Abasiophilia is a psychosexual attraction to people with impaired mobility, especially those who use orthopaedic appliances such as leg braces, orthopedic cast

Orthopedic cast

An orthopedic cast, body cast or surgical cast, is a shell, frequently made from plaster, encasing a limb to hold a broken bone in place until healing is confirmed...

s, or wheelchair

Wheelchair

A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, designed to be a replacement for walking. The device comes in variations where it is propelled by motors or by the seated occupant turning the rear wheels by hand. Often there are handles behind the seat for someone else to do the pushing...

s. The term abasiophilia was first used by John Money

John Money

John William Money was a psychologist, sexologist and author, specializing in research into sexual identity and biology of gender...

 of the Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

 in a paper on paraphilia

Paraphilia

Paraphilia is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative stimulation and that may cause distress or serious problems for the paraphiliac or persons associated with him or her...

s in 1990.

In popular culture

Abasiophilia plays a prominent role in the Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. His books, which have been translated into 36 languages, have garnered him many awards...

 novel The Scarecrow, in which a serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

 is motivated by abasiophilia.

See also

• Abasiophilia Information website
• Attraction to disability
  Attraction to disability
  Attraction to disability is a sexualised interest of people in the appearance, sensation and experience of disability. It may extend from normal human sexuality into a type of sexual fetishism...
  
  
• Medical fetishism
  Medical fetishism
  Medical fetishism refers to a collection of sexual fetishes for objects, practices, environments, and situations of a medical or clinical nature....
  
  
• Crash (1996 film)
  Crash (1996 film)
  Crash is a 1996 Canadian/British drama thriller film written and directed by David Cronenberg based on the J. G. Ballard 1973 novel of the same name. It tells the story of a group of people who take sexual pleasure from car accidents, a notable form of paraphilia. The film generated considerable...
  
  
• Quid Pro Quo
  Quid Pro Quo
  Quid Pro Quo is a film written and directed by Carlos Brooks, starring Nick Stahl, Vera Farmiga, Pablo Schreiber, and Kate Burton. The film was released at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and scheduled for release on 13 June 2008....
  
  (2008 film)