Girls on the Pull

This morning's Daily Mail features a story about trichotillomania - also known as tricho and TTM - and briefly comments on the sexual aspects of this condition.

Known as trichotillophilia, women and men both can find pleasure in having their hair pulled or pulling someone's hair. Just watch any naked mud wrestling match and you'll soon see this at play. Of course there are sites devoted to hair pulling porn, too.

While many fetishes are equal opportunity, it seems that this one's more weighted in a woman's favour. She gets the BDSM thrill of being the incapacitated submissive. She gets all of the endorphins from each hair pulled, too.

Josie, a 24-year-old barmaid from North London, gushes: "I love getting my hair pulled during sex! Rough sex is so hot and I've found that it can make you more comfortable with your partner both in and out of the bedroom."

A Hairy Situation

Sky News reported Friday of an Australian baggage handler who was jailed for stealing hair from female passengers' luggage.

Quantas employee Robert Lyle Peterson, 30, admitted fifty counts of theft and Victorian County Court heard that he suffered from a range of sexual deviances.

Trichophilia refers to the family of hair fetishes, including: hirsutophilia (armpit hair), gynelophilious and pubephilia (pubic hair) and tripsolagnia (hair touching or washing).

Office Manager Jim has had a hair fetish since he was 11. While he tells me many heterosexual male hair fetishists are into long hair, some are into the manipulation or even removal of hair.

The 48-year-old explains: "I get a real buzz from seeing a woman's hair sheared off with electric clippers. There's nothing like the look of an attractive woman with a freshly shaved head and the feeling of my fingers on a bare scalp is out of this world."

I imagine that Britney Spears' close shave at an L.A. Hairdressers in early February would have been quite exciting for fetishists with a similar interest.

Unlike some 'philias', hair fetishes aren't restricted by gender or sexual orientation. Set your mind back to the '80's and think of women fawning over a topless Tom Selleck playing Magnum P.I. Many websites on the internet are devoted to men who are excited by the prospect of sex with a big hairy bear hunk.

Unfortunately for some men with this fetish, stealing must be resorted to in order to fulfil their urges. Many cases are on record of men who are arrested for either stealing hair or cutting off strangers' hair.