Somnophilia is an under-researched paraphilia. Somnophilia, coined by John Money in 1986, generally refers to a sexual interest in engaging in sexual activity with a sleeping person. Subsequent definitions were broadened to encompass ‘unconscious’ people (e.g., Griffiths, 2014). The definitional waters become further muddied by the terms ‘Sleeping Beauty syndrome’ and ‘sleepysex’.
‘Sleeping Beauty syndrome’ and somnophilia were originally seen as synonymous (Pettigrew, 2017). This overlap may have stemmed from Money’s original definition, as it stated that sexual arousal was dependent upon waking the sleeping party. However, Oeverland (2015) asserted that somnophilia and ‘Sleeping Beauty syndrome’ are distinct interests, with somnophilia referring to a sexual interest in sleeping partners and ‘Sleeping Beauty syndrome’ referring to being sexually aroused by observing a sleeping person wake up during the sexual activity. Somnophilia is also sometimes regarded as being synonymous with sleepysex. However, sleepysex refers to one or both partners being in near-sleep states whilst engaging in sexual behaviors (Moss, 2021). Here, sexual arousal is thought to stem from the intimacy of the interaction. These two additional concepts increase the scope of the term somnophilia, making it unclear as to whether it refers to an interest in sleeping people, waking people up, having sex in a sleepy state, or all of the above.
Using a sample of men and woman recruited from general and somnophilia-focused social media sites, Deehan and Bartels (2021) examined the self-reported interest in being a passive partner during sexual activity (in a consensual context), as well as their use of sexual fantasies involving this scenario. They found that men and women reported an interest in being the passive recipient to an equal degree. They also found that this passive sleep-related sexual interest strongly correlated with the need for sexual submission and the use of masochistic fantasies in both men and women. Deehan and Bartels (2021) termed this sexual interest ‘dormaphilia’, arguing that it was related to, but distinct from, somnophilia.
The lack of research on somnophilia may be due to its perceived and purported rarity (Lauerma, 2016). However, in their sample of 1516 community participants, Joyal et al. (2015) found that 22.6% of men and 10.8% of women reported fantasizing about “sexually abusing a person who is drunk, asleep, or unconscious”. In an online sample of 1036 men and women, Seto et al. (2021) found that the 9% reported an interest in ‘somnophilia’ (which they defined as “Sex with someone who is unconscious or sleeping”) and 7.7% reported having engaged in such behavior. Deehan and Bartels (2021) found that 82% of their sample reported an interest in consensually engaging in sexual activity with a sleeping partner, with 47% reporting a somnophilic interest within a non-consensual context.
Deehan and Bartels (2021) investigated whether somnophilic interest was correlated with an interest in non-consensual sex (i.e., rape proclivity and biastophilic fantasies), among other paraphilias thought to also be linked (e.g., necrophilia, sexual sadism). To do this, Deehan and Bartels (2021) developed the Somnophilic Interest and Proclivity Scale (SIPS), which distinguished between consensual somnophilia and non-consensual somnophilia. They found that a greater rape proclivity (in male participants) and the more frequent use of biastophilic fantasies (in female participants) remained significant independent predictors of non-consensual somnophilia, but not consensual somnophilia. This suggests that the interest in non-consensual somnophilia may be distinct from consensual somnophilia, with the former potentially driven by an interest in non-consensual sex more generally.
Deehan ET, Bartels RM. A Qualitative Exploration of Sleep-Related Sexual Interests: Somnophilia and Dormaphilia. Sex Abuse. 2023 Apr;35(3):288-312. doi: 10.1177/10790632221098359. Epub 2022 May 4. PMID: 35507729; PMCID: PMC10041567.