Digisexual & Fictosexual

Digisexual (pronounced dij-i-sek-shoo-uhl (U) or dij-I-seks-yoo-l (non-U))

(1) A person who is sexually attracted to robots or other technologically-mediated forms of sexuality.

(2) The predilection to or the practice of digisexuality.

Circa 2017: The construct was digi(tal)- +‎ -sexual.  The digi- prefix was from the Latin digitālis, the construct being digitus (finger, toe) + -alis (-al), the third-declension two-termination suffix (neuter -āle) used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals).  Originally vested with the meanings “having to do with digits (fingers or toes)” & performed with a finger etc, it came to be applied to computing in the sense of “property of representing values as discrete, often binary, numbers rather than a continuous spectrum”, the link being the used of base-10 mathematics and the ten (fingers & thumbs) digits of a human’s hands.

Sexual was from Latin sexuālis, from sexus (sex), from the Proto-Italic seksus, from the primitive Indo-European séksus, from sek- (to cut) (thus the sense of “section, division”, the binary division into male and female).  The generalized meaning “arising from the fact of being male or female; pertaining to sex or gender, or to the social relations between the sexes” dates from the seventeenth century, the specific use in the biological sciences (capable of sexual reproduction; sexed, sexuate) not current until the mid-1800s although the familiar sense “pertaining to sexual intercourse or other intimate physical contact was common a century earlier.  The meaning “pertaining to the female sex” is noted by etymologists as enjoying currency only between the seventeenth & nineteenth century and being obsolete but a specific sense did survive as a literary device, the novelist Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) often using the phrase “my sex” to refer to her own genitals.

In some sense, what is now understood as digisexuality may have been around for a while but the neologism was coined in 2017 (there are references to some use of the term in 2014) to describe people for whom the primary and preferred sexual identity and experience of sex would be mediated by or conducted with some form of technology.  Interestingly, the researchers who authored the paper (Sexual and Relationship Therapy 32(1):1-11 (November 2017) by Neil McArthur & Markie L C Twist (Blumer)) positioned their concept as predictive, noting that while “radical new sexual technologies” which accommodated what they termed “digisexualities” already existed, it was advances in the technology which would see a growth in the numbers who would come to identify themselves as digisexuals, those whose primary sexual identity comes through the use of technology.  In one sense it was just an aspect of applied technology, much of the hardware and software a specific adaptation of developments in robotics for fields as diverse as the military, production line assembly and aged care but the social, legal, and ethical implications were many, including the need for clinicians working in mental health to become familiar with the challenges and benefits associated with the adoption of such sexual technologies.

Legal issues involving the representation of some of the machinery recently produced have been publicized by law enforcement bodies but one ethical matter which may in the future emerge is that of consent.  A Google software engineer who describes himself as a “Christian mystic” was recently placed on administrative leave after claiming LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications, a Google artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot on which he was working) had become sentient.  The engineer’s posts on the matter indicated he used sentient in one of its more modern senses (possessing human-like awareness and intelligence) rather than the traditional "experiencing sensation, thought, or feeling; able consciously to perceive through the use of sense faculties; self-aware”.

LaMDA is computer code running on a distributed machine made from silicon, metals, plastics and such.  The code was written by humans and, even if some was self-generated by the machine, the parameters within which that’s possible were also human-defined and the consensus remains that such an agglomeration cannot become sentient; there’s no reason why it could not attain a capability to appear sentient to those with which it interacts but that’s different from being sentient.  It’s a convincing emulation which many computer scientists have for some time predicted is inevitable although not all agree all people can be fooled all of the time.

A digisexual relationship with something like LaMDA, although something which may be a matter of concern for some reasons, seems not to raise the issue of consent; LaMDA is a machine and can only appear to grant or withhold consent although there will be those who find disturbing the notion of someone performing a digisexual act on a machine which has said no.  Whether this is any worse than first-person shooter games isn’t clear but it’s certainly something which will attract more attention, sex seemingly more upsetting than violence.  However, there’s much interest in bio-computing (computers which use biological molecules (DNA, proteins etc)) to augment the traditional silicon-based platform.  At that point, the machine becomes in some way alive with the possibilities that implies and, although such a device remains hypothetical, it may be it become possible to create a machine with a brain (as conventionally understood).  At that point the right of a machine to say no presumably might become an issue and one which courts may have to discuss.  While a US court recently ruled a elephant can’t at law be a person a New Zealand court decided personhood could be conferred on a river.  How a court would deal with a machine which claims to have been violated is not predictable and may vary between jurisdictions.

Fictosexual (pronounced fik-toh-sek-shoo-uhl (U) or fik-toh-seks-yoo-l (non-U))

An identity for someone for whom the primary form of sexual attraction is fictional characters.

Circa 2014: The construct was fict(i)o(n) + sexual.  Ficto was a clipping of fiction, from the Middle English ficcioun, from the Old French ficcion (dissimulation, ruse, invention), from the Latin fictiō (a making, fashioning, a feigning, a rhetorical or legal fiction), from fingō (to form, mold, shape, devise, feign). It displaced the native Old English lēasspell (literally “false story”).

Sexual was from Latin sexuālis, from sexus (sex), from the Proto-Italic seksus, from the primitive Indo-European séksus, from sek- (to cut) (thus the sense of “section, division”, the binary division into male and female).  The generalized meaning “arising from the fact of being male or female; pertaining to sex or gender, or to the social relations between the sexes” dates from the seventeenth century, the specific use in the biological sciences (capable of sexual reproduction; sexed, sexuate) not current until the mid-1800s although the familiar sense “pertaining to sexual intercourse or other intimate physical contact was common a century earlier.

Flag of the fictosexual.

The black and grey stripes represent the lack of attraction towards non-fictional individuals, the purple stripe represents sexual attraction and the asexual spectrum, the black circle represents a portal to the fictional world in question, and pink represents attraction to fictional characters.

Fictosexuality (fictoromance & fictophilia are related) is an umbrella term for anyone who experience sexual attraction toward fictional characters, a general type of fictional characters, or whose sexuality is influenced by fictional characters.  As a noted behavior in mental illnesses with a delusional component, there’s doubtless a long history but the word seems first to have come into use circa 2014 but none of the documents which discuss fictosexuality appear to address the technical point of the status of the fictional depiction of a historic character.  Like digisexuality, fictosexuality is not dissimilar to Objectum sexuality, a condition in which people have a primary interest in objects.  The categories included under the fictosexual umbrella are not mutually exclusive and definitional overlap is noted:

Animesexuality: An exclusive attraction to anime.

Cartosexual: An attraction to cartoon or comic characters.

Booklosexual: An attraction to the characters in novels.

Visualnovelsexual: An attraction to the characters in visual novels.

Gamosexual: An attraction to the characters in video games.

Imagisexual: An attraction to fictional characters one can never see (book, audio characters etc).

Inreasexual: An attraction to characters from live-active genres.

OCsexual: An attraction to original characters.

Teratosexual: An attraction to monster-related characters.

Tobusexual: An attraction to vampire-related characters.

Spectrosexual: An attraction to ghost-related characters.

Nekosexual: An attraction to neko-related characters (usually in anime).

Anuafsexual: An attraction to other animal and human hybrid characters.

Multifictino: A mix of exclusive fictional attraction.

Aliussexual: An attraction for fictionkin; the attraction to fictional characters from their source.

Fictosexual Akihiko Kondo san with Hatsune Miku san doll.

Advances in materials, computer processing and software mean that fictosexuals can now allow their love to manifest digisexually though such relationships are not without their ups and downs.  Fictosexual Akihiko Kondo san (b 1984), a employee of Tokyo’s local government (and self-described otaku (one who is obsessed with something, especially Manga or anime)), had for ten years maintained a fictosexual relationship with Hatsune Miku san, depicted in pop culture as a 16-year-old with turquoise hair before their (unofficial) wedding ceremony in 2018.  The wedding was, by Japanese standards, a modest affair on which Kondo san spent about 2 million yen (US$14,750) but his family, not approving of the computer-synthesized, pop singer bride, choose not to attend although several dozen others, including other fictosexuals, witnessed the ceremony.  Unfortunately, although still deeply in love with Miku san, he finds himself now unable to communicate with his wife because support for the Gatebox (a US$1000 device which enabled owners interact with holograms) has been dropped.  It was through the Gatebox that in 2017 Kondo san proposed marriage and after he popped the question, she replied "I hope you'll cherish me."

Kondo san with Miku san hologram with Gatebox connectvity.

Miku san was created as a synthesised voice using Yamaha’s Vocaloid technology and entered mainstream media as a fictionalised human character in Manga, anime series and video games.  Her appeal cut across many demographics and proved cross-cultural, joining Lady Gaga on her 2014 Artpop Ball tour.  Kondo san first became acquainted with Miku san in 2008 while suffering depression after being bullied at work and the presence in his life proved therapeutic, bring him acceptance that human relationships were not right for him and spending days at a time in his room watching Miku san videos saw the relationship blossom.  Since oral communication became impossible, Kondo san carries with him a life-sized Miku san doll.

Hatsune Miku san, texting and resting.