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Sapioromantic


ithaca

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Hi there!

Quick thought of mine: I see lots of people saying "Yeah I'm sapioromantic because the people I can like, well they MUST be intelligent/they're all intelligent".

I honestly don't think this is what sapioromantic means, guys. To me, personally, it's a quite useless label, because I don't see any particular useful situation for it. But it means that you're romantically attracted to someone BECAUSE OF their intelligence, and not that the people you are romantically attracted to must also be intelligent. Like, their particular intelligence is what made you attracted to them specifically, and if their "brain" was moved to any other body (aesthetically attractive or not for you) you would be romantically attracted anyway because THAT is the main reason you are attracted to them. It wouldn't matter if you would find them physically repulsive, you still couldn't stop from being romantically attracted to their intelligence.

It's a term that I can see used mostly by grayromantic/almost-aromantic people, if ever. But I also think that gray-romantic, personally, would be enough.

It annoys me that many people say they're sapioromantic because the people they like are intelligent. It's not what it means <_<

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Mostly Peaceful Ryan

I am sorry I can't tell are you trying to make a thread about the term being useless and redundant or that it is being used improperly? I will respond to both though

This orientation is completely useless of course people are attracted to the intellectual side to the people they are romantically attracted to. The only people I could see not being under the label of "Sapioromantic" would be those only interested in aesthetics and being super shallow (even then I doubt there are people like this) or being completely aromantic.

I don't see the problem as people using the label incorrectly, I feel the problem is that the label is obvious. A romantic relationship cannot exist without you being attracted to more then the person's body, which would be his/her Brain or intellect.

I don't see it as a Gray romantic word only though because I am sure at some level romantic people need to connect on a mental level too. I think it is is just a another unnecessary label.

By the way, I was going to make a thread about this too :lol:

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It seems like a useless term to me. If you like someone, you like someone, why do we need labels specific to the way we like people? You could just as easily say "i'm attracted to them because of their intelligence", or "I'm attracted to smart people", and there'd be infinitely less confusion. What's with all the labels? They often don't work and tend to just makes things more confusing.

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I'm not sure what's being argued here, to be honest >_> It just means intelligence is a major turn on to you (generally, more so than the person's physical attributes), whether romantically or sexually or otherwise. Whether it means you actively seek out people with intelligence or just so happen to encounter random schmoes who are only suddenly attractive because you discover that they're intelligent, I don't think it really matters, does it?

This orientation is completely useless

It's not an orientation, more like a classification (and a fairly obscure one at that, leaving its usefulness in everyday discussion questionable). It doesn't have anything to do with sex/gender, which I'm pretty sure it has to be in order to be considered an orientation.

of course people are attracted to the intellectual side to the people they are romantically attracted to.

No, not necessarily.

The only people I could see not being under the label of "Sapioromantic" would be those only interested in aesthetics and being super shallow

So basically, a whole crap ton of people?

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GIR the point of this thread is that I disagree with using sapioromantic as you (and other people) do.

I would personally not use it at all, if it was up to me, but some people made up this term and it's not meant (as far as I know) to mean "yeah, I wouldn't like dating someone only for their appearance". It's just NOT that. That is just lots and lots of people.

Sapiosexual/Sapioromantic

Sapioromanticism

Demisexual and Sapiosexual

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I'm thinking... <_<

I'm particularly attracted to intelligent boys(not girls. I see intelligent girls pretty much as rivals), but if they are more intelligent than me I feel something a little unpleasant. :blush:

Thanks to this new topic I am not sure to be sapioromantic anymore.

I begin to think I'm simply grey-romantic.

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Batman's Ace

I identify as hetero-sapio. The term makes sense to me because it indicates specifically that I'm attracted to intelligent men. Not just men who are nice people, or pretty people, or whom I agree with on politics or religion or life goals or general interests, or who are competent and well-rounded, or who display good character and good manners, or who know how to have a good time or have a good sense of humor, or any of that. I make friends with lots of guys like that, and they're perfectly decent guys, I just don't find them romantically interesting (or squishly interesting? don't know the term for that). However, high intelligence catches my interest even if the person is in all other respects completely wrong for me, since being a good match doesn't seem to have any bearing on attraction (irritatingly, although it seems to be common no matter what the romantic or sexual orientation).

There are lots of ways to like someone that are both non-physical and non-intellectual, GIR. Anyway, I like precision, and saying "grey-romantic" is too blurry. Including "sapio" narrows the term in a manner which is, by my analysis, more nearly correct.

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  • 2 weeks later...
mîshrêkha

I understand the point that Ithaca is trying to make, and it does make sense that the term ought to be better understood. However, I'd like to point out something about myself--for lack of a better term, I guess you could call me panromantic for now. But I feel that sapioromanticism could still have a use--it helps to clarify the sorts of people one could be romantic for. Personally, aesthetics is a factor for me, and if the situation Ithaca mentioned in the first post were to occur, I likely would no longer be romantic for that person, intelligent or not. I fully admit this.

However, aesthetics isn't all of it. Let's say an individual is perfect in terms of my preferred aesthetics. Let's also say they're a complete and utter ditz. I am very unlikely to even contemplate forming a romantic relationship with them, because for me the intelligence factor is most important. It isn't the entirety of my romantic basis, but it is a very important part of it. I think that might be what Philip was getting at, and I do agree that 'sapioromantic' is more useful as a term of clarification than as an entire orientation unto itself.

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My point is that if some people are struggling with their orientation because they are only attracted to people such as to identify as sapioromantic and not also panromantic or what have you, people using it as a "way to specify that I like people with brainz" might be counterproductive on the way to help them being recognized as an orientation, if that's what they want when writing this term.

There's not only beauty and aesthetics, we like people for many reasons (culture, educatione, style, common tastes, romantic 'level', passions, hobbies, etc...). Sure, though, if someone is heteroromantic but prefers people who dress punk they wouldn't need to call themselves punkromantic, would they? I think if I were sapioromantic I would find it disrespectful of people to use "my" label when they do not even consider it an orientation.

Just my 2 cents.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey there.

I am only attracted to intelligence. There is literally nothing else that attracts me to a person. I may appreciate their beauty, or their humor, or their sense of style, but I will 100% not be attracted to them in the slightest if they are not extremely smart. Beyond that, nothing matters. Gender, for instance, is irrelevant.

I hope I'm not the only one who sees the irony in asexuals, of all people, questioning the legitimacy of terms that don't apply to them.

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Hey there.

I am only attracted to intelligence. There is literally nothing else that attracts me to a person. I may appreciate their beauty, or their humor, or their sense of style, but I will 100% not be attracted to them in the slightest if they are not extremely smart. Beyond that, nothing matters. Gender, for instance, is irrelevant.

I hope I'm not the only one who sees the irony in asexuals, of all people, questioning the legitimacy of terms that don't apply to them.

I question more how most people use this term than its legitimacy, though I don't think we need to define every shades of gray-romantic (which also means attracted only under specific circumstances) with its own term.

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I think it's another stupid, over-specific term with little utility, and perhaps an excuse to carve out yet another niche for people to inhabit.

"Sapioromanticism" or "-sexuality" is probablematic because it is defined not in terms of the nature of the attraction but in terms of the object of attraction - namely, the desired subject's intellect. Now, while people do find certain traits more attractive than others, people almost never actually differentiate forms of attraction based on criteria other than the person's sex.

Saying you're "sapioromantic" is like me saying that I'm "tits-sexual". It's technically true, but that's about it.

I mean, whatever, define yourself how you like and all of that jazz. But intelligence is universally considered attractive anyway.

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Saying you're "sapioromantic" is like me saying that I'm "tits-sexual". It's technically true, but that's about it.

Quoted for making me giggle!

I agree with the people who say it's a term too far - it's pretty much impossible to be romantically attracted to someone based on looks alone, so in that sense, we're all sapioromantic.

For instance, there's a girl in the office next door who's very pretty, always wears nice dresses, and always smiles. I'm aesthetically attracted to her, I think she looks lovely. But I'm not romantically or sexually attracted to her, because I don't know her, we've never had a conversation. If that's sapioromantic, then we all are.

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But intelligence is universally considered attractive anyway.

I've heard "dumb f***s well" said way too often by sexual guys to believe that... I guess if that sentence were just a joke, it shoulda died off by now. <_<

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Let's keep this discussion respectful of others' identities. Discussing use and semantics of labels can be done without sounding hateful or patronizing

Tea Lady Thingy and ithaca, A/romantic Identities Moderators

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think sapioromantic could be a legitimate label, but most people just use it wrong and there are too many problems with it. Most of the time when I see it used it's by people who actually are just attracted to people on their intelligence level, which is pretty much everyone that is attracted to people in some way. Most people don't want to be with some one that is a whole lot more intelligent than they are because they'd never be able to connect with them and talk about things, same with those below the person's intelligence level (or they may want to, but it wouldn't work out in the long run).

If some one were a sapioromantic (in my opinion), they'd only be attracted to some one who most people would agree is actually an intellectual (like Stephen Hawking) or some one way above the person's own intelligence level, not just some one that has brains according to the person that likes them. That certainly doesn't make the person actually intelligent, that just means they aren't less intelligent than the person they are with. I think a sapioromantic like I describe really wouldn't be labeling a preference. I think it would be sort of like demi-romantics. Demi-romantics, as we know, only develop romantic attraction after a close bond is formed. A sapioromantic supposedly would only develop romantic attraction with some one that was an intellectual.

I think the problem with the label is that while it could be used, it's just best not to. If I go by my opinion on it, chances are a sapioromantic wouldn't really even be running into many people that would qualify as some one that the sapioromantic person would be attracted to unless they themselves are part of the group. Then chances are it becomes the person just being attracted to some one that's on their intelligence level making the label a bit obsolete.

If I'm honest, before I started typing all this out I kind of was for sapioromantic being a legitimate label, but after thinking it through I've realized just how silly of a label it really seems to be. There are just so many problems with it. Even before though, I hate when people used it because they used it like I described earlier and how most everyone else in this post has talk about. Being attracted to some one on your intelligence level doesn't need it's own label there's nothing special, specific, or even erotic (for those that use sapiosexual) about it. That just falls under grey-romantic. I think there may be a few that could actually be sapioromantic, but I think it would be an extremely rare case. Of course, it is up to the individual how they choose to label themselves, but still.

Sorry for my long ramblings, but I got a bit carried away.

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