Define somnophilia

Somnophilia refers to the interest in having sex with a sleeping person. Using an online sample of participants, the present study provides the first empirical examination of somnophilia, its various forms, and define somnophilia correlates.

Somnophilia is a condition in which one experiences sexual arousal by someone unconscious. It is a type of paraphilia; a sexual interest in uncommon objects, people, or situations. A person with somnophilia may attempt to cause an unconscious state by drugging their victim, or by taking advantage of an individual who is intoxicated or in a deep sleep. A person with somnophilia is ultimately aroused by the fact that their sexual partner is unable to oppose their advances. Symptoms of somnophilia include frequent thoughts and excessive fantasizing while thinking about or when near those who are unconscious or unresponsive. Other symptoms of somnophilia include overt sexual desire and sexual behavior with the unconscious.

Define somnophilia

Regret for the inconvenience: we are taking measures to prevent fraudulent form submissions by extractors and page crawlers. Olav's University Hospital, Norway. Received: February 01, Published: August 20, Citation: Oeverland S. Somnophilia and the sleeping beauty syndrome - the unknown patterns of arousal. J Psychol Clin Psychiatry. DOI: Download PDF. Both Somnophilia and the Sleeping Beauty syndrome are scarcely described in literature. The term is sometimes used synonymously with Somnophilia, but usually refers to the arousal depending on, or being increased by, the sleeping person waking up during the sexual contact. It is debatable whether sexual health is a part of mental health, or whether sexual, mental and somatic health should be viewed as three equal areas.

For example, it may be more closely linked to the need for control and dominance.

This has been repeatedly likened to the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, where the prince wakes up the princess with a kiss. But is this a true reflection of somnophilia? Somnophilia has been theorised to lie along a continuum with necrophilia due to the passivity of the target individual Pettigrew, Deehan and Bartels recently examined this proposed link empirically. They found that, in community-based male participants, fantasising about somnophilic behaviour and necrophilic behaviour were positively correlated. That is, if somnophilia is a form of pseudonecrophilia, arousal cannot stem solely from the sleeping partner awakening. This bears a similarity to other paraphilias that have a seemingly complementary opposite e.

Posted June 27, Reviewed by Ekua Hagan. According to the current and fifth versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5 , a paraphilia is an intense or persistent sexual interest in something other than "genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically normal, physically mature, consenting human partners. Common paraphilias are fetishism, or a preference for specific body parts or inanimate objects such as safety pins — see my post "The Man Who Loved Safety Pins" ; voyeurism, which involves spying on others in private activities; and exhibitionism, or exposing genitals. Another rare paraphilia is somnophilia, also known as " sleeping beauty syndrome. In a case study of a man with somnophilia published by Swiss psychiatrist Francesco Bianchi-Demicheli and his colleagues in , a link was made between this paraphilia and a childhood brain injury. Jim, a year-old man, arrived at an emergency psychiatric unit after physically assaulting his wife. His relationship with his wife had been strained for several years because over time he had developed "a particular and progressive sexual deviant behaviour": He felt sexually aroused by sleeping women, and liked to attend to their hands and nails while they slept and give them a manicure. During the initial years of his marriage , he was able to control these fantasies but, the case study reports, "over the years he lost control of his sexual urges" and acted on them.

Define somnophilia

Posted October 12, Reviewed by Abigail Fagan. Somnophilia refers to a sexual interest in which someone is turned on by the idea of having sex with a person who is sleeping —or being asleep and receiving sexual attention from someone else. A recent study sought to explore how interest in different forms of somnophilia consensual vs. One of the questions the researchers explored was whether there is a potential connection between somnophilia specifically, the kind that involves taking on an active role with a non-consenting partner and necrophilia a sexual interest in dead people.

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When asked if they had ever fantasized about having sex with someone who was asleep somnophilic fantasies or being the recipient of sex whilst they themselves were asleep dormaphilic fantasies , 33 As such, the findings may only pertain to a particular subsample of people with somnophilic and dormaphilic interests. Rather, many participants emphasized the importance of acquiring consent and having a trusting relationship with their partner. References Bianchi-Demicheli, F. View Help Index. The nature of this paraphilia is, therefore, interesting as it reflects a behavior enacted by someone else upon the person with the interest. A visual representation of the themes and subthemes identified in this study. Some participants mentioned that a lack of consent was an appealing feature of their fantasies. Knowing the passive person lacks awareness could even be a source of arousal in and of itself, which the sleep state enables similar to wearing a blindfold, wherein the active person enjoys performing actions that the blindfolded person is not fully aware of due to their lack of sight. The mean age was Dormaphilia Of those participants who reported dormaphilic fantasies, 0. Treatment Options for Somnophilia Treatment is usually unnecessary unless the behavior is deemed criminal or injurious, or if legal trouble results. These six themes were then examined by the research team and grouped into three broader superordinate themes see Supplementary Materials for a breakdown of the specific codes and frequencies of each code across the identified superordinate and subordinate themes. Regarding the participants who fantasised about somnophilia, Deehan and Bartels in prep observed an even split across the sample in terms of preferring the passive person awakening or remaining asleep. Sex in the Brain.

Somnophilia is a condition in which one experiences sexual arousal by someone unconscious. It is a type of paraphilia; a sexual interest in uncommon objects, people, or situations.

Sleep Essential Reads. The remaining participants did not provide this information. Thus, while this study provides some insight into the potential link between somnophilia and offence-related factors e. DOI: No further amendments were made, and no further higher-level themes were identified. It should be noted that some participants reported using both types of sleep-related fantasies. During the initial years of his marriage , he was able to control these fantasies but, the case study reports, "over the years he lost control of his sexual urges" and acted on them. The findings indicated that there is split between those who wish to remain asleep during the sexual activity and those who wish to wake up. Participants who reported dormaphilic fantasies also mentioned a lack of communication with their partner Somnophilia: Examining its various forms and associated constructs. This resulted in the identification of six themes with an underlying meaning that was relevant across both subsamples. However, for the purposes of this paper, only the qualitative findings are reported. Also in this area, online pornography has a possible overlapping role. Sexual arousal specifically for rape is classified as Biastophilia.