Hi all,

Some of you may remember that in 2013 I posted on the forum asking if anyone was interested in taking part in some research into dacryphilia. I ended up with five participants from CryingLovers and three participants from other forums more associated with BDSM interests. After carrying out a number of online interviews, analysing the transcripts and revising my manuscript to a publishable standard, the research has finally been published in the International Journal of Sexual Health:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19317611.2015.1013596#.VaIuR19VhBc

I am happy to email out copies of the paper to anyone that is interested. In the meantime, some members have suggested that I post a summary of the research here. I have focused on the key parts of the analysis, rather than the methodology, but if anyone is interested in the methodology get in touch!

The participant group comprised six women and two men aged from 20 to 50 years old. The majority of participants were from the United States, with one each from the UK, Romania and Belgium. The majority of participants identified as straight/heterosexual/hetero. One participant identified as heteroflexible, one as straight/bicurious and one as pansexual. The analysis suggested that three areas of interest may be relevant to dacryphilic experience: (i) compassion; (ii) dominance/submission; and (iii) curled lips.

Compassion

Compassionate interests were experienced by four women participants and were characterised by the enjoyment or arousal from the compassion of comforting a crier. Participants experiencing this interest defined dacryphilia as comforting and something that they had often experienced since childhood (e.g. with friends, in dreams, with toys). They also emphasised that their experience of dacryphilia was not focused around pain. On the other hand, they defined it in strict opposition to what they understood as sadomasochistic dacryphilia and felt negatively about this form of dacryphilia. These participants also viewed their ability to comfort within dacryphilia as a natural role or duty. For example, they felt that their comforting abilities may be better than those without dacryphilic interests and that they may be able to channel these abilities into a relevant career (e.g. counselling). Finally, most of the participants with compassionate interests highlighted the subversion of norms as important to their interest. In some cases, this was the result of subverting traditional power relations (e.g. seeing a school bully cry), while in other cases this revolved around the subversion of gender norms in male crying.

Dominance/submission

Dominant/submissive interests were experienced by two submissive women and one dominant man. These interests were characterised by the arousal from either causing tears in a consenting submissive individual or from being made to cry by a consenting dominant individual. Although participants with compassionate interests tended to describe these dacryphilic interests as sadomasochistic, I felt that they were better characterised as dominant/submissive. Participants experiencing this interest highlighted the importance of crying being caused by both physical and emotional pain. In addition, they defined crying as a secondary component of their dominant/submissive interests. For example, one participant was primarily aroused by male arousal from her tears, while another participant was primarily aroused by the feeling of surrender to a dominant man.

Curled lips
The remaining participant experienced an interest best characterised by arousal from the curling of the lip during crying. This participant suggested that his interest was rare or perhaps unique, as reflected by his sole interest within the sample. The curled lips interest is focused specifically on the manner in which lips curl as a woman cries. This interest is different to a straightforward lip fetishism, in that it is concerned only with the lips during crying. This could include the protruding, curling, contorting or bulging of the bottom lip during crying.

I hope that the research is of interest to some of you. I am quite keen to hear any feedback or thoughts that you have about the research, so please feel free to leave a comment!

Last edited by Richard Greenhill (July 12, 2015 12:20 pm)