Melolagnia

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Melolagnia is a parasexual proclivity. It is the ‘sense specific’ sexual arousal caused by the playing and/or listening of/to music. Like some other parasexualities, it can be categorised as a very marginal fetish that has existed throughout history. Orsnino in the opening scene of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was passionate about music and demonstrates melolagnia in his carnal response towards music thus:

1.1 {Music plays}
ORSINO: If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
That strain again, it had a dying fall.
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour. Enough no more,
‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
{Music Ceases}

[edit] Sources

• Love, B. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, (1992), London: Abacus. page 568
• Shaekespeare, W., ed. Greenblatt, S. Twelfth Night from The Norton Shakespeare (1997), London: Norton. page 1768.