Scat Fetish

Coprophilia (also called coprolagnia or scatophilia, and known colloquially as scat) is a sexual interest in feces or in the act of defecation. It belongs to the small family of excretory paraphilias and, alongside related interests such as urophilia and klismaphilia, is captured in modern diagnostic systems only as an instance of a residual category, and only when it causes distress, impairment, or harm to a non-consenting person. This article documents the interest strictly descriptively: its history, classification, proposed psychology, rarity, and very real health hazards. It contains no instructional content of any kind.

Definition & scope

Coprophilia is sexual arousal attached to feces or defecation. It is distinct from, though sometimes discussed beside, coprophagia (the ingestion of feces, which appears in some psychiatric and neurological contexts unrelated to sexuality) and from an interest in urine. In the small taxonomy of excretory paraphilias, the arousal is directed at the material or the act itself, often within a broader interest in taboo, power exchange, or degradation rather than as an isolated preference.

Examples

What the term covers. Arousal attaching to faeces themselves, to the act of defecation, or to the taboo status of both — most often described within a wider frame of power exchange, degradation or humiliation rather than as an isolated preference. The clinical term covers the interest wherever it sits on that range, whether it stays entirely in fantasy and imagery or is acted on. No acts are described here.

What it does not cover. Coprophagia, the ingestion of faeces, is a separate phenomenon that turns up in psychiatric and neurological contexts with no sexual component at all. Watersports (urolagnia) is the urine-focused interest, enema fetish (klismaphilia) centres on the procedure and the internal sensation rather than on the material, and fart fetish (eproctophilia) on flatulence. Anilingus and anal play are ordinary sexual practices, not interests in faeces, though the first shares part of this entry's infection profile. Mysophilia attaches to dirt and soiled items, salirophilia to messing up a partner's appearance, and wet and messy play to harmless substances chosen precisely because they are harmless.

How the word is used. Scat is vernacular and is the form almost everyone outside a clinic uses; in adult-media labelling it is applied loosely and often covers content the clinical term would not. Coprophilia, coprolagnia and scatophilia are the clinical synonyms. None of them is a diagnosis on its own: DSM-5-TR names coprophilia only as an example under a residual category and ICD-11 gives it no code.

History & origins

The founding era of sexology

The excretory paraphilias were among the variants catalogued at the birth of sexual science. Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), the medico-legal textbook that coined sadism and masochism and gave the clinical sense of fetishism, surveyed among its case histories arousal attached to excrement and other taboo bodily material, situating it within his pathologising survey of "perversions." Havelock Ellis's Studies in the Psychology of Sex (from 1897) and the later sexological literature carried such interests forward as documented but rare phenomena.

The clinical vocabulary

The terminology is Greek-derived. As set out on Wikipedia's Coprophilia article, coprophilia joins kópros ("dung, excrement") with -philia ("liking, fondness"); the variant coprolagnia pairs kópros with lagneia ("lust"); and the synonym scatophilia derives from the Greek skatá ("feces"). A 2024 literature review, Coprophilia and Coprophagia: A Literature Review (Arnone, Conti & Preckajlo), consolidates this scattered clinical record.

From perversion to residual diagnosis

Across the twentieth century these terms migrated from descriptive sexology into formal psychiatric nosology, then, like most consensual kinks, were progressively de-emphasised as standalone pathologies. In the DSM-5-TR (2022) coprophilia has no dedicated code; it is one of the named examples (alongside telephone scatologia, necrophilia, zoophilia, klismaphilia and urophilia) listed under Other Specified Paraphilic Disorder, the residual category that replaced DSM-IV-TR's "Paraphilia NOS." A diagnosis requires the interest to be recurrent and intense over at least six months and to cause marked distress or functional impairment, or to involve a non-consenting person: the consensual interest alone is not a disorder. The ICD-11 treats the field similarly, reserving the diagnostic label for interests that involve distress or non-consenting others.

In practice

Reported manifestations are uncommon and, where described in non-clinical contexts, occur within established consensual adult relationships; in clinical settings the interest is sometimes noted in association with other conditions. Because every route by which the interest could be enacted involves contact with faeces, the infection hazard set out below applies to all of it rather than to any particular variant. Consistent with this entry's educational, non-explicit purpose, no acts are described.

Psychology

No single cause is established and the literature is thin. Proposed frameworks include associative learning and early conditioning; the symbolic charge of the forbidden, in which the most strongly tabooed material becomes the most arousing precisely because it is transgressive; and, in some clinical presentations, broader psychopathology. Excretory interests frequently co-occur with power-exchange, degradation or humiliation dynamics rather than standing alone, which is why they are often discussed beside sadism, masochism and humiliation play. The related-but-distinct interest in flatulence (eproctophilia) was documented in a 2013 case study by Mark Griffiths, illustrating how sparse and case-based the evidence on excretory paraphilias remains.

Prevalence & culture

How common is coprophilia?

It is genuinely rare. In the large online-community analysis by Scorolli et al. (2007), body-fluid and excretion interests together accounted for only about 9% of body-part fetishes, and feces is a small minority within even that slice. The most-cited specific figure comes from a clinical sub-population rather than the general public: a Finnish study of 164 sadomasochistically-oriented men found 18.2% reported having engaged in coprophilia, with no significant difference between heterosexual and homosexual participants. That number reflects an unusually selected SM-club sample, not population prevalence. Despite its tiny community footprint, the interest carries disproportionate named clinical visibility because it is an established term in paraphilia taxonomies. Mainstream cultural visibility is low and largely confined to its use as a byword for extreme taboo.

Safety, consent & law

The defining hazard is infection, and it is not a theoretical one. Faeces are the transmission route for a long list of enteric pathogens — bacteria including E. coli, Shigella, Salmonella and Campylobacter, viruses including hepatitis A, and a range of intestinal parasites — and this is the same faecal–oral route behind foodborne and waterborne outbreaks. Any oral or mucosal contact can therefore transmit serious illness, some of it hospitalising, some of it passed onward to household contacts who consented to nothing. Nothing removes this risk: washing, barriers, a healthy-looking partner and a monogamous relationship all leave it in place, because a person can shed pathogens without symptoms. Vaccination exists against hepatitis A but covers none of the bacterial or parasitic hazards. This, and not the taboo, is why the entry carries an extreme-risk flag. Where consensual adult activity occurs it demands fully informed consent and clear-eyed awareness of these risks. Clinically, the interest is a disorder only when it causes significant distress or impairment, or involves someone who cannot consent. Legally it is permissible between consenting adults in private, but is unlawful where it involves a minor, a non-consenting person, or public exposure, and public-health regulations may apply.