Sexual interest as performance, intellect and pathology: A critical discursive case study of dacryphilia

Abstract

The present study depicts the case of Angela M, a straight Romanian woman in her mid-twenties who has a sexual interest in dacryphilia (i.e. she derives sexual pleasure and arousal from crying and/or tears). Asynchronous email interviews were carried out with Angela M between January 2013 and February 2013 as part of a wider study into dacryphilia. Angela M’s interview transcripts comprised rich textual accounts that often made reference to cultural phenomena. Therefore, we apply critical discursive psychology to her data and identify the interpretative repertoires, subject positions, and ideological dilemmas that she uses to construct and negotiate her sexual identity. Our analysis suggests that Angela M draws predominantly upon two interpretative repertoires that construct her sexual interest in dacryphilia both as a performance and as an intellectual activity. Concurrently, Angela M also constructs her sexual interest as a pathology. We argue that these apparent contradictory discursive practices in fact hold a similar function in legitimising Angela M’s sexual interest in dacryphilia.

Keywords:

• dacryphilia
• non-normative sexual interests
• crying
• discursive psychology
• online research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard Greenhill

Richard Greenhill is a research assistant at the University of East London. During his postgraduate study at Nottingham Trent University, he carried out online research into the non-normative sexual interest of dacryphilia and recently completed a project examining women bloggers’ accounts of non-violent protest in the West Bank of Palestine.

Mark D. Griffiths

Dr. Mark Griffiths is a professor of Behavioural Addiction at Nottingham Trent University and director of the International Gaming Research Unit. He is internationally known for his work into behavioural addictions. He has published over 600 refereed research papers, five books, 140+ book chapters and over 1000 other articles. He has won 16 national/international awards for his work, including the US National Council on Problem Gambling Lifetime Research Award (2013).