Research has shown that paraphilias are rarely observed in women. However, there have been some studies on females with paraphilias. Sexual masochism has been found to be the most commonly observed paraphilia in women, with approximately 1 in 20 cases of sexual masochism being female.

Many acknowledge the scarcity of research on female paraphilias. The majority of paraphilia studies are conducted on people who have been convicted of sex crimes. Since the number of male convicted sex offenders far exceeds the number of female convicted sex offenders, research on paraphilic behavior in women is consequently lacking. Some researchers argue that an underrepresentation exists concerning pedophilia in females. Due to the low number of women in studies on pedophilia, most studies are based from "exclusively male samples". This likely underrepresentation may also be attributable to a "societal tendency to dismiss the negative impact of sexual relationships between young boys and adult women". Michele Elliott has done extensive research on child sexual abuse committed by females, publishing the book "Female Sexual Abuse of Children: The Last Taboo" in an attempt to challenge the gender-biased discourse surrounding sex crimes. John Hunsley states that physiological limitations in the study of female sexuality must also be acknowledged when considering research on paraphilias. He states that while a man's sexual arousal can be directly measured from his erection (see penile plethysmograph), a woman's sexual arousal cannot be measured as clearly (see vaginal photoplethysmograph), and therefore research concerning female sexuality is rarely as conclusive as research on men.

The prevalence of fetishism is not known with certainty. The majority of fetishists are male. In a 2011 study, 30% of men reported fetishistic fantasies, and 24.5% had engaged in fetishistic acts. Of those reporting fantasies, 45% said the fetish was intensely sexually arousing. In a 2014 study, 26.3% of women and 27.8% of men acknowledged any fantasies about "having sex with a fetish or non-sexual object". A content analysis of the sample's favorite fantasies found that 14% of the male fantasies involved fetishism (including feet, nonsexual objects, and specific clothing), and 4.7% focused on a specific body part other than feet. None of the women's favorite fantasies had fetishistic themes. Another study found that 28% of men and 11% of women reported fetishistic arousal (including feet, fabrics, and objects "like shoes, gloves, or plush toys"). 18% of men in a 1980 study reported fetishistic fantasies.

Fetishism to the extent that it becomes a disorder appears to be rare, with less than 1% of general psychiatric patients presenting fetishism as their primary problem. It is also uncommon in forensic populations.

Fetishism usually becomes evident during puberty, and may develop prior to that. No cause for fetishism has been conclusively established.

Some explanations invoke classical conditioning. In several experiments, men have been conditioned to show arousal to stimuli like boots, geometric shapes or penny jars by pairing these cues with conventional erotica. According to John Bancroft, conditioning alone cannot explain fetishism, because it does not result in fetishism for most people. He suggests that conditioning combines with some other factor, such as an abnormality in the sexual learning process.

Theories of sexual imprinting propose that humans learn to recognize sexually desirable features and activities during childhood. Fetishism could result when a child is imprinted with an overly narrow or "incorrect" concept of a sex object. Imprinting seems to occur during the child's earliest experiences with arousal and desire, and is based on "an egocentric evaluation of salient reward- or pleasure-related characteristics that differ from one individual to another."

Neurological differences may play a role in some cases. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran observed that the region processing sensory input from the feet lies immediately next to the region processing genital stimulation, and suggested an accidental link between these regions could explain the prevalence of foot fetishism. In one unusual case, an anterior temporal lobectomy relieved an epileptic man's fetish for safety pins.

Various explanations have been put forth for the rarity of female fetishists. Most fetishes are visual in nature, and males are thought to be more sexually sensitive to visual stimuli. Roy Baumeister suggests that male sexuality is unchangeable, except for a brief period in childhood during which fetishism could become established, while female sexuality is fluid throughout life.

Spectrophilia is a fetish that is classified as the paraphilia in which one is attracted to ghosts or spirits. Spectrophiliacs fantasize about ghosts and often imagine scenarios involving sexual events between themselves or others and spirits.

Some types of BDSM play include, but are not limited to:

- Animal roleplay

- Bondage

- Breast torture

- Cock and ball torture (CBT)

- Erotic electrostimulation

- Edgeplay

- Flogging

- Golden showers (urinating)

- Human furniture

- Japanese bondage

- Medical play

- Paraphilic infantilism

- Predicament bondage

- Pussy torture

- Sexual roleplay

- Spanking

- Suspension

- Torture

- Tickle torture

- Wax play

Macrophilia is a fascination with or a sexual fantasy involving giants, more commonly expressed as giantesses (female giants). It is typically a male fantasy, with the male playing the "smaller" part—entering, being dominated, or being eaten by the larger woman. Others involve partners who naturally have a significant difference in size.

Although macrophilia literally translates to simply a "lover of large," in the context of a sexual fantasy, it is used to mean someone who is attracted to beings larger than themselves. Generally, the interest differs between people, and depends on gender and sexual orientation. They often enjoy feeling small and being abused, degraded, dominated, or eaten, and they may also view female giants as being powerful and dominating.

Commenting on why there are not as many female macrophiles, psychologist Helen Friedman theorized that because women in most societies already view men as dominant and powerful, there is no need for them to fantasize about it. Women that take on the roles of the giantess within this fetish often find the practice to be empowering and enjoy being worshipped.

The roots of macrophilia may lie in sexual arousal in childhood and early adolescence which is accidentally associated with giants, according to Dr. Mark Griffiths's speculation.

Spectrophilia is sexual attraction to ghosts or sexual arousal from images in mirrors, as well as the phenomenon of sexual encounters between ghosts and humans.

Zoophilia is a paraphilia involving a sexual fixation on non-human animals. Bestiality is cross-species sexual activity between human and non-human animals. The terms are often used interchangeably, but some researchers make a distinction between the attraction (zoophilia) and the act (bestiality).

Although sex with animals is not outlawed in some countries, in most countries, bestiality is illegal under animal abuse laws or laws dealing with buggery or crimes against nature.

Acrotomophiles may be attracted to amputees because they like the way they look or they may view the amputee’s stump as a phallic object which can be used for sexual pleasure.A small number of Acrotomophiles may enjoy the idea of dominating the amputee during couples play and they may also become aroused with the thought of having to take care of an amputee.

Diaper fetishists and diaper lovers (DLs) are often associated with adult babies, as both wear diapers, but the former do not engage in childlike behavior, while that is the distinguishing characteristic of adult babies (ABs). The majority of diaper lovers do not engage in any kind of infantile activity and are only interested in diapers. However, in certain individuals it is possible for an overlap to occur, as one can view themselves as neither exclusively an adult baby nor a diaper lover. Hence adult babies and diaper lovers collectively refer to themselves as AB/DLs. Diapers and rubber pants with "baby" prints are sold in adult sizes.

In the United States, following a series of landmark cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, persons diagnosed with paraphilias, particularly pedophilia ("Kansas v. Hendricks", 1997) and exhibitionism ("Kansas v. Crane", 2002), with a history of anti-social behavior and related criminal history, can be held indefinitely in civil confinement under various state legislation generically known as sexually violent predator laws and the federal Adam Walsh Act ("United States v. Comstock", 2010).

Acrotomophilia (from the Greek ἀκρότομος "having the top cut off" (from ἄκρον "akron" "extremity" and -τομος "-tomos" from τέμνω "temno" "I cut") and φιλία "philia" "love") is a paraphilia in which an individual expresses strong sexual interest in amputees. It is a counterpart to "apotemnophilia", the sexual interest in "being" an amputee.

Mysophilia relates to soiled or dirty material or people. Mysophiliacs may find dirt, soiled underwear, feces, or vomit to be sexually arousing.

It is possible for people with mysophilia to be aroused by unclean locales, such as an alleyway, or a dirty room/bathroom; wearing the same clothing for many days at a time; or not bathing, from mere days to several weeks.

In order to determine the relative prevalences of different types of fetishes, scientists obtained a sample of at least 5000 individuals worldwide from 381 Internet discussion groups. The relative prevalences were estimated based on (a) the number of groups devoted to a particular fetish, (b) the number of individuals participating in the groups and (c) the number of messages exchanged. Using these measures, feet and shoes were found to be the most common target of preferences. This is consistent with an analysis of millions of search queries by users from the USA that were accidentally released during the AOL search data scandal. Sixty-four (64) percent of the sampled population that had a preference for an object associated with the body had a preference for shoes, boots, and other footwear.

A fetish (derived from the French "fétiche"; which comes from the Portuguese "feitiço"; and this in turn from Latin "facticius", "artificial" and "facere", "to make") is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the emic attribution of inherent value or powers to an object.

In 2007, a study was conducted by the University of Bologna on around 5000 fetishist participants to see the prevalence of fetishes. The study analyzed the content inside online fetish communities and found only 669 participants referring to nails, an extension of hand fetishism. This did not refer to fingernails specifically, and the amount of 669 was less than 1% of the participants.

Salirophilia is a sexual fetish or paraphilia that involves deriving erotic pleasure from soiling or disheveling the object of one's desire, usually an attractive person. It may involve tearing or damaging their clothing, covering them in mud or filth, or messing their hair or makeup. The fetish does not involve harming or injuring the subject, only their appearance.

It is related to wet and messy fetishism, bukkake, omorashi, mysophilia, urolagnia and coprophilia, but extends to other areas such as forcing the partner to wear torn or poorly fitting clothing and other actions which would render them normally unattractive.

The fetish sometimes manifests itself in the defacing of statues or pictures of attractive people, especially celebrities or fictional characters. It is common to refer to the practice involving ejaculating on a photo as "facepainting". The fetishist finds this sexually exciting, rather than mere vandalism. They sometimes form collections of defaced art for future enjoyment. A video of the fetishist ejaculating on a picture of someone or a photo depicting the result is known colloquially as a "tribute".

The term comes from the French for soiling, "salir". In cases where the fetish is obsessive it is called saliromania. It is frequently confused with salophilia, an attraction to salt or salty things (especially body sweat) that derives from the Latin for salt, "sal".

The Internet has enabled people with this relatively rare paraphilia to discuss the subject and exchange anesthesia-related multimedia.

Some rubber and plastic fetishists have an affinity for diapers and rubber pants. In the case of disposable diapers, this attraction would be to their crinkly plastic backing. In the case of cloth diapers, it would be towards the latex or pvc of the pants worn over them.

Medical fetishism refers to a number of sexual fetishes involving objects, practices, environments, and situations of a medical or clinical nature. In sexual roleplay a hospital or medical scene involves the sex partners assuming the roles of doctors, nurses, surgeons and patients to act out specific or general medical fetishes. Medical fantasy is a genre in pornography, though the fantasy may not necessarily involve pornography or sexual activity.

Medical fetishism may involve sexual attraction to respiratory therapy involving oxygen via nasal cannula or any sort of masks, medical practitioners, medical uniforms, hospital gowns, anaesthesia, intimate examinations (such as rectal examination, gynecological examination, urological examination, andrological examination, rectal temperature-taking), catheterization, diapering, enemas, injections, insertion (such as suppository insertion, menstrual-cup insertion, and prostatic massage), medical devices (such as orthopedic casts and orthopedic braces; see also "Abasiophilia"), dental objects (such as dental braces, retainers, and headgear), medical restraints, and medical gags.

A hand fetish is a sexual attraction to the hands. This attraction is most commonly expressed with fingering, handjobs, sucking on the fingers and licking the palms. Fingering and Handjobs are an extremely common sexual act, so are not always linked to hand fetishism. However, fingering and handjobs play a major role in hand fetishism.

Fingernail fetishism, a sub-type of hand fetishism is often expressed with scratching with the fingernails and painting the fingernails.

Uniform fetishism is a sexual fetishism where an individual is sexually aroused by uniforms.

Underwear fetishism is a sexual fetishism relating to undergarments, and refers to preoccupation with the sexual excitement of certain types of underwear, including panties, stockings, pantyhose, bras, or other items. Some people experience sexual excitement from wearing, while others get their excitement when observing or handling the underwear worn by another, or watching somebody putting underwear on/taking it off. Some may steal used underwear to get satisfaction. Not only does this include physical contact with the garment(s), or their wearers, but also includes arousal by printed or electronic image with depictions of underwear.

Underwear fetishism is not considered as paraphilia unless it causes distress or serious problems for the person or those associated with them.

As a paraphilia, breast fetishism (also known as mastofact, breast partialism, or mazophilia) is a highly atypical sexual interest focused on female breasts (see partialism). The term "breast fetishism" is also used in the non-paraphilic sense, to refer to cultural attention to female breasts and the sexuality they represent, with debate existing as to whether the modern widespread fascination with breasts among heterosexual males in western societies is a sexual fetish.