A lowdown on the urethra (frankly): Urethral manipulation uncovered

While I was researching a previous blog on urophilia, I came across a number of articles and papers on urethral manipulation fetishes (i.e., people that get sexually aroused from the insertion of ‘foreign bodies’ into their urethra). Almost all of the published work in this area is in the form of clinical and/or medical case reports, and almost all of the cases are men who insert various objects into their penis as a form of stimulation. (Having said that, various authors have noted women may also engage in urethral stimulation). Furthermore, most of the case reports are from men who have ended up having to seek medical help because the ‘foreign body’ has become stuck inside their penis (so most of what we know is only based on urethral manipulation and stimulation that goes wrong). Based on case reports, it is estimated that almost all men and about 85% of women who engage in urethral manipulation do it for sexual stimulation. Other reasons for urethral manipulation include psychiatric disorders, drug intoxication, mental confusion, sexual curiosity, and/or a desire to get relief from urinary symptoms.

There is also a relatively developed lexicon (particularly among the gay community) for such urethral stimulating behaviours including the following:

• Sounding: The insertion of an object into the urethra
• Meatotomy: The dilation of the urethra with a medical dilating device (so that the urethra is stretched to eventually facilitate a finger or a penis)
• Meatotome: An instrument used to enlarge the urethral opening
• Meatorrhaphy: The procedure of enlarging the urethral opening
• Meatometer: An instrument for measuring the urethral opening

The range of different objects that have been used include straws, cylindrical batteries, pens, pencils, candles, lipstick containers, small wooden sticks, swizzle sticks, glass beads, wires, Allen keys. buckshot, cuticle knives, and razors. Such practices can lead to a wide array of medical problems including (but not limited to) urinary tract damage and blockages, urinary tract infections, and bladder infections. For instance, in a 1999 book on gay sex, Dr S.E. Goldstone reported the case of a man who inserted a piano wire into his penis that resulted in it getting knotted in his bladder (and his bladder had to be cut open to get it removed).

A report of seven cases in a 1982 issue of the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy by Wise (1982) reported that urethral stimulation may occur actively during sexual activity (e.g., masturbation) activities, or passively via medical procedures requested by the person. He also observed that the behaviour shares features with both fetishism and masochism (although very few of those who engage in such practices report pain so the association with masochism does not seem justified based on the clinical evidence reported. In the journal Urology, Dr R.D. Kenney’s believed that the initiating event in the acquisition of such behaviour is an accidentally discovered pleasurable stimulation of the urethra, and then repeated using objects of unknown danger, driven by a psychological predisposition to sexual gratification.

Most reports are medical in origin although some psychoanalysts claim that those with a fetish or preference for urethral stimulation have underlying problems of fixation or regression and castration anxiety (but there is little way of either proving or disproving such theories). Reviews of data from case reports suggest that the focus of arousal for the individual is not on the objects that are inserted into the urethra.

Arguably the most comprehensive paper on ‘penile foreign body insertion’ the was a 2000 paper published in the Journal of Urology by Dr. A. Van Ophoven and Dr J.B. de Kernion. They reviewed 800 cases in the published literature between 1755 and 1999. The range of inserted objects were categorized into a number of distinct categories the following categories:

• Animals or parts of animals (e.g., coyote’s rib, dog’s penis, leech, snails, animal bones)
• Plants and vegetables (e.g., slippery elm, grass, cucumbers, pistachio shells)
• Sharp and lacerating objects (e.g., pencils, pins, needles)
• Wire like objects (e.g., cables, catheters, rubber tubes)
• Fluids and powders (e.g., nasal mucus, glue, cocaine)

However, individual case reports have included some really bizarre and unusual objects. A 1992 case study reported by Dr. A.K. Jaiswal (Command Hospital, Bangalore, India) in the journal Genitourinary Medicine reported a 28-year old Indian man who ended up getting a penicillin bottle (containing iodine) stuck in the preputial sac. The man had inserted the bottle during masturbation to tickle his penile glans. It was so firmly impacted that the bottle could only be removed under general anaesthetic.

In a 2002 issue of Urology, Dr E.D. Kim and colleagues (University of Tennessee Medical Center, Knoxville, USA.) reported what they believed was a unique case of a 41-year old man who presented himself for medical attention as a result of a urethral blockage. It turned out that the lower urinary tract obstruction was because the man had self-injected foam sealant into his urethra.

In 1997, Dr Paul Lamberth reported the case in Emergency Medicine of a 36-year old man who inserted a safety pin into his urethra for sexual pleasure. After 10 hours of failing to remove the safety pin, he sought medical attention. Lambirth claimed this was only the second such case (of using safety pins) to be reported in the medical literature.

The insertion of foreign bodies into the penis is rarely fatal. However, a 1982 paper in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology by Dr R.W. Byard and his colleagues reported that a 40-year-old man inserted a pencil into his penis but he was unable to remove it. Unfortunately, he failed to seek medical help and he developed a septic condition and died as a consequence. Given that almost all reports of urethral sexual stimulation are case study reports, there are no estimates as to how prevalent this sexual practice is among the general population.

A recent 2011 paper by Dr S.D Chattopadhyay and colleagues (Nilratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, India) in the Jurnalul de Chirurgie, Iasi asserted that the insertion of foreign bodies into the urethra as a paraphilic behaviour is “fraught with complications”. They reported the case of a 25-year old male goldsmith who had inserted a 60cm electrical wire with a 5mm diameter into his urethra. The wire got stuck and caused heamaturia (i.e., blood in his urine) and incontinence along with a lot of pain and discomfort. It was removed by open cystoscomy (opening up the bladder during an endoscopic procedure). The authors associated the behaviour to a depression and anxiety condition, and was subsequently prescribed antidepressants to prevent any future occurrences. Similar cases have also been reported in various other papers. For instance, Dr Konstantinos Stravodimos and colleagues (Laiko Hospital, Athens, Greece) reported in the Journal of Medical Case Reports (2009) that a 53-year old Greek man presented with a bloody urethral discharge after having inserted an electrical wire in his urethra for masturbatory purposes.

In a 2010 issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Dr Nishant Bedi and his colleagues (Bart’s and The London NHS Trust, London, UK) reported the case of a 62-year-old man who had inserted two small household (AAA size) batteries into his urethra that had got stuck and was in pain. This was not an isolated incident as the year before, the same patient had an endoscopic procedure to remove a pen lid from his urethra.

In the International Journal of Neurourology (2010), Dr Seung Jin Moon and colleagues (Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea) reported the case of a 50-year-old man who sought medical treatment after a week long period of pain. It turned out that three years previously he had inserted a plastic chopstick into his urethra for sexual pleasure (although this had not caused any pain despite the fact that it remained inside him). However, the patient more recently had inserted a round magnet into his urethra in an attempt to remove the chopstick. However, this failed to remove the chopstick and he then got the magnet stuck. He then inserted a second magnet in an attempt to remove the first magnet when the second magnet got lodged in his urethra. The authors observed that their case was very interesting because a foreign body had remained in the bladder for a long time without causing severe irritation and pain.

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

Further reading

Bedi, N., El-Husseiny, T., Buchholz, N. & Masood, J. (2010). ‘Putting lead in your pencil’: Self-insertion of an unusual urethral foreign body for sexual gratification. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Short Reports, 1(2), 18.

Byard, R.W., Eitzen, D.A., James, R. (2000). Unusual fatal mechanisms in nonasphyxial autoerotic death. American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 21, 65-8.

Chattopadhyay, S.D., Das, R., Panda, N., Mahapatra, R.S., Biswas, R., & Jha, A. (2011). Long electric wire in urethra – an unusual paraphilia. Jurnalul de Chirurgie, Iasi, 7, 437-440.

Goldstone, S.E. (1999). The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex: A Medical Handbook for Men. New York: Dell Publishing.

Jaiswal, A.K. (1992). An unusual foreign body in the preputial sac. Genitourinary Medicine, 68, 334-5.

Kenney, R.D. (1988). Adolescent males who insert genitourinary foreign bodies: Is psychiatric referral required? Urology, 32, 127-129.

Kim, E.D., Mory, A., Wilson, D.D. & Zeagler, D. (2002). Treatment of a complete lower urinary tract obstruction secondary to an expandable foam sealant. Urology, 60, 164.

Stravodimos, K.G., Koritsiadis, G. & Koutalellis, G. (2009). Electrical wire as a foreign body in a male urethra: a case report.  Journal of Medical Case Reports, 3, 49

Mitchell, W. M. (1968). Self-insertion of urethral foreign bodies. Psychiatric Quarterly, 42, 479-486.

Moon, S.J. Kim, D.H., Chung, J.H., Jo, J.K., Son, Y.W., Choi, H.Y. Moon, H.S. (2010). Unusual foreign bodies in the urinary bladder and urethra due to autoerotism. International Neurourology Journal, 14, 186-189.

van Ophoven, A. &  deKernion, J.B. (2000). Clinical management of foreign bodies of the genitourinary tract. Journal of Urology, 164, 274-87.

Vilmann, D. & Hjortrup, E.A. (1985). Long-standing urethral instrumentation leading to an unusual complication. Scandinavian Journal of Urology and Nephrology, 19, 147-148.

Wise, T.N. (1982). Urethral manipulation: An unusual paraphilia. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 8, 222-227

Milking the situation: A beginner’s guide to lactophila

Lactophilia (i.e., breast milk fetishism) is a sexual paraphilia where individuals (typically male) derive sexual pleasure from watching women lactate, sucking on women’s milk-filled breasts and/or having sex with lactating women. Sometimes, the sexual arousal is enhanced by the woman also being pregnant, although many men prefer lactating women post-pregnancy. The paraphilic aspect may also be part of other sexual paraphilias such as infantilism (where sexual arousal is derived from being an adult baby). For many infantilists, the practice is often referred to as adult adult nursing, suckling, and adult breastfeeding. In fact, some lactophiles describe themselves as being in an adult nursing relationship. Those who suckle and are suckled within the confines of a monogamous sexual relationship are often referred to as a “nursing couple”.

There are a number of different methods by which erotic lactation can take place. “Lactation games” typically refers to any kind of sexual activity that includes female breast milk. The activity is thought to be widespread but can be unintentional post-pregnancy as many women who have just had babies release milk as a reflex action when sexually aroused.

Over the last decade there appears to have been an increased demand for lactation pornography with magazines such as ‘Pregnant Pink and Milking’. It is evidently a specialty market although the internet has increased the opportunity to see such pornography – even if the person is not a lactophile. Such niche pornography may also be considered taboo – even by those who have no objections to pornography – particularly because of its association with children and incest.

Adult nursing relationships involve a person (typically male) breastfeeding from a woman’s lactating breast. It is only considered to be an ANR when the practice is regular rather than a one-off or happens almost accidentally during post-pregnancy sex. Anecdotal evidence suggests that successful ANRs are reliant on trusting and stable long-term relationships. If the practice is not regular, the women’s milk production ceases. It is thought that in some cases, the suckling can be a replacement for sex and that the mutual and intimate tenderness involved between consenting couples has a stabilizing influence on such relationships. It has also been noted that some women are capable of achieving orgasm during the suckling process. There may also be a number of inherently non-sexual reasons as to why such behaviour is found within loving couples. For instance, couples who may want to adopt a child may use the context of an ANR to stimulate the production of breast milk pre-adoption.

It has also been notes that an apparently small minority of womenexperience sensual and/or sexual pleasure from pumping breast milk (either manually or from a breast pump. The feelings produced may depend on the context (for instance, some women may only get sexual pleasure if their partner is present during the pumping process. Dr. Fiona Giles (of the University of Sydney, Australia) in her 2003 book ‘Fresh Milk – The Secret Life of Breasts’noted that some women feel more “feminine” when breast feeding, and may therefore may want to continue with lactation, even after their child have been weaned for emotional and/or sensual motivations.

In a previous blog on fetishism, I wrote at length 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). They reported that some of the sites featured references to lactophiles. However, this particular fetish was included in a ‘body fluids’ fetish category along with coprophilia, urophilia, menophilia and mucophilia. Although this category made up a sizeable minority of all online fetishes (9%), it is unknown what proportion of these online fetish sites were lactophilic in comparison to the fetishes of other bodily fluids.

The rise in interest surrounding lactophilic activity has led to lactation prostitution where grown adults – including women – pay for the opportunity to be breastfed. This can either be part of other activities such as infantilism (where other activities such as having a diaper [i.e., nappy] changed may play a more primary role) or may be an activity done is isolation to any other service or activity. A 2004 paper in the journal Australian Feminist Studies (again) by Dr. Fiona Giles made reference to a New Zealand brothel that offered lactation services to its clients. In a paper in Women’s Studies the following year, Giles also wrote that:

“Induced lactation allows for a splitting away of breastfeeding from maternity, opening up possibilities for elaborating on the cultural meanings and uses of breastmilk as a substance, breastfeeding as a practice, and lactation as a process. Finally, by introducing lactation into sexual play, it offers the opportunity for a mutual confluence of bodily flows which may help to disassemble the binaries of sexual difference”.

Breastfeeding can also feature in other types of sexual activity such as sadism and masochism (as part of wider set of dominance and submission sexual practices). For instance, submissive women may be commanded by their (male or female) dominant partner to be milked or to produce milk. Alternatively, breastfeeding can be used as a surrogate pleasure reward (or surrogate pleasure) for (male or female) submissive partners who have done exactly as they have been told by the dominant partner.

Lactophilia may also be associated with other specialist types of paraphilia. One such sexual fetish is Maieusiophilia (i.e., pregnancy fetishism). This is where individuals (typically male, but some bisexual or lesbian females also) derive attraction and/or sexual gratification from someone being (or appearing pregnant). There is also a very small minority of people who develop a sexual fascination with the idea of themselves being pregnant (i.e., gravidophilia). This would appear to be psychologically similar to those people who get sexually excited by the thought of being an amputee (i.e., apotemnophilia).

There has been very little empirical research on lactophilia (or associated behaviours). A recent 2011 study was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine led by Dr. Magnus Enquist (Stockholm University, 2011). They reported the results of a questionnaire study designed to investigate whether two specific sexual preferences (for pregnant women and for lactating women) were associated with exposure to pregnant or lactating women early in an individual’s life. Their data were collected via an online questionnaire advertised in newsgroups (e.g., alt.sex.fetish and alt.sex.fetish.breastmilk) and Yahoo! discussion groups (e.g., Lactaters and Pregnant Ladies). Individuals in these online communities typically describe themselves as fetishists for pregnant and/or lactating women. The research team collected usable data from 2,082 participants. Some of the main findings were that:

• Average age of the respondents was 37 years
• Average age at which respondents became aware of their preference for pregnant and/or lactating women was 19 years
• Most respondents reported both a pregnancy and a lactation preference (71%; 1,474 people);
• A small minority of the respondents reported having a preference for pregnancy fetish only (14%; 296 people)
• An even smaller minority of the respondents reported having a preference for lactation fetish only (11%; 224 people)
• A total 4% (87 people) had neither preference and were excluded from further analysis
• A great majority of the sample had younger brothers or sisters suggesting that they were exposed to pregnant women and/or experienced seeing their siblings being breastfed when in childhood.

Because of this final finding, the authors suggested their results were consistent with the hypothesis that specific sexual preferences may be acquired through exposure to particular stimuli during a specific period early in life (similar to “sexual imprinting” in birds and mammals). In fact, there have been a number of studies offering empirical support for the idea that human partner choice is (at least in part) determined by parental characteristics. The authors concluded that their study offered new insights to growing issue of the correlation between pregnancy, lactation, and sexuality.

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

Further reading (Lactophilia)

Enquist, M., Aronsson, H., Ghirlanda, S., Jansson, L. & Jannini, E.A. (2011). Exposure to mother’s pregnancy and lactation in infancy is associated with sexual attraction to pregnancy and lactation in adulthood. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 8, 140–147.

Giles, F. (2003). Fresh Milk – The Secret Life of Breasts. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Giles, F. (2004). Relational, and strange: A preliminary foray into a project to queer breastfeeding. Australian Feminist Studies. 19, 301-314.

Giles, F. (2005). The well-tempered breast: Fostering fluidity in breastly meaning and function. Women’s Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal. 34, 301-326.

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.

Further reading (Sexual imprinting)

Bereczkei, T., Gyuris, P. & Weisfeld, G.E. (2004). Sexual imprinting in human mate choice. Proceedings of Biological Science, 271, 1129-1134.

Perrett, D.I., Penton-Voak, I.S., Little, A.C., Tiddeman, B.P., Burt, D.M., Schmidt, N., Oxley, R., Kinloch, N., & Barrett, L. (2002). Facial attractiveness judgements reflect learning of parental age characteristics. Proceedings of Biological Science, 269, 873–80.

Jedlicka, D. (1980). A test of psychoanalytic theory of mate selection. Journal of Social Psychology, 112, 295-299.

Wilson, G.D. & Barrett, P.T. (1987). Parental characteristics and partner choice: Some evidence for oedipal imprinting. Journal of Biosocial Science, 19, 157-161.

Zei, G., Bereczkei, T., Gyuris, P., Koves, P., Bernath, L. (2002). Homogamy, genetic similarity, and imprinting: Parental influence on mate choice preferences. Personality and Individual Differences, 33, 677-90.

Urine demand: A beginner’s guide to urophilia

In an earlier blog, I examined coprophilia (i.e., a paraphilia in which people are sexually aroused by faeces). Another related paraphilia is urophilia in which people are sexually aroused by urine (i.e., the sight or thought of either the act of urination or the urine itself). The condition is known by many different names. In scientific circles it can also be called urophagia, urolagnia, renifleurism, undinism, and ondinisme. In non-scientific circles it is more popularly called ‘water sports’, ‘golden showers’ and (most crudely) ‘piss play’. This has also led to dedicated websites where ‘pee lovers’ can meet up.

Press reports have reported a few celebrities engaging in the activity. For instance, in an interview with the music magazine Blender, the Puerto Rican popstar Ricky Martin stated that he enjoyed ‘golden showers’. The actor Andy Milonakis and host of MTV’s ‘The Andy Milonakis Show’ said in an interview with People Magazine that liked the feeling of “warm urine” on his chest during sexual intercourse. Interestingly, it was recently discovered that Havelock Ellis – one the ‘founding fathers’ of sexology – was aroused by the sight of a woman urinating.

“In childhood, as his autobiography reveals, Ellis had exclusive attention from his mother during long absences of his sea captain father. Ellis was the eldest child and only son, whose intimacy with his mother included sponging her back and being present when he was twelve and older as she urinated. (His sister, when she heard of one incident, thought that their mother was being flirtatious, since normally she was rather a reserved person.) The consequences of this malimprinting Ellis dignified with the term urolagnia, which he denied had become a real perversion or a dominant interest in his sexual life. His candour had limits, and the evidence is otherwise… In Ellis’s instance the trauma of witnessing his mother urinate was converted into the hostile pleasure of humiliating other women, women in no way connected with his mother, by persuading them to do something for reasons mainly unintelligible to them. When he had the gratification of inducing Franroise [his partner] to urinate in crowded Oxford Circus, she may not have felt especially humiliated. With such an initiate his satisfaction was mainly symbolic…The perversion was enough on his mind for him to write it into his seventh volume of Studies in the Psychology of Sex. There he dignifies the pathological sounding “urolagnia” with the new and enticing term “undinism”. Grosskurth thinks that this volume came into existence principally to defend the perversion which is not discussed elsewhere” (Andrew Brink’s book review of Phyllis Grosskurth’s biography of Havelock Ellis, 1980).

In the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (and like coprophilia), urophilia is listed as a ‘paraphilia not otherwise specified’ (PNOS). As with all paraphilias in the PNOS category, diagnosis is only made “if the behavior, sexual urges, or fantasies cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning…Fantasies, behaviors, or objects are paraphilic only when they lead to clinically significant distress or impairment (e.g., are obligatory, result in sexual dysfunction, require participation of non-consenting individuals, lead to legal complications, interfere with social relationships)”.

Urophiliacs typically derive sexual pleasure from urinating on (and/or being urinated upon by) another person. Some urophiliacs may also bathe in urine, enjoy smelling people in urine-soaked clothes, and/or engage in urophagia (i.e., drinking the urine). For urophiliacs, the drinking of the urine typically takes place while someone else urinates directly into their mouth. Urophagia (in and of itself) is not necessarily a sexually arousing activity as there are many urine drinkers who don’t do it for sexual pleasure but for other reasons (e.g., ritualistic and ceremonial purposes or they think there are health or cosmetic benefits as witnessed by those who engage in ‘urine therapy’).

However, for urophiliacs, the act of urophagia may be sexually stimulating for them. They may also engage in the activity as part of other paraphilic activity such as sadism, masochism, voyeurism, and infantalism (i.e., being sexually excited from dressing as an adult baby). Some urophiliacs may also experience sexual arousal from having a full bladder and/or feel sexually attracted to someone else who has a full bladder (‘bladder desperation’) or wets themselves (i.e. ‘panty wetting’ or wetting the bed). In Japan, this latter parahilic behaviour occurs as part of a fetish subculture known as ‘omorashi’ and is seen as different from urophilia.

In 2009, Dr Garth Mundiger-Klow (Beverly Hills Institute of Sexual Health Research, USA) published a whole book comprising 15 urophiliac case studies (The Golden Fetish) but despite the academic credentials of the author, and the lengthy accounts, the book was little more than a collection of erotic stories based around urophiliacs with little analysis provided by the author.

To date, there has been very little scientific research and almost all of what is known is based on either case studies or as a co-occurring behaviour with other paraphilias. For instance, in a survey of 561 non-incarcerated individuals seeking treatment for paraphilias, Dr Gene Abel, and colleagues found that many paraphiliacs engaged in more than one paraphilic behaviour. For instance, all the zoophiles in the sample reported more than one paraphilia and for a small number this included urophilia. However, it appears that urophilia is mostly likely associated with sadomasocism. For instance, in a study of 245 male sadomasochists, Dr Andreas Spengler (University of Hamburg, Germany) reported that 10% of those surveyed had an interest in urophilia. This finding is similar to that of Dr Neil Buhrich (St. Vincent’s Hospital, New South Wales, Australia) who found that 8% of his sample of sadomasichists reported an interest in urophilia.

A paper in a 1982 edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry by Dr R. Denson found that the urine fulfilled many different functions for urophiles. The functions of urine included it (i) serving as a fetishistic object, (ii) being used to humiliate or be humiliated (i.e., through urinating on another person or being urinated upon), and/or (iii) capturing the spirit of a sexual partner. Based on the case studies examined, Dr Denson also argued that urination may serve masochistic and/or sadistic purposes and that therefore it should be labeled ‘uromasochism’ or ‘urosadism’.

While most explanations for paraphilic urophilia focus on early behavioural conditioning in childhood and adolescence, I also came across an interesting snippet in Professor John Money’s 1980 book Love and Love Sickness: The Science of Sex, Gender Difference and Pair-bonding:

“Some years ago, when I visited the Yerkes primate laboratory in Atlanta…How, I asked, did a wild chimpanzee mother keep its baby clean from soiling? The answer was that, as in many other species, she licks it clean…Among the people of Bali, in Indonesia, small dogs lick the babies clean…The dog’s assigned duty is to provide diaper service by licking clean the baby, and the mother, whenever the baby soils. Subsequently I have learned that Eskimo mothers once had a custom of licking their babies clean. Even though human primates have graduated from using the mother’s snout end to keep the baby’s tail end clean, it is safe to assume that, as a species, we still possess in the brain the same phyletic circuitry for infant hygiene as do the subhuman primates. Just as males and females have nipples, so also do both sexes have these brain pathways that relate to drinking urine and eating feces. These are the pathways that, when they become associated with neighboring erotic/sexual pathways, produce urophilia and coprophilia as paraphilias”.

Additionally, an internet essay examining ‘forced retention of bodily waste’ among children, Laurie Couture makes the following observations in relation to the origin of urine-related paraphilias:

“Some sufferers of forced waste retention develop sexual fetishes involving waste and waste retention…adult respondents reported using masturbation as a way to dissociate from the pain of a full bladder. Websites that cater to the sadomasochistic desires of urolagnia (“water sports”) enthusiasts are prevalent on the Internet…Adults who engage in urolagnia are often reenacting scenes from childhood, some of which involved denial of toilet use by school teachers or caretakers for purposes of punishment or containment…Due to the close proximity of the urethra and bladder to the sex organs, some adults who chronically suffered this form of bodily control as children developed a conditioned response in which wetting themselves or bladder tension was association with sexual arousal”

Clearly, there is still much to learn in this area but there are certainly some interesting speculations as to the origins and initiation of urophilic behaviour.

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

Further reading

Abel, G. G., Becker, J. V., Cunningham-Rathner, J., Mittelman, M., & Rouleau, J. L. (1988). Multiple paraphilic diagnoses among sex offenders. Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 16, 153-168.

Buhrich, N. (1983). The association of erotic piercing with homosexuality, sadomasochism, bondage, fetishism, and tattoos. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 12, 167-171.

Collacott, R.A. & Cooper, S.A. (1995). Urine fetish in a man with learning disabilities. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 39, 145-147.

Couture, L.A. (2000). Forced retention of bodily waste: The most overlooked form of child maltreatment. Located at: http://www.nospank.net/couture2.htm

Denson, R. (1982). Undinism: The fetishizaton of urine. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 27, 336–338.

Grosskurth, P. (1980). Havelock Ellis: A Biography. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

Massion-verniory, L. & Dumont, E. (1958). Four cases of undinism. Acta Neurol Psychiatr Belg. 58, 446-59.

Money, J. (1980). Love and Love Sickness: The Science of Sex, Gender Difference and Pair-bonding, John Hopkins University Press.

Mundinger-Klow, G. (2009). The Golden Fetish: Case Histories in the Wild World of Watersports. Paris: Olympia Press.

Skinner, L. J., & Becker, J. V. (1985). Sexual dysfunctions and deviations. In M. Hersen & S. M. Turner (Eds.), Diagnostic interviewing (pp. 211–239). New York: Plenum Press.

Spengler, A. (1977). Manifest sadomasochism of males: Results of an empirical study. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 6, 441–456.