Dacryphilia The Crying Fetish

So as you all know by now if you have read any of my blogs I am a Dom andI just love the raw expectation of obedience, this comes with some level of pain and crying so this is all about that. Dacryphilia also known as dacrylagnia, is a form of paraphilia (a condition characterised by abnormal sexual desires, typically involving extreme or dangerous activities) in which one is aroused by tears, or sobbing. However, some definitions appear to have been widened the definition of dacryphilia to include both sexual arousal from someone displaying strong emotion and sexual arousal from the emotional release that accompanies crying.

There Are Two Main Types Of Dacryphilia

The Sadistic Dacryphiles:

While watching someone else cry is not something that most people want to see (as we don’t usually gain gratification from seeing others psychologically suffer). This is the main reason this paraphilia is closely associated with is that of sexual sadism. Here, the Dominant partner’s sexual arousal often results from seeing a submissive in emotional distress. The emotional distress may be as result of psychological humiliation by the sexual sadist who may verbally taunt the submissive into crying. It is the show of the tearful response by the submissive that results in the most sexual arousal for the dominant partner. This one Sadistic dacryphile says:

“Evoking tears is unequivocally one of the most satisfying to my sadistic tendencies. Other sexually controlling behaviors are often fun, but may lack a real visual representation to validate whether or not I’m truly controlling her emotionally”

For the sadist in me, the psychological reinforcement lies in the power and control I have over my submissive and compliant partner, sometimes referred to as ‘power play’. Knowing that my direct actions have directly caused the crying is highly rewarding and reinforcing thus I am a dacryphile.

The Voyeuristic Dacryphiles:

These are people who are sexually aroused by crying whatever the cause. As one male voyeuristic dacryphile said:

“I definitely have dacryphilia. I get extremely turned on physically and emotionally by crying women. When I see a woman crying, I want to hold her and soothe her, make her feel safe and comforted. For that reason I tend to date needy women. I enjoy their vulnerability because of sympathy, not sadism. I also enjoy making them feel better”

A female who said she would class herself as a voyeuristic dacryphile said:

“It’s not ALWAYS more pleasurable for the dacryphiliac to cause the tears. I’m a dacryphiliac and I would prefer not to be the one making the other person cry. I’m also a woman, not a dominant man, and comforting the crier is a major part of the fetish for me, as it is for many dacryphiliacs I have interacted with online. Don’t be sad for us – we’re not all sadistic creeps. Just people who have the misfortune to have found that tears are the most arousing stimulus for us. Having realised I cannot change this, I’m learning to accept that I am always going to hope that the protagonist of a film will cry and that my sexual partner’s preferred form of release of frustration is crying. Hopefully you can see that it can actually be pretty harmless and non-sadistic? Fetishes can manifest in many different ways depending on the individual”

The roots of dacryphilia are truely unknown but are likely to be rooted in early conditioning experiences both in the classical and later in the operant conditioning. As this one blogger who is a BDSM submissive and blogs lots on the subject of submission says:

“I wish I could get inside the head of someone with a [dacryphilic] fetish. I’m willing to wager there is an internal struggle between being the protector, and the bully. After all, some of the rawest, and most honest emotions come from dark places; intense pain, or psychological play (like degradation or humiliation – and not in that fun Who’s a dirty whore? way). For many criers, the tears simply will not come until a line has been crossed (as it was put in the Fetlife group ‘willing participants rarely cry’. But there is a difference between shoving someone over the line then pulling them back, and kicking them over that line, then metaphorically kick them when they’re already down. I wonder how easily can the top tell the difference between crying from a good place vs. a bad place, and at the time, do they even care? Do they feel guilt or shame for their arousal at the distress of another? Is this a type of play that requires after care for the top?  What if it’s in a non-sexualized context?”

Now this is where my reason for writing this blog comes from as he says I do have that internal struggle and fight going on in my head during a play session “oh shit shes crying but fuck I am getting hard”.

As with other paraphilic behaviours, it would also appear that some people are very specific in how they are sexually aroused from crying. As one male confessing in an online fetish discussion group said:

“I’m turned on by women who cry with their bottom lip stuck out. I’ve had this weird fetish since I was five. When the bottom lip sticks out, gets bulgy or curls downwards and the chin goes upwards and wrinkles – that’s an immediate turn on. I’ve come across dacryphiliacs who are turned on by tears, or by submission – but for me, it’s about the bottom lip. I’m starting to think I’m the only person on this planet with this problem”

This quote clearly shows how very specific the sexual focus in dacryphilia can be with this it could be indicative of a powerful classically conditioned response as the stimuli for the sexual arousal is so very specific.

Given there is not a single case study in the academic literature, this is a paraphilic behaviour is crying out for research.