Is Sapiosexuality Pretentious?

Is Sapiosexuality Pretentious?

Why are we comfortable rewarding intellect but uneasy about desiring it?

Helen Higgins

Sep 29, 2026

154

27

43

Share

Photo by

Gaspar Uhas

on

Unsplash

We live in a culture that constantly celebrates intelligence in the abstract. Schools exist to cultivate it, and universities sell it. Employers recruit for it, politicians claim to value it, and parents encourage it. A few days ago, though, a stranger informed me that being attracted to intelligence was evidence that I had nothing of intellectual value to offer - a sentiment at odds with everything I’ve ever been told.

It appears that openly admitting that intelligence is attractive remains oddly controversial. We’re comfortable rewarding intellect, but we’re a lot less comfortable desiring it. The very moment attraction enters the equation, intelligence stops being an achievement because it starts feeling like a judgement.

If you’re attracted to intelligence, somebody else inevitably hears that they lack it.

This was brought home to me at the end of last week. Someone commented on Instagram that identifying as sapiosexual is essentially a way of signalling to the world that I have no credentials, nothing of intellectual value to contribute, and therefore have to manufacture an identity around being attracted to intelligence in order to have a “flex”.

Erm… OK. That’s a

bold

set of statements.

For context, I’d thanked another creator for exploring the concept of sapiosexuality, and I was engaging with that creator’s post when this person had felt it appropriate to cast their aspersions.

Troll? Possibly. Did he have a point, though? Maybe.

He certainly felt passionately enough about it that I apparently needed to read his opinion on it. Whilst I’m not against being informed of someone else’s viewpoint, it was the adamant certainty with which it was delivered that I balked at. Regardless of the poster’s initial intentions (which I strongly suspect was an attempt to upset me), they’d at least managed to provoke in me some thought about the subject as a whole. I tried to see from his perspective.

What struck me the most is that the statements made towards me were quite a lot to infer from one word. What interested me wasn’t that he’d called me pretentious (because people on the internet call each other pretentious all day long - and I’ve been called it in the past to my face). What interested me was that, in the space of a single comment, a complete stranger believed he understood not only my attraction, but my motivations, my credentials, my insecurities, and my entire intellectual history.

Photo by

Shawn Day

on

Unsplash

It needs to be acknowledged that “sapiosexual” is one of those words that seems to make people disproportionately angry.

They’re not confused about what it means, and they’re not merely sceptical about its existence. In my experience, they’re genuinely

angry

. There’s something about announcing that you’re attracted to intelligence that seems to irritate a particular kind of person enormously, and I suspect it’s because intelligence isn’t a neutral concept, especially for those that react so vitriolically.

When somebody says they’re attracted to kindness, nobody (generally) demands their credentials in compassion. If someone says they’re attracted to beautiful people, we don’t ask them to submit evidence of their own aesthetic achievements. If someone says they’re attracted to musicians, we don’t assume they’re pretending to be a musician themselves. All of these examples can be challenged or proved in some way, however subjective. However, saying, “I’m attracted to intelligence,” suddenly implies a hierarchy. I can close my eyes and hear a conversation that I’ve had many times play out:

Person A: Oh, so you think

you’re

clever?

Me: Perhaps, or perhaps I just like clever people.

Person B: You’re so full of yourself. What makes you so special?

Me: Am I? What do you mean “special”?

Nobody asks whether you’re athletic enough to admire athleticism, but attraction to intelligence frequently attracts demands for proof.

I think this goes back to the continuing uncomfortable cultural association between intelligence and status. Intelligence is entangled with education, class, academic achievement, eloquence, cultural capital and professional authority. Consequently, describing yourself as attracted to intelligence can sound, to some people, like a declaration that you belong to a particular intellectual class. We seem to forget that intelligence often completely transcends any of the materialistic restrictions of class structures, and that it’s perfectly possible to be intelligent and curious about the world without an Oxbridge or Ivy League degree in sight. Some of the least intelligent people I’ve met have possessed a string of letters after their names. Some of the most intelligent people I’ve known possessed no formal authority whatsoever.

Educational attainment is an imperfect measure of intelligence, but it’s becoming an increasingly perfect measurement of material privilege.

Photo by

Bhautik Patel

on

Unsplash

“Sapiosexual”, as a word, doesn’t exactly help itself either, though. It’s a deliberately constructed word that sounds clinical, academic and faintly Latin, at least in my opinion. “Sapio” means “be wise” or “to discern”, whilst “sexual” means to be attracted to, although it’s still debated as to whether sapiosexuality is a preference or an orientation. This word takes something perfectly ordinary, in this case finding someone’s mind attractive, and gives it a taxonomy, so you can understand why people roll their eyes.

There’s a reasonable criticism to make here that perhaps “sapiosexual” is unnecessarily grandiose. Saying “I fall for people who make me think” is warmer, more precise, and less likely to sound like you’re applying for membership of an intellectual aristocracy… but that isn’t the same thing as saying the people who use the word are pretentious.

More importantly, it isn’t the same thing as saying they must prove their own intelligence before they’re allowed to use it. That was the particularly strange thing about the comment I received.

The argument was essentially that identifying as sapiosexual is a way of compensating for having no credentials and nothing to contribute. There was an overwhelming feeling welling up inside me, as I sat and read the comment, to remind the commenter that credentials and intelligence aren’t synonymous. A qualification can demonstrate that you’ve completed a particular course of study, but it can’t, by itself, measure curiosity.

Or wit.

Or imagination.

Or intellectual generosity.

Or the ability to ask an extraordinary question.

Or the capacity to make somebody see something they have looked at a thousand times differently.

I wasn’t aware any of those things require a certificate. Instead, I turn to Socrates’ observation, “Wisdom begins in wonder.”

I also think there is something wonderfully, deliciously, and ironically revealing about demanding credentials from somebody just because they’ve admitted finding intelligence attractive. It turns attraction into an intellectual audition to prove you’re clever enough to fancy clever people. That’s not how desire works. I think what people actually dislike about sapiosexuality isn’t the word itself, but the possibility that somebody is announcing that their mind is part of their erotic landscape. They’re telling you that conversation matters to them, as does curiosity and language, and the ability to make them laugh with an observation, or to challenge them when it matters. Not everyone can meet others at that level comfortably.

Photo by

Mirella Callage

on

Unsplash

Being surprised by another person’s way of thinking matters.

There’s nothing inherently superior about that kind of attraction, and it doesn’t make somebody more sophisticated than a person who falls for a beautiful smile, strong arms, kindness, confidence, or a magnificent arse. It’s simply a preference. I think the hostility towards the word tells us something interesting, though. We’re remarkably comfortable talking about bodies as objects of desire, but humans remain less comfortable admitting that intellect can be erotic.

Pretentious? Maybe the word is. Finding intelligence attractive? I think that’s considerably less complicated.

Maybe that’s why the word provokes such strong reactions. Intelligence is one of the few qualities that people fear being judged on long after they’ve left school. If you tell someone you’re attracted to beauty, they may shrug, but if you tell them you’re attracted to intelligence some hear a compliment, whilst others hear an exclusion. The difference isn’t in the attraction. It’s in the insecurity.

Sometimes, though, you simply meet somebody whose way of thinking makes the world feel more interesting.

Frankly, what’s wrong with wanting more of that?

Buy Me a Coffee

Instagram

154

27

43

Share