it has some really unfortunate implications I’d prefer not to be associated with my art.
both “teratophilia” and “xenophilia” have meanings outside of the internet monsterfuckers’ use of the terms – but while “xenophilia” is simply a paraphilia for ‘having sex with strangers’ (and online, can often also be used specifically to talk about people who wanna fuck the Aliens aliens), “teratophilia” is a paraphilia involving objectifying people who are disabled and/or have medical deformities.
”xenophilia” as in stranger-fuckin’ is a bit of a difficult thing to depict outside of stories (ie written text or comics/sequential art) so I suppose this is part of why it has relatively little imagery – vs amputee porn and the like is, um, a pretty big Thing, and “teratophilia” absolutely brings up that sort of imagery.
it’s also a contextual thing: “xeno-” simply means strange or different. “terato-” means “monstrous”, yes, specifically in the context of monstrous, horrifying, deformed. this is why “teratophilia” is related to a kink fetishising amputees & the like, and why things like those tumours that grow teeth & hair are called teratomas, etc.
I like my horrifying monsters framed in a context where their partner(s) find them attractive and not actually horrifying.
not to mention “xenophilia” has served us monster/alienfuckers perfectly well online for the last 20 years.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
EDIT oct.30/2018: @the-tasteful-beast has suggested “exophilia” as an alternate word with a similar intended meaning to xeno- or teratophilia but without the alternate meaning of “xenophilia,” or the ableist baggage of “teratophilia.”