

Despite the existence of the furry fandom community being around for over the years, it took until 2008 before the first peer reviewed academic paper was published that included some primary data on furries. The research was led by Dr Kathy Gerbasi (Niagara County Community College, New York State, USA). She carried out research on the topic, and the paper was published in the journal Society and Animals.

Before presenting their findings, Dr Gerbasi and colleagues overviewed the cultural, media, and minimal academic writings on the topic (such as a passing reference to Shari Cauldron’s discussion of furries in her 2006 book ‘Misfit furries: Who are you people?’), as well as defining two central concepts as defined by the American Psychological Association:

• Anthropomorphism: “The attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman entities”
• Zoomorphism: “The attribution of animal traits to human beings, deities, or inanimate objects”

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. Furthermore, furries are often said to identify with (and may even desire to assume) characteristics of non-human animals. Given the lack of official definitions, Gerbasi and colleagues gave this detailed description of furries and furry fandom:

“A furry is a person who identifies with the Furry Fandom culture. Furry Fandom is the collective name given to individuals who have a distinct interest in anthropomorphic animals such as cartoon characters. Many, but not all, furries strongly identify with, or view themselves as, one (or more) species of animal other than human. Common furry identities (“fursonas”) are dragon, feline (cat, lion, tiger), and canine (wolf, fox, domestic dog) species. Some furries create mixed species such as a “folf” (fox and wolf) or “cabbit” (cat and rabbit). Furries rarely, if ever, identify with a nonhuman primate species. Many furries congregate in cyberspace, enjoy artwork depicting anthropomorphized animals, and attend Furry Fandom conventions”

This study’s aim was to explore the furry identity. The participants comprised a convenience sample of 217 furries and 29 non-furry individuals that attended the world’s largest annual furry convention (plus a small comparison group of 68 students). The research team was helped by the fact that the conference chairman supported the study being undertaken. A lot of data were presented throughout the paper and I will only report a few of the main findings here.

In relation to gender, the majority of the furries were male (86%). In relation to their sexuality, male furries were 31.5% homosexual, 28%, heterosexual, and 40.5%, bisexual. (These findings were also similar to unpublished surveys of socio-demographic among 600 furries carried out by the University of California Davis Furry Research Team. This same survey reported that only 18% had a fursuit and that 76% were in a relationship with another furry). Among female furries, none were homosexual, 58.3% were heterosexual, and 41.7 % were bisexual. In relation to preferred species identity, furries were most likely to report being wolf, fox, lion, tiger, folf (fox/wolf), and cabbit (cat/rabbit hybrid).

The researchers were also interested in either confirming or disconfirming some of the stereotypes surrounding the furry fandom (many of which emanated from their journalistic and media portrayal in the early 2000s). Below is a list of the main stereotypes followed by the extent to which Gerbasi and colleagues data either confirmed or disconfirmed them.

• “Males are more likely to be furries than females” (Confirmed)
• “Furries recall liking cartoons more as children than others” (Confirmed)
• “Furries like science fiction more than others” (Confirmed)
• “Common furry species are wolf and fox” (Somewhat confirmed)
• “Male furries wear both beards and glasses more than other males” (Not confirmed)
• “Furries are employed in computer or science fields” (Somewhat confirmed)
• “Furries wear fursuits” (Somewhat confirmed)
• “A preponderance of male furries are homosexual” (Not confirmed)
• “Furries consider themselves less than 100% human” (Somewhat confirmed)
• “Furries would be 0% human if possible” (Somewhat confirmed)
• “Furries are perceived as having behaviors common to personality disorders” (Not confirmed)
• Furries have specific kinds of connections to their species which parallel aspects of gender identity disorder” (Somewhat confirmed)

For me, the most interesting part of the published research was the creation of a “furry typology” based on participants’ responses to furry-identity questions. Basically, being furry means different things to different furries. More specifically, furries were asked to respond either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the following two questions:

• “Do you consider yourself to be less than 100% human?”
• “If you could become 0% human, would you?”

These give rise to two independent dimensions of (i) self-perception (undistorted versus distorted) and (ii) species identity (attained versus unattained). Approximately 25% of the furries responded positively to both of these questions. The research team claimed that these responses meant the furries in this particular grouping had “distorted and unattained” identities (i.e., what could possibly be termed a “species identity disorder”). The implication of this finding has lead to some debate as Gerbasi and colleagues speculated that this particular type of furry that has ‘species identity disorder’ has certain characteristics that parallel individuals that have gender-identity disorder (GID).

“For the largest group of furries, the undistorted attained type, being furry may simply be a route to socializing with others who share common interests such as anthropomorphic art and costumes. For distorted unattained furries, the similarities between their connections to their species and aspects of GID are striking. For these furries, considering the self as less than 100% human and wanting to be 0% human is often accompanied by discomfort with their human body and feeling that they are another species trapped in a human body. These connections parallel criteria for the diagnosis of GID”

This has led to some debate as Dr Fiona Probyn-Rapsey (University of Sydney, Australia) contested the ‘species identity disorder’ versus ‘gender identity disorder’ analogy in a short 2011 paper also published in the journal Society and Animals. Her main argument was that GID is itself a highly controversial diagnosis that has been criticized for pathologizing homosexuality and transgendered people. She also tried to argue that the constructs used were based on unexamined assumptions about what constitutes “human” identity and regulatory fictions of gender identity. Predictably, Gerbasi and colleagues provided a vehement response to Dr Probyn-Rapsey and claimed that Probyn-Rapsey’s focus on gender identity disorder completely missed the main point of the study (which was in essence to report the first ever empirically published data on the often misrepresented subculture of furry fandom).

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

American Psychological Association. (2007). APA dictionary of psychology. (2007). Washington, DC: Author.

Caudron, S. (2006). Misfit furries: Who are you people? Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books.

Evans, K. (2008). The furry sociological survey. Located at: http://www.furrysociology.net/report.htm

Gerbasi, K. C., Paolone, N., Higner, J., Scaletta, L. L., Bernstein, P. L., Conway, S., & Privitera, A. (2008). Furries from A to Z (anthropomorphism to zoomorphism). Society & Animals, 16(3), 197-222.

Gerbasi, K.C., Scaletta, L.L., Plante, C.N. & Bernstein, P.L. (2011). Why so FURious? Rebuttal of Dr. Fiona Probyn-Rapsey’s Response to Gerbasi et al.’s Furries from A to Z (Anthropomorphism to Zoomorphism). Society and Animals, 19, 302-304.

Gurley, G. (2001, March). Pleasures of the fur. Vanity Fair, 174-196.

Padva, G. (2005). Dreamboys, Meatmen and Werewolves: Visualizing Erotic Identities in All-Male Comic Strips. Sexualities, 8, 587-599.

Probyn-Rapsey, F. (2011). Furries and the limits of species identity disorder: A response to Gerbasi et al. Society & Animals, 19, 294-301.

Rust, D.J. (2001). The sociology of furry fandom. Located at: http://www.visi.com/~phantos/furrysoc.html

University of California, Davis Department of Psychology (2007). Furry Survey Results. Located at: http://studyf3.livejournal.com/1383.html.