What is Sapiosexual and Sapiophile?
According to Meriam Webster, a sapiophile is someone whose romantic attraction to others is primarily based on intelligence.
Since we’re living in the 21st century, we are not surprised by the fact that attraction is not purely based on animalistic physical attraction any more. With the introduction of the internet, global connections, Tinder, and long-distance relationships we are now not only focusing on mere physical attractions anymore.
Sapiosexuality is a term that has been coined not too long ago: in 1998 OKCupid coined the term for their visitors to indicate what type of orientation and attraction fit their lane.
Connecting to a partner on an intelligent level, also for the sake of your relationship’s longevity, seems to be a prerequisite these days.
Esther Perel coined that it’s been a long-time assumption that people need to get their emotional and sexual needs met by the same person and struggled upon the moment realizing that this is very difficult. Almost impossible. Imagine this for yourself: how easy has it been for you to gain warmth (intelligence and comfort) and heat (pure..lust?) in the same relationship? It’s comfort and excitement, lust and intelligence, is it even possible to have these types of sensations for the same person? Does our biology allow for these types of mixed sensations?
Sapiophiles and sapiosexuality do open us up to the possibility that there’s more than then mere attraction in a person; that other features of a person are more important than, for instance, their gender. A good friend of ours once coined that “I am attracted to someone’s character, no matter their sexual orientation or gender”. We felt that.