Credits: Social Media
Fictosexuals are real, but chances are youve never heard of the sexual orientation
Social media users are only just learning about Fictosexuals, but chances are, you already know a lot about the obscure sexual orientation.
Over the last few decades, our understanding of sexuality has exploded into a wealth of impressive and often debated knowledge. As such, there are a world of perspectives beyond straight, gay, bisexual, and transgender experiences.
What is a Fictosexual?
Acting as a sort of umbrella term, where the word’s meaning differs from person to person, fictosexuality is the attraction to fictional characters, often over that of real world individuals.
For some, the terms fictoromance, fictophilia, and Fictosexual mean the same thing, while for others there are subtle differences between them.
Content creator Cait (@real_caitc) is one of the most prominent fictosexuals on TikTok, largely because of her openess to discussing her orientation. Unlike some fictosexuals who are simply attracted to fictional characters, Cait claimed she had been in two “relationships” with 2D characters.
Are we all Fictosexuals?
While you have to identify as a fictosexual for the term to apply to you, with that only being a small subset of the population, being attacted to fictional characters is an incredibly mainstream idea.
From questionable choices in Disney characters, to the fan pages dedicated to book boyfriends, fictional character attraction is far more prevelent that you might think. The term is relatively new, but the feelings are not.
Fictosexuality is no more evidenced then its prominence on social media. On Reddit, popular choices included Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings, Jessica Rabbit, Harley Quinn, Doctor Who, and Katniss Everdeen from Hunger Games, while Twitter and TikTok are currently obsessing over the latest villain in Star Wars.
Speaking to Refinery29, sexologist and psychosexual therapist Chloe Scotney emphasised that being attracted to fictional characters is completely normal. In fact, they are designed to have that effect.
“A lot of the time, characters are developed to showcase the most interesting and charismatic elements of human nature things that we just don’t tend to encounter when mixing with people in real life,” she explained. “They are often heroes and geniuses. And even when they are portrayed as an antagonist, their flaws are often romanticised in a way that real-life people could not necessarily get away with.”
