From the university of perversity: An A to Z of non-researched sexual paraphilias (Part 3)

Today’s blog is the third part in my review of little researched (and in most cases non-researched) sexual paraphilias and strange sexual behaviours. (You can read Part 1 here, and Part 2 here). I’ve tried to locate information on all of these alleged sexual behaviours listed below and in some cases have found nothing more than a definition (some of which were in Dr. Anil Aggrawal’s book Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices and/or Dr. Brenda Love’s Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices).

• Agrexophilia: This behaviour refers to the gaining of sexual arousal from other people knowing that you are having sex. According to the online Probert Encyclopedia, agrexophilia is “sexual arousal from the knowledge that other people may become aware of the lovemaking, for example by being overheard or seen”.
• Brachioproctic eroticism: According to Dr. Anil Aggrawal, brachioproctic eroticism (also known as brachioproctism) refers to the “insertion of the arm into the rectum of another person for sexual pleasure”.
• Catagelophilia: This refers to being sexually aroused from being ridiculed. This appears to be the opposite of categelophobia (ridicule phobia).
• Dystychiphilia: According to Dt. Anil Aggrawal, dystychiphilia refers to those that derive sexual pleasure from accidents (although what “accidents” refers to in these cases is left undefined). The Squackle.com website provides the example of “dropping a plate on the floor”. The online Medical Dictionary defines it as “paraphilic sexuoeroticism linked to watching or participating in accidents” and adds that “it is not used to working medical parlance”.
• Endytolagnia: Most definitions of endytolagnia say it refers to sexual arousal from partners who are fully clothed. The Word Information website defines it as a “sexual perversion in which sexual intercourse is had with a fully dressed female”.
• Frictation: This is a form of frotteurism, and according to Dr. Anil Aggrawal, frictation is “a sexual practice in which two male partners achieve sexual satisfaction by rubbing against each other while in a face-to-face position. (The female counterpart is known as tribadism)”. (Tribadism as far as I am aware is the mutual rubbing of clitorises – sometimes called ‘tribbing’ – and gave rise to the term ‘Scissor Sisters’).
• Graophilia: This behaviour 9according to Dr. Anil Aggrawal) refers to sexual arousal from an older female partner. I’m assuming this refers to the woman being significantly older but no definition I have come across explicitly mentions what the age difference needs to be.
• Hygrophilia: This behaviour refers to arousal from body fluids or moisture (although it’s also the name of a plant. The Right Diagnosis website adds that hygrophilia is (i) sexual interest in body secretions, (ii) recurring intense sexual fantasies involving body secretions, and/or (iii) recurring intense sexual urges involving body secretions.
• Iantronudia: This behaviour refers to getting sexually aroused from exposing oneself to a physician, usually by faking an ailment. Some websites refer to it as “flashing a physician”.
• Jactitation: According to Wikipedia, in English Law, jactitation “is the maliciously boasting or giving out by one party that he or she is married to the other”. However, some online sites claim that it is a false boast that causes harm to others, and is sometimes sexual. The Right Diagnosis website claims jactitation “refers to sexual arousal or excitement derived from discussing their own sexual exploits”.
• Knissophilia: This behaviour may well be a sub-type of olfactophilia as (according to Dr. Anil Aggrawal) refers to the sexual attraction of incense-burning.
• Loutrophilia: This behaviour refers to the love of washing or bathing. Such a definition does not necessarily make this a sexual paraphilia although someone on the Kinkopedia website claimed they had loutrophilia. This may be a sub-type of aquaphilia that I examined in a previous blog.
• Mammagymnophilia: This refers to sexual arousal from female breasts and on various websites it has also been called breast fetishism, mazophilia, and breast partialism.
• Nemophilia: This behavioud has been defined as the love and/or sexual arousal from forests (and as such might be similar to dendrophilia that I discussed in a previous blog). The online Urban Dictionary defines nemophilia as “the love of spending time in forests or woodland; woodland survival training, as practised by the armed forces could, therefore, be considered the equivalent of sex”.
• Oikophilia: This behaviour has been defined by Dr. Anil Aggrawal as the sexual attraction to one’s home. The word has also been used (by such people as the philosopher Roger Scruton) to denote the love of houses but in this sense it has no sexual connotations whatsoever.
• Phallophilia: This behaviour refers to those individuals that have a large penis fetish or preference. The Right Diagnosis website defines it as “urges, preferences or fantasies involving [an] unusually large erect penis”
• http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/p/phallophilia/intro.htm
• Queeb fetish: Queeb fetish is actually another term for ‘queef fetish’ and refers to those individuals that are sexually aroused by vaginal farts (and which I examined in a previous blog on queefing).
• Raptophilia: According to the Right Diagnosis website, raptophilia refers to a “sexual interest in rape, an abnormal amount of time spent thinking about raping a victim, recurring intense sexual fantasies involving rape, and recurring intense sexual urges involving rape”. Other websites claim that this paraphilia only concerns the fantasy of raping someone rather than the act of actually doing it. According to Wikipedia, raptophilia is another name for biastophilia (a sexual paraphilia “in which sexual arousal is dependent on, or is responsive to, the act of assaulting an unconsenting person, especially a stranger”).
• Sarmassophilia: According to Dr. Anil Aggrawal, sarmassophilia refers to sexual arousal from kneading flesh (and appears to derive from its opposite, sarmassophobia). The Encyclo website defines it more generally as “a fondness for amorous caressing, necking, or stroking”.
• Toxophilia: I’m not sure if this related to the sexy image of Robin Hood, but according to Dr. Anil Aggrawal, toxophilia refers to sexual arousal from archery.
• Vincilagnia: There is actually loads of empirical research on vincilagnia as it is just an old scientific name for those that are sexually aroused from bondage (see the overview at the Nation Master website)
• Wind Fetish: This has nothing to do with eproctophilia (sexual arousal for flatulence), but is (according to Dr. Anil Aggrawal) is a “sexual attraction to being blown by the wind”.
• Xanthophilia: This behaviour refers to individuals that have an “abnormal affection” for the color yellow or the word yellow. Appears to be derived from its opposite (xanthophobia) so is likely to be more theoretical than actual.
• Yeast infection fetish: There appear to be some individuals that have a fetish for ‘thrush’ (yeast infections) as discussed at various online forums (such as one on the Reddit website). For instance one man confessed: “I have never told anyone in my life this before, but since I was young (about 12 years old) I used to love the smell when I put my face in my mom’s lap. It was a little fishy odd kind of odor but always super attractive to me. A while after this the smell went away and I was very disappointed. Later I found out that she had a yeast infection. To this day however i cannot resist the smell of the yeast infection vagina. It is like field of roses to me, ethereal, heavenly”.
• Zemmiphilia: According to a long list of obscure paraphilias at the Write World website, zemmiphilia refers to an “abnormal affection for the great mole rat”. I would guess this is theoretical rather than actual but I would never rule anything out.

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.

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

Love, B. (2001). Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices. London: Greenwich Editions.

Scorolli, C., Ghirlanda, S., Enquist, M., Zattoni, S. & Jannini, E.A. (2007). Relative prevalence of different fetishes. International Journal of Impotence Research, 19, 432-437.

Write World (2013). Philias. Located at: http://writeworld.tumblr.com/philiaquirks