ABSTRACT

Telephone scatologia, also referred to as acoustic voyeurism, verbal exhibitionism, verbal sexual abuse, telephone scatophilia, telephonicophilia, or quite simply obscene phone calls (OPC), is a paraphilia in which the caller obtains sexual arousal or gratication by making or listening to sexual remarks. It is also considered a nonvisual analogue of exposing.1 The Oxford Dictionary of Psychology denes telephone scatologia as “a paraphilia characterized by recurrent sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behavior involving making obscene telephone calls to a non-consenting recipient.”2 The term scatologia is derived from the Greek word, skato, for “dung” and logos for “speech”; telephone scatologia thus literally means “dirty talking through the phone.” In a modern era of communication, obscenities can be conveyed through the internet, SMSs, and other means of communications. Pakhomou1 asserts that though every telephone (or internet) scatologia is obscene calling (or communicating), not every obscene call is a scatologia. So-called crank calls often have nothing to do with sexual excitation and gratication and do not constitute scatologia.