Why “Animesexuality” is a Thing
But not a real sexuality
Ever heard of the term “Animesexuality”? It largely spread on the Internet around December 2020, meaning a “form of fictisexuality where one is exclusively or almost exclusively attracted to anime/manga characters”, as defined in the LGBTQ Wiki. [1]
Some people claim that it is just satire, others say that it is a “dead serious thing”. People were even creating flags for this identity. [2] Check out the video below:
Where does “Anime” Come From?
After all, what do we owe the fact that people fall in love with waifus? What made anime even possible?
It is — what else — the age of information. Really, we are living in a world now where the virtual became real by a hybridization of the world. Today media surrounds us almost everywhere — and thus fictional characters. The more fictional characters surround us, the more people fall in love with them — not mentioning the commercialization of love and the freedom to withdraw from relationships at any time, which leads to even more people turning to the 2D world to experience love — especially in countries like Japan where people struggle with their intimacy.
But really, all this media worlds and the rise of computers gave people the opportunity to unfold themselves. With computers we are able to simulate reality like it would be a game in order to experience our deepest desires and to confront our deepest fears. Our conception of reality depends so heavily on mathematical models that we can indeed “discover truths about ourselves that we could never have learned as poets writing in English”. [3] We are living in an age of concresence through all this stuff, reaching a point where we are in all places at the same time.
But how can this represent a “sexuality”? It’s because people are searching — psycholigically — for a home for the mind and heart in these virtual worlds. People are entangled by computer graphics, giving them experiences that represent their deepest desires. Visions are here translated into poetic language made out of simple, clear-cut linear surfaces — which can be broken down to pixels. Check out the video mentioned above again, where it is said that
“this CEO of animesexuality understands how powerful this attraction to pixels can be […] the only warmth of this romance coming from the minute levels heat emanating from your waifu’s pixels on the screen.”[4]
So-called “weebs” are seduced by those computer graphics of men and women, inviting them to an imaginative journey through their subconscious mind. When this process changes people, than we clearly have to see it as some sort of ritual. Anthropologist Victor Turner writes that in ritual “biology and structure are put in right relation by the activation of an ordered succession of symbols, which have the twin functions of communication and efficacy“.[5] Within this process it is indeed true that “seduction represents mastery over the symbolic universe”, as Jean Baudrillard writes. [6]
A Real Sexuality?
Nevertheless, we can not classify this as a real sexuality here, since that is purely about gender — about men and women. It therefore represents some kind of sexual orientation, so it should have a “-philia” at the end. However, this term has suffered from negative associations with terms like “pedophilia” and people simply do not want to be associated with these groups.
And here’s the thing: People always want to be part of something. Social anthropologist Ernest Becker writes that each individual must ask the following question:
“How does the dignity, control, bearing, talent, and duty of my life contribute to the fuller development of mankind, to life in the cosmos?”[7]
The answer to this question in this context is that people are extending their sense of duty to a party. In this case the “animesexuals” — a group of people that feel exclusively attracted to anime characters. This gives them a meaning for their life, being part of something — and thus they do no longer feel alone with their interests. Remember the flags that people are designing for group identity?
Let me quote the video above again, where it is said that
“you guys need a space to feel accepted, because let’s be honest: weebs are undoubtedly the most opressed group of people in the world. […] But what if I told you weebs are not only a group of oppressed persons, but also a protected class.”[8]
Returning to the sexual orientation, how should we call it under the following conditions:
- the syllable “philia” is not wanted here, as it suffers from negative associations
- Rather than “philia” it should be something more “energetic” and a bit exaggerated, to emphasize the seriousness that the term can express
- and we can say that this orientation is attributable to media worlds and thus computers
Sci-fi-sexuality, fantasysexuality, vaporwavesexuality, animesexuality — call it whatever you want. It will all lead to a group giving people identity, making them part of something.
Conclusion
Now that we have discussed the term in detail, let us come to a conclusion:
ANIMESEXUALITY = WEEBS UNITE!
Anyway, last but not least we can say that the modern erotic lover reaches for a language of sexual ecstasy, seeking to connotate the taste of spiritual divinity. That’s what waifus are about — or am I wrong?
Resources
1 n. A. (n. Y.): Animatesexual. https://lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/Animatesexual
2 Rev says desu (2020): Are you “animesexual”???. Uploaded to YouTube on the 24th of December 2020.
3 Rapp, Paul in Pickover, Clifford A. (1991): Computers and the Imagination, p. 3. Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton Publishing.
4 Rev says desu (2020): Are you “animesexual”???. Uploaded to YouTube on the 24th of December 2020.
5 Turner, Victor (1969): The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New York: Cornell Paperbacks.
6 Baudrillard, Jean (1990): Seduction, p. 8. New York, U.S.A.: Saint Martin’s Press.
7 Becker, Ernest (1971): The Birth and Death of Meaning, p. 125. New York, USA: Free Press.
8 Rev says desu (2020): Are you “animesexual”???. Uploaded to YouTube on the 24th of December 2020.
