You Only Like Me for My Brain
Alexandria Montgomery Defends Sapiosexuality
January 21, 2015
SAPIOSEXUAL – one who is sexually attracted to the mind of another, or the intelligence in another.
Many of you may be thinking, “…huh? That’s not possible.” Or, perhaps, many of you may be thinking, ‘That’s so me. It all makes sense now.” But, judging from the passionately written posts on various blogging platforms, there may be a third group of you here at Northmont who find themselves running off a tangent and the mere mention of sapiosexuality:
“Sapiosexuality is ableist, racist, sexist bull crap! Only pseudo intellectuals identify as sapio!”
Well, if that is your stance on sapiosexuality, know you are not alone in your disdain for this sexuality:
Ouch.
I first heard of sapiosexuality sometime over the summer. I was scrolling down my instagram feed, and I came across this photo, a quote by Shahir Zag:
The Instagram user (I’ve long since forgotten who) captioned the photo as ‘sapiosexual.’ After a quick Google search, I learned sapiosexual was a neologistic term for one who is sexually attracted to the mind (neologistic refers to a recently constructed word). It wasn’t until recently, however, that I learned of the widespread dislike for sapiosexuality. The backlash, it seems, proliferated as quickly as the term itself. There seems to be four main arguments against sapiosexuality:
“SAPIOSEXUALITY IS ABLEIST! AND RACIST! AND SEXIST!”
Those who make this argument claim that sapiosexuality is ableist, because those with disabilities – whether of the mind or body – are deemed to be less intelligent. They claim sapiosexuality is racist, because blacks and hispanics are stereotypically thought to be less intelligent than whites and asians. They claim sapiosexuality is sexist because men are stereotypically thought to be considerably more intelligent than women. Ableism, as with racism, sexism, and any other oppressive -ism is systematic. While it stems from prejudice and becomes problematic when the prejudice is used to justify discriminatory actions, it only becomes ableist / racist / sexist when discriminatory behaviors are normalized. Ableism, racism, and sexism are systematic forms of oppression. Systematic oppression is the sum of this fairly simple equation:
SUPREMACIST IDEOLOGY + DISCRIMINATORY ACTS + STRUCTURAL DOMINANCE
=
OPPRESSION
Well, a sexuality is in no way oppressive.
“SAPIOSEXUALITY IS SO PRETENTIOUS! IT’S FOR PSEUDO-INTELLECTUALS!”
Pretentious? For some, yes. But for pseudo-intellectuals? Not at all. By professing your attraction to intelligence, you are not saying: “I am the smartest person on Earth! I only associate with people who read existential literature… like the guy who wrote 1994.” (joke…). That is definitely a pseudo-intellectual. But to say you are attracted to someone who has a complex cranium? You are not feigning a false intellect. You are craving the presence of someone else’s intellect.
“SAPIOSEXUALITY ISN’T EVEN A REAL SEXUALITY!”
Anti-sapiosexuals (is it ever that serious?) frequently raise the argument that it cannot be a real sexuality, as you cannot be physically attracted to something non-physical. Well, false. Human sexuality is defined here as “ the constitution of an individual in relation to sexual attitudes or activity. This is a broad concept that includes aspects of the physical, psychological, social, emotional, and spiritual makeup of an individual. It is not limited to the physical or biological reproductive elements and behavior, but encompasses the manner in which individuals use their own roles, relationships, values,customs, and gender.” Sexuality is psychological, social, emotional, and spiritual just as much as it is physical. That being said, you can be psychologically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually attracted to someone. Sexuality, as with most things in this life, transcends the physical world and permeates areas of our beings we, in futility, try to name.
So, Northmont, what do YOU think of sapiosexuality?
Alexis • Nov 17, 2016 at 9:56 am
Okay but sexual orientations are always about preference of sexual partner or lack thereof. For example, when people say that they are asexual they’re saying that they do not feel sexual attraction.
When someone tries to say that they’re sapiosexual, that has nothing to do with the gender of the person they are attracted/not attracted to. Because intelligence is a trait. Not a gender. And it’s always a trait that is identified by a third party.
It’s like saying you’re kind-sexual or compassionate-sexual. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Also most people do look for intelligence in a partner so it’s as useless as saying you want someone who will give you a fulfilling relationship.
Jakob Glass • Jan 22, 2015 at 12:11 pm
My only problem with sapiosexuality is it is many times used by people as a title to make themselves seem more interesting in bios on social media. There are some people that are completely sapiosexual, but there are many more who will claim to be such only to seem more intellectual themselves. I’ve never really had any other problems with it, and this is the first time I’ve heard of people objecting to it.
Helena Jenkins • Jan 22, 2015 at 10:29 am
Thank you for your informative article! I do hope you would consider doing a series of articles on different sexualities and genders, esp. asexuality and aromanticism, since they are so ignored most of the time by popular media. Obviously sapiosexuality does apply to a small portion of the population, but it seems like informing people about more general sexualities before such a specific one would be time better spent. Debunking stereotypes and myths about the LGBTQAI+ community would also be very informative for the student population, I’m sure.
Luke • Jan 22, 2015 at 11:52 am
Or, you know, laughed at because it said “gay” once.
Helena Jenkins • Jan 23, 2015 at 8:52 am
The general immaturity surrounding discussions of sexuality and gender only increases the obvious need for a frank discussion of those topics. Additionally, I have faith that we as a school are more than capable of having a nice, grown up discussion about the various sexualities and gender identities.
Luke • Jan 22, 2015 at 8:42 am
I don’t even know where to start with this. You’ve made quite a few good points on the matter. Sexual attraction is indeed extremely broad, but classifying such a thing as an entirely sexuality seems a little bit overkill, considering there are already sexualities that cover this. Intention doesn’t matter as far as sexuality should be concerned. All that needs covered is attraction to each gender identity. That is my reasoning behind the denial for sapiosexuality. Those special snowflakes from tumblr you gladly shared the example of agree with me, but for the wrong reasons, and using the expected asinine and hateful wording that’s part of why I despise their movement. If you’re to look at tumblr as a whole, you’ll find all their ideology conflicting and generally mind numbing at best. Furthermore, their ideas of “oppression” are about as broad as a word can be, and can be used to apply to anything. You’ll find many people on tumblr seriously and unironically beleiving that all white males who identify as male should be killed. You’ll find people on tumblr who believe that all males make up a secret society of deliberate oppressors. Many people believe many things, regardless of factual basis, and this is a fact of life by now. Personally, I think the vast majority of those who believe these ideas have had something happen personally to them that made them blind to reality, or they just wanted to be edgy and rebellious.
When you get straight to the point, most all industrialized countries have no need to push for equal rights, with the exception of sexuality based issues. While people do this on tumblr in a well thought manner, they seem to be the silent majority compared to the spiteful vocal minority on this issue who stir the pot with outrageous comments. The fact of the matter is, if you want change, being hateful on some website is not the way to get it. They’re so passionate and rididculous about sexuality as a whole, they’ve began destroying the chance of getting what they want. This of course does not apply to all of people on tumblr, but, I digress.
In conclusion: The main issue people have with sapiosexuality seems to be had through a mindset consisting of “only certain people can do certain things or else it is despicable.” And this is simply not true.
You can’t opress anything simply by existing. You have to make a conscious effort to keep them from having power or rights. My advice? Ignore the bad bits of tumblr.
Helena Jenkins • Jan 22, 2015 at 11:05 am
I am sorry for whatever bad interaction you have had with people on tumblr. However from what I have seen, that majority of people on that website, and indeed the majority of people, are fairly rational, and certainly don’t believe in killing all white cis heterosexual males, as that is both irrational and scarily violent. Most people merely want to have equality with other humans, and to feel safe in living their lives how they choose to live them. Your other argument seems to be that people are fighting for causes that have already been won, such as feminism and the civil rights movement. I understand that when we are young, the prime examples of racism and sexism pointed out to us were the inability of women and POCs to vote, which has since been rectified. However, there is significantly more nuance to various -isms than “can this group vote? Great! No more discrimination!”. Women still have a significant pay gap, and the 77 cents to a white mans dollar only applies to white women. Men and women of minorites have an even larger wage gap, which is largely ignored in popular media, even feminist media. Racism obviously didn’t end as soon as POCs could vote, considering segregation continued until the 60’s. Inter-racial marriages were illegal until 1967, and considering the KKK still exists, I would say we can’t exactly claim we live in a post-racism society. One of the ways oppression is continued is through privilege, so you may indeed never intentionally commit a racist or sexist act, but the fact is that whatever privileged group we are a part of gives us advantages that others don’t have. For instance, I am white, and I’m not afraid of cops. I have that luxury because I’m white. If I don’t act to stop the endemic racism in the police, I am choosing to ignore the plight of POCs, because it doesn’t affect me. That is the problem with defining privelege as privelege: it isn’t so much an extra advantage you have, so much as an extra handicap they have. Ignoring privelege is easy, if you have it, because it’s only really noticeable when you lack it. So I didn’t notice when I was a little girl that all the Disney Princesses were white, because I saw myself represented and didn’t have to think about it anymore. But a little girl who is hispanic or black would notice the lack of princesses who look like her. When any minority group claims to be oppressed, we have to take them seriously, even if we don’t think there is a problem, precisely because we wouldn’t notice a problem if it did occur.
Fed • Feb 11, 2015 at 10:08 am
Are people unable to “identify” with characters from TV and film just because of their skin color? When I was younger, I had no problems with watching a film starring Eddy Murphy. In fact, Eddy Murphy, Bill Cosby, and Samuel L. Jackson are some of my favorite actors. I grew up watching Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids. The lessons they tried to teach in the show weren’t lost on me because I never brought their skin color into consideration. We’re all people, and I frankly can’t understand why you can’t “identify” with a fellow person. Does skin color really matter that much? I thought we were supposed to not have any bias when it comes to that?