feel vulnerable. Explanations Psychology views sadism and masochism as interchangeable, with voyeurism and exhibitionism as their respective aspects. Devotees' observation-based behavior and preference for display-minded partners seem to support explanations 2 to 4. Devotee pornography tends to display the appearance of disability across a range of activities rather than focus on sexual situations. Recent neuroscientific research suggests that apotemnophilia has a neurological basis. Sexological Contemporary sexology does not consider the attraction problematic unless exercising it infringes the rights of one of the parties and/or those of third parties. Explanations include: Imprinting or the influence of influential events on behaviour. Encountering visibly disabled people in childhood awakes strong emotions which may give rise to quasi-logical reasoning and a desire for people with the type of trauma encountered. Care received during hospital stays may awaken a wish to become disabled (as a way of ensuring continuous care), later projected onto others. Freud is credited with discovering conditioning ("imprinting" in sexology) in the context of fetishism; Implied parental approval: if, on encountering someone disabled, a future DPW's parents express admiration, the child may conclude that disability inspires regard, later ranking it among sexual preferences. This is among explanations mentioned by Dr John Money in Lovemaps; Flight from pressure: strict parenting and/or onerous peer environments may cause the future devotee to seek respite in sickness and disability. With time, the wish to become disabled is "projected" onto others. The analogy with Munchausen Syndrome (simulating or inducing illness as a route to compassion and benefits) here is reasonably clear in wannabes. In them, projection has failed, leaving them to see themselves as more attractive if disabled. The fact that most DPWs feel the attraction since childhood also backs the above explanations. There are also suggestions that there are more DPWs in America, Europe, and the Far East due to specific parent/peer-driven achievement models there. This is another explanation mentioned in Lovemaps; Inferiority complex causing projection: DPWs may have been made to feel inferior in childhood and may project their ambitions onto disabled people, who perforce have to overcome many barriers; 'Darwinism': DPWs see disabled people as proven in natural selection, having cheated death and overcome adversity; The unknown: children experience fascination with and fear of the unknown when encountering a disabled person. As adolescents, they may experience similar emotions when first approaching the opposite sex. This fascination with alienness may become associated with arousal over