aquaphilia

From aqua- +‎ -philia, from Latin aqua (“water”) + Ancient Greek φιλία (philía, “love, affection”). Literally: “love of water”.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈækwɐˈfɪliə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɑkwəˈfɪlia/

aquaphilia (uncountable)

1. (sexuality) A sexual attraction to general imagery of people in water, sexual acts in water, or watery environments.

   Synonym: hydrophilia

   • 2010, Alexis Munier, The Big Black Book of Very Dirty Words, F+W Media, →ISBN:

     aquaphilia, n. sexual fetish involving water or swimming; American The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition is my favorite — I love those underwater aquaphilia shots.

   • 2013, Kaustav Chakraborty (Ed.), Indian Texts & Representations: Destereotyped Perspectives, Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, →ISBN, page 116:

     ...aquaphilia fetishism (showing women as swimming or in swimming suits, introduction of the character in the rain, waterfalls, river, sea etc to emphasis the body contour)...

   • 2024, Mark Griffiths, Sexual Perversions and Paraphilias: An A to Z, Curtis Press, →ISBN:

     ... aquaphilia (a.k.a. "hydrophilia" a paraphilia in which individuals derive sexual pleasure and arousal from water and / or watery environments including bathtubs or swimming pools).

2. (neurology) A compulsive desire for water.

   Synonyms: hydrophilia, luneurosis, thirst

   • 1963, United States Congress, United States Senate, United States Committee on Government Operations, Interagency Coordination in Drug Research and Regulation: Testimony and exhibits (including subsequent correspondence) on: 1) Commission on Drug safety; 2) Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association; 3) Medical education on drug therapy and other drug issues, U.S. Government Printing Office:

     Lunacol was developed for the treatment of the astronauts' syndrome, luneurosis, a compulsive desire for water, or aquaphilia, and a wish to swim like a fish.

   • 1974, Marshall I. Goldman, “The Spoils of Progress: Environmental Pollution in the Soviet Union”, in Technology and Culture, volume 15, Johns Hopkins University Press, →ISSN, pages 125-127:

     Stalin's "aquaphilia", which required the damming up of every body of water for purposes of generating electricity, also left visible and invisible scars on the ecological map.

3. (biology, sociology) The biological and societal attraction to water.

   Synonym: hydrophilia

   • 2009, Rupert D. V. Glasgow, The Concept of Water, R. Glasgow Books, →ISBN, page 42:

     Yet while the western world has thus unlearnt the innate aquaphilia of its ancestors, there are other cultures said to maintain this unity. Observing the natural affinity for water of the Polynesians, Herman Melville wrote: "No wonder that the South Sea Islanders are an amphibious race when they are thus launched into water as soon as they see the light. I am convinced that it is as natural for a human being to swim as it is for a duck, and yet in civilized communities how many able bodied individuals die like so many drowning kittens from the occurrence of the most trivial accidents."

   • 2015, Hope Hui Rising, “Water urbanism: Building more coherent cities”, in University of Oregon ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, University of Oregon:

     I performed content analyses, regression analyses, path analyses, and mediation analyses to study the relationships of 1) pictorial aquaphilia (intrinsic attachment to safe and clean water scenes) and waterscape imageability, 2) waterscape imageability and the coherence of city image, 3) egocentric aquaphilia (attachment to water-based spatial anchors) and allocentric aquaphilia (attachment to water centric cities), and 4) the coherence of city image, allocentric aquaphilia, and openness towards water-coherent urbanism.

   • 2022, Huangjie Ding, Chen Yan, Cheng Fang, Shijie Zhang, Yuanhao Lv, “Improvement Strategies of Flood Control Landscape in Suburban Villages and Towns from the Perspective of Aquaphilia and Livability.”, in Journal of Landscape Research, volume 14, number 6, →DOI, page 40:

     In order to explore the improvement strategies of flood control landscape integrating water ecology, water safety, water culture and water landscape, the Luozhou Ancient Town by the Wulong River in Fuzhou City was taken as an example, and the concept of pluralistic symbiosis from the perspective of aquaphilia and livability was proposed through field investigation, data monitoring, site analysis and planning, that is, while retaining the positive attributes of "boundary", its negative limitation of "pluralistic" space is broken, so as to establish a pluralistic and symbiotic environment with aquaphilia and livability.

• aquaphobia