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The term abasiophilia was first used by John Money of the Johns Hopkins University in a paper on paraphilias. It is listed as a paraphilia in the book "Sexual Deviance: Theory, Assessment and Treatment" by Laws, Richard and O'Donohue, published in 1997 by Guilford Press (ISBN 1572302410).More recently, some have suggested that abasiophilia is a form of Body Integrity Identity Disorder, usually associated with people wishing to electively become amputees. The stimuli for abasiophilia are usually leg-braces, wheelchairs, crutches, spinal or neck braces and prosthetics worn by disabled people.
An interest in the appliances alone would be classified as a fetish whereas abasiophilia is an overwhelming fascination with the whole culture and lifestyle of physical disability.
There is a paucity of writings about how or why this phenomenon originates, how those affected deal with it and how society as a whole treats those who have this fascination.