We’ve come to expect that most people are turned on by pornography or youth or heaving breasts falling out of too tight tops or big packages in small pants or any one of a thousand obvious visual cliches. But for some people, this isn’t the case at all.
“I’ve always known that the one thing that gets me very excited and aroused is the intelligence, and sometimes even the mystery around someone’s intelligence.”
That’s how 52-year-old Jacqueline Cohen described her sexuality when speaking to the New York Times for a recent feature titled: The Hottest Body Part? For a Sapiosexual, It’s the Brain.
A sapiosexual, according to definitions in popular culture, is someone who finds intelligence or people’s minds to be the most sexually attractive feature.
For Cohen, her first husband was a magician, and she found herself enamored by his tricks. “I called it his magic foreplay,” she said.
Cohen told the New York Times she’s had relationships in the past that have been devoid of sex – focusing only on intense conversation. She said she was with one man who wasn’t her type at all physically, but when he recited poetry to her, “I could feel something happening inside me”.
Similarly, 28-year-old comedian Teresa Sheffield identifies as a sapiosexual. “What I connect most with and value most as a sapiosexual is emotional intelligence and comedic intelligence,” she said. If a person doesn’t have a sense of humour, Sheffield says she’ll be “as attracted to you as I am to a Border collie”.
While the profiles in the Times gave faces and names to sapiosexuality, the term first entered the mainstream in 2014 when it was included in OKCupid's pre-generated list of sexual orientations. More recently, an app called Sapio has been designed specifically for those who want to find a smart romantic partner. "Sick of superficial hookup apps?" reads the description. "The time has come for something better. Sapio is an evolution in dating apps, where physical and intellectual attraction are put on an equal level."
Top Comments
I'm seeing this a lot on Tinder. It's pretentious and I swipe left.
I don't know... From my observations (and I'm willing to be corrected) people tend to end up with people of a similar level of intelligence - regardless of how smart they are.
Speaking for myself only, I couldn't handle a partner who was significantly less intelligent than me. Intelligence IS sexy. It's definitely one of the things that attracted me to my husband.
Refusing to date someone due to the lack of a degree is pretty pretentious, though.