Expert explains what 'fictosexuality' is as more people admitting to it

Three days in and we’re still at that time of year when we’re all insisting we’ll stick to our New Year’s resolutions.

For some, it might be big ‘life changes’ or giving up alcohol, but for others, it could just be something simple like ‘reading more’. I mean, that’s easily one of the most popular ones, surely.

But by picking up a book, you might end up discovering more about yourself than how much of a slow reader you are nowadays or how many words you didn’t even know.

I’m talking more about learning and understanding more about your own sexual preferences.

Yep, more and more people over the years have revealed they can identify with ‘fictosexuality’. An expert has explained just what that actually means as people experience different forms of connection while they’re reading.

The term has been around for a while. (Getty Stock Image)

It’s not exactly uncommon to be so engrossed in your book that you develop a bit of a thing for the characters or start to look for your ‘real life’ version of them.

But for some people, fantasising about fictional people can run far deeper than the obsession with ‘SmutTok’ or having a few weird dreams at night.

These are people who may identify as ‘fictosexuals’ as an expert explains its about experiencing a sexual or romantic attraction to these characters being a significant part of someone’s sexual identity.

Therapist and gender specialist Rebecca Minor told Cosmopolitan that it’s when someone feels drawn ‘emotionally, romantically, or sexually’ to fictional characters ‘sometimes more’ than they do to people in real life.

“For folks who identify this way, those connections aren’t imaginary or surface-level—they’re deeply felt and genuinely meaningful,” Minor said.

It’s often considered to be part of the asexual spectrum and isn’t a particularly new term (it's thought to go back about 20 years), but with BookTok’s huge romance sector, it’s become more mainstream.

It's different than just a fantasy. (Getty Stock Image)

Certified sexuality educator Aubri Lancaster, who has a focus on asexuality and aromanticism, added: “Fictosexual is often considered a microlabel under the asexual umbrella used by people who experience sexual attraction toward fictional characters.”

Lancaster said that fictosexuality ‘may be someone’s primary identity label’ or could be a part of their ‘sexual identity constellation’.

On Lancaster’s site, the gender specialist explained the difference between the sexuality and fantasising.

“The difference between it being a "fetish" or sexual fantasy is that one must ONLY be sexually or romantically attracted to fictional characters and not people,” the expert wrote.