Hello.  I'm a middle aged woman who has , since the age of about 6, and possibly younger than that, had an obsession with crying, and there's often an erotic aspect to my attraction to it. 

I find it very hard to cry myself (unless I'm alone, and even then it's not that easy), and I think what happens a lot is I project my own desire /need to experience emotional release through tears (which I think are the most powerful form of emotional release) onto other people and feel a kind of release myself when they cry, particularly if it's a man I find attractive.   Sometimes I feel myself even tear up a little, though getting tears to fall is rare unless I'm alone.

I seriously can't believe there's a community dedicated to this, since it seems so rare and most people do not find crying at all attractive (which is hard for me to understand, since I find it incredibly beautiful).  

So anyway, here's a little about me. 

My first memory of this obsession with tears was when I was around 5 or 6.  I had a baby doll who shed tears when you filled her up with water and squeezed her belly.   I remember watching the huge tears squeeze out of her beautiful blue plastic eyes and running down her cheeks and felt a sensation I can only describe now as aroused (but couldn't have named it back then). AlsoI felt  touched, however much a 5 or 6 year old could feel touched. Again, I could put no name to this strange but pleasant emotion. 

As I grew into adolescence I found myself becoming very excited when I saw an attractive boy cry and since I was considered a "hot" teenager, I got a lot of dates.   I'd always try to make them cry.  Not  by being sadistic though-- in fact the last thing I wanted to do was hurt anyone, especially a boy I was crushing on, but I wanted to somehow elicit tears through other means in order to experience the beautiful rush of being able to gaze at his crying face and comfort him.   It was incredibly arousing when it happened but of course it wasn't the easiest thing to accomplish!   I did find tricks, though.   I found these are the most effective ways to get a man to cry. 
1.  making him go to or watch a movie with me that was emotional, touching or sad.  War and sports movies are a VERY good method of getting a normally non-emotional male to cry, BTW.  Somehow, sports and wartime are things in which it's considered "manly" to shed tears.    
2.  make him talk about a dead or dying pet he loved.  The comfort him when he cries. 
3.  make him talk about a dying relative he was close to 
4.  Less effective(because it's considered less manly) but still works sometimes: make him talk about an ex lover who dumped him and be very, very empathetic. Of course, all these things become easier after the guy has learned to trust you.  Show him you're a supportive, empathetic person and he'll bawl in your arms before you know it. 
5.  sometimes music can do it.  Pay attention to the music he says make him emotional, then play the song for him.   It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does. 
6.  Cry in front of them (if they care about you it will have an affect).  Obviously, for someone like me so emotionally shut off this isn't always an option.  

This all seems very manipulative, and I guess it is, but there's no sadistic intentions and no desire to hurt him.  You just want him to get emotional and show you his tears so you can comfort him, or in a best case scenario, actually shed tears together.  

Although I am not gay, I'm also attracted to the sight of beautiful women crying.   Some women cry in a very pretty way (I'm not one of them, unfortunately) and look almost radiant with tears on their cheeks and in their eyes.  
I'm more attracted to abundant tears than full on sobbing.  The sight of copious tears streaming down cheeks (either male or female)  coupled with stoic silence and maybe a slight trembling of the lip is the most attractive to me. There's an element of dignity combined with vulnerability about that which I find utterly beautiful and moving. 

I used to watch reality shows just to be able to watch certain contestants shed tears on national television, which usually happened when they were eliminated and/or won.  Happy/sad tears didn't matter, just the fact the contestant was crying.   I felt very moved and protective of them.

I'm also fascinated by my own crying, when I do it, which isn't often enough.    I'm in therapy right now, and I am going to get to this in more detail in a minute, but one of my goals in therapy is full on sobbing in front of my therapist, not because it's arousing to me (though I think it would be), but because I have so many emotional blockages and have trouble expressing my emotions to others (I have avoidant personality disorder and PTSD). 
As rare as dacrophilia appears to be, it seems even rarer for someone to be attracted to/aroused by their OWN tears!  Has anyone else experienced this?

I'm even attracted to words and certain phrases associated with crying.   This is hard to explain.  I love to write, and often find myself incorporating crying scenes into my writing.   Of course I have to be careful with this, especially in love or sex scenes, that I don't fall into  "purple prose" territory which tends to happen to writers when they try to combine a scene of romantic or sexual intimacy with emotional vulnerability and crying.   Only the very best writers can do this without seeming maudlin or making readers want to puke.   But sometimes I write such passages for my eyes only.  Or read other people's work that has such scenes or where crying is described using words having particular beauty and poignancy to me.   

I mentioned before I'm currently in therapy for avoidant personality disorder, anxiety, depression, and PTSD.   I can't believe how much I lucked out on finding my therapist, a male a few years older than me.  My therapist is a psychodynamic therapist who uses a technique called Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which requires a therapist to be very empathetic and able to "model" emotions to help clients like me who have trouble naming/expressing emotion s be able to become more in touch with their own.   I was shocked to read several articles that said crying is not only okay in many therapies such as EFT, it is desireable--BY THE THERAPIST!
 
I didn't choose my therapist because he used EFT, I chose him because he treated people with trauma-based disorders. Six weeks into therapy, he has cried several times in front of me  (not sobbing, nothing over the top, but there were tears) because he empathizes with emotions I'm struggling to bring to the surface and can't express well yet.  He's using his empathetic emotions to try to get me to cry.  He asks me how I feel about that when he does, and I'm always so floored i just sit there slightly embarrassed (but utterly elated) and go, "uhhhhhhh....."  Then I go home and feel like I've won the lottery.  

Because of his high empathy and willingness to express his own emotions TO HELP ME feel my own feelings, I've developed a STRONG transference toward him, which basically is like limerence without the sexual aspect (well there IS a sexual aspect but it's minor).   I have fantasies in which I lay my head on his chest and we cry together.  I know right now, I would be mortified to actually DO that, but it's my fantasy.   I haven't told him this, it's too embarrassing that I fantasize about it all the time...BUT IT'S EXACTLY WHAT HE IS TRYING TO GET ME TO DO.  I find that so exciting.   He understands how moving and beautiful (and important) emotional vulnerability is and that in itself sometimes makes ME want to cry out of the sheer beauty if it...when I'm alone sometimes a few of my own tears escape.  I don't know if that makes much sense, but it's the best way I can explain it.

Anyway I've rambled on long enough, but I can't tell you how happy (and relieved) I am I found this forum.  I always thought I was the only one in the world who felt this way about crying. 
God, it feels SO good to be able to actually TALK about this...

Last edited by Lauren (January 2, 2016 12:42 am)