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.

Jennifer Eve Rehor of San Francisco State University points out that such data as exists on what she calls "unconventional" or "kink" sexual behavior is generally problematic because of the way that it has been collected, through criminal and clinical case studies. Behavior that appears neither in criminal trials nor in clinical studies (for example, because the individuals concerned do not commonly seek professional help) is therefore under-reported. Rehor therefore surveyed 1,764 female participants in "kink" behavior (mostly association with BDSM) in 2010-11, receiving 1,580 valid responses. What Rehor calls "urine play" is relatively infrequent, with only 36.52% of her sample reporting having done it or having had it done to them. In contrast, 93.99% of her sample reported having done spanking or having had it done to them, and 61.96% reported having used or been exposed to feathers/fur. It is impossible to extrapolate Rehor's data onto the general population, but her study does give a guide to prevalence in the North American BDSM community.

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".

As a paraphilia, urine may be consumed or the person may bathe in it. Other variations include arousal from wetting or seeing someone else urinate in their pants or underclothes, or wetting the bed. Other forms of urolagnia may involve a tendency to be sexually aroused by smelling urine-soaked clothing or body parts. In many cases, a strong correlation or conditioning arises between urine smell or sight, and the sexual act. For some individuals the phenomenon may include a diaper fetish and/or arousal from infantilism.

Urolagnia is sometimes associated with, or confused with, arousal from having a full bladder or a sexual attraction to someone else experiencing the discomfort or pain of a full bladder, possibly a sadomasochistic inclination.