Tag: Scat

Challenging the perception of scat fetishes Disclaimer : This post contains mature content. Shit fetishes are still primarily perceived as a disgusting taboo in even the most liberalist societies. While we have come a long way on people talking a lot more about shit (literally) as an essential topic, the conversations are still limited to gut health, colon disorders and poo analysis, or the humour side of it we see from comedians and the like.  Yet no one talks about the complexities of shit and how it is also linked to sexual desires, fantasies and behaviours because it is still such an uncomfortable topic that we don’t yet fully understand. If you hear the words:  Coprophilia, scat fetish or “being into shit”, it tends to conjure up such negative associations. It sounds perverted and even somewhat criminal. People hear the “phile” in coprophile and think of ‘paedophile’ and assume they are directly related. They may be both classified under the cluster of paraphilias, but they are otherwise not linked. We have become conditioned to associate most things related to shit with disgust. When you pair it with a fetish or paraphilia, you tend to lose people, and they don’t want to be associated with this type of conversation. Since a scat fetish tends to fall within abnormal psychology, it is still a topic shrouded with plenty of myths and misinformation to the general public. The go-to assumption is that it is a terrible psychological affliction that must be kept away from normal society. The idea that anyone would find any form of attraction to shit appealing in any way raises lots of judgment. People who may have accidentally or by curiosity stumbled upon hardcore scat porn assume that it is one nasty shit fest of people eating and smearing themselves in one another’s shit and things getting incredibly messy. Thoughts of being psychologically disturbed,  parasitic infections and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD’s) comes to mind.  It is no wonder many would find it dangerous and extreme. While there is no denying that with any kind of sex, there are always the high-risk factors; scat play is not just about getting down and messy with each other’s shit that one sees in those hardcore scat porn videos. There are many different nuances to this fetish, of which many of them do not even involve any form of contact with shit. The truth is, the porn world is not the real world, and if you assume that what you see about scat porn is the only reality for people with this interest, then you are mistaken. Creating awareness and understanding can help break those beliefs and misguided facts, and while this won’t happen overnight, one has to start somewhere. In the psychiatric and psychological circles, an interest (note they do not use the word fetish) with shit is classified under the term “Coprophilia”. According to Wikipedia.org, the word “Coprophilia” comes from the Greek word “kopros”, meaning excrement and “philia”,meaning a likeness/fondness, which makes sense that it would be used to describe an interest or fetish for shit.  If you do a google search of this term, you find several definitions from various dictionaries that mostly define it as an “abnormal attraction” or use of faeces or filth for sexual excitement. Other words such as obscene, mental disorder, sexual deviance all tell you just how big a taboo it is perceived to be. Coprophilia is actually classified as a type of paraphilia. In layman’s terms, it refers to getting sexual arousal and satisfaction from fantasising or taking part in sexual behaviours that are perceived to be unusual and often extreme. It can revolve around a particular object (e.g. leather boots, whips, underwear) or certain behaviours (e.g. inflicting or being inflicted by pain, touching people without their consent). If a person becomes dependent on these objects or behaviours to become the only way they can achieve sexual gratification, it is regarded as a paraphilia. Now some may think, is a fetish and a paraphilia not the same thing? As I understand, a fetish is also regarded as a type of paraphilia (Fetishism), but it’s not quite the same. The difference appears to be that one can have a fetish but also achieve sexual gratification from other forms of sexual fantasies and behaviour such as regular intercourse or masturbating to other fantasies that are not focused on your fetish. It becomes a paraphilia when you become dependent on the fetish as the only way to achieve sexual gratification. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or otherwise referred to as just the DSM, is the “bible” used by Psychiatrists and Criminologists to diagnose mental disorders and psychopathology. There is still a lot of debate around how the DSM defines and classifies psychological disorders and how the diagnostic criteria are setup. It is so contentious because a diagnosis can be used in a court case as a basis to commit a person to a psychiatric institution or potential life imprisonment. If you consider that the DSM version 2 classified homosexuality as a paraphilia up until 1973 and transgender as a gender dysmorphic disorder, it does make you wonder just how much of it is based on the attitudes and beliefs of the time and just how valid and reliable is it still today? The DSM, now in its 5th version (DSM-V released in 2013), has also moved with the times and attempted to remove the stigma attached to paraphilias by acknowledging that people can be into “atypical sexual interests” (e.g. being into shit or leather etc.), but it doesn’t mean they have a mental illness. If, however, this sexual interest or arousal pattern is accompanied by clinically significant distress or impairment, meaning that it disrupts the person’s life so that they cannot function effectively, so to speak. It starts becoming an issue of psychopathology. To make this distinction, the DSM-V now distinguishes between paraphilias and paraphilic disorders. This means that you can display the interest (arousal patterns/desires/fantasies)  of a specific paraphilia and not be diagnosed as having a psychological affliction. It is only when your paraphilia significantly affects your behaviour that it becomes classified as a paraphilic disorder. This means if it affects your ability to function from day to day and causes you or anyone else any distress or harm or the threat thereof. There are diagnostic […]