Sapiosexual
Attraction driven principally by intelligence.
Sapiosexual describes attraction driven principally by someone's intelligence: how they think, what they know, how they argue. The claim is that this is what triggers the attraction rather than what sustains it afterwards.
It is the most argued-about word in this glossary, and the criticism is worth stating fairly. It has been called a way of announcing that one has standards, and it has been criticised for treating intelligence as a neutral quality when what usually gets read as intelligent is a particular education and accent.
The defence is equally worth stating. Plenty of people describe a genuine and specific response to how someone thinks, and the fact that a word gets misused in profiles does not make the experience it names imaginary.
On dating profiles it lands badly more often than not, mostly because it reads as an instruction to the reader about what to demonstrate.
Sapiosexual is contested, and the criticism is not unreasonable
The objection is that intelligence is not a neutral quality: what reads as intelligent is shaped by education, class and accent, which makes the word less innocent than it sounds.
Both things are true at once. The experience it describes is real for the people describing it, and the word has a history of being used as a status claim. Knowing both is better than picking a side.
Saying it well
Say this
- Sapiosexual.
- It is how someone thinks that does it.
- Sapiosexual, and I know how that sounds.
- Attraction to the mind first.
Not this
- So you think you are cleverer than everyone
- That just means you have standards
- Nobody is attracted to stupidity
- Sapiosexual is not a real orientation
Questions people actually ask
What does sapiosexual mean?
Attraction driven principally by intelligence.
Why is sapiosexual controversial?
Because what counts as intelligent is shaped by education and class, so the word can function as a status claim.
Is it a real orientation?
It is contested. Many people describe a genuine specific response; others consider it a preference rather than an orientation.
Should I put it on a dating profile?
It often reads as an instruction about what to demonstrate, which lands badly more often than not.