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) and contains no instructional content of any kind.

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, 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 broader 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, feces") 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. 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 sadomasochism 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

Coprophilia 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 that slice. The most-cited specific figure comes from a clinical sub-population, not 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) a number that 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. Feces are a major vector for enteric and bloodborne pathogens (bacteria such as E. coli, Shigella and Salmonella, hepatitis A, and a range of parasites) so any oral or mucosal contact carries a real risk of serious illness and disease transmission; this is the basis for the entry's 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.