You know, just good ol’ fashioned leisure reading about Body Integrity Identity Disorder and the not-so-much talked about sexual component:

…the body is not a monolithic given. However, the plurality of the body does not imply that different bodily dimensions stand in a hierarchical and static organisation of implicit and explicit levels. Explicit and implicit bodily dimensions are rather governed by two-way interactions. Body image and body schema, for example, are not hierarchically arranged, but stand in a relation of mutual influence between what is implicit and what is explicit. These findings make it likely that body image and sexual schema also stand in a reciprocal relation, making the diagram more complex, but also more dynamical.

It are these complex and dynamical interactions between sexual schema, objective body and body image that stand out in the case of paraphilic preferences with fetisjist behaviour. (via)

Oh, remember that 2002 case I talked about before? Totally relevant. Brang, McGoech and V.S. Ramachandran in 2008, stated that “apotemnophilia, like somatoparaphrenia, is caused by dysfunction of the right parietal lobe leading to a distorted body image and a desire for an amputation of one or more limbs.” 

This is supported by Hilti and Brugger (2010) who say, “BIID has a neurological basis, in that it is due to a disturbed integration of multisensory limb information into a coherent cerebral representation of one’s own body as whole, especially in the right superior parietal lobule.” (via) A big deal, since this was most commonly thought of as a psychiatric condition. 

…exploring such curious conditions that stand in the hinterland between neurology and psychiatry may provide key insights into the question of how neural activity gives rise to mental phenomena. (via) 

…and why certain things turn us on.

 H/T Dr. James Cantor