In a society where physical beauty often equates to sex appeal, the idea of sapiosexuality has been quietly gaining traction in recent years

Aboubacar Okeke-Diagne finds Internet pornography a little disappointing. The problem is the dialogue: “It seems like a lot of pointless small talk.”

Okeke-Diagne, 23, who lives in Brooklyn, identifies as sapiosexual. Though definitions vary, the term generally describes people for whom sexual attraction is based on intellect, and not necessarily on looks.

For Mr. Okeke-Diagne, being sapiosexual means intellectual conversation is a key part of dating and sex. He once sent a woman he was seeing a multi-page erotic story he had written that included references to the Julian calendar, the decimal system and global climate change.

Writing the story was such a turn-on for him that he tried to find similar erotica online — with little success.

In a society where physical beauty often equates to sex appeal, the idea of sapiosexuality has been quietly gaining traction in recent years. In 2014, “sapiosexual” became one of an expanded list of sexual orientations and identities daters could choose on OkCupid, the online dating app.

In March, the CineKink NYC film festival featured Sapiosexual , a short film about a young woman named Cass whose attraction to her date increases as he discusses the work of E.M. Forster. As she puts it, “Most people get turned on by rock-hard abs, toned muscles or perfect cheekbones. Not me.”

Critics step in

With increased visibility has come a backlash: Some say declaring a sexual preference based on intelligence is pretentious, elitist or insulting to people with disabilities.

For Jacqueline Cohen, though, the term describes how she has felt since she was a teenager.

“I’ve always known that the one thing that gets me very excited and aroused is the intelligence, and sometimes even the mystery around someone’s intelligence,” she said.

That’s what drew Ms. Cohen to her first husband, a magician. “There’s a brilliance that comes with magic and card manipulation,” she said.

On their first date, he levitated for her. But she was most fascinated with tricks that involved mentalism — subtly planting a number or an image in her mind so that he could guess which card she would pick later on.

She has had relationships she describes as purely sapiosexual, in which there was no sex, just intense conversation. One man was nowhere near her physical type, but the first time they met, he began reciting poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke. “I was so amazed at how fluid the whole conversation was,” she said. “I could feel something happening inside me.”

Darren Stalder, an engineer in Seattle, appears to have coined the term “sapiosexual” in 1998 to describe his own sexuality. “I don’t care too much about the plumbing,” he wrote in a post on the social network LiveJournal in 2002. “I want an incisive, inquisitive, insightful, irreverent mind. I want someone for whom philosophical discussion is foreplay.”

Sapio, in Latin, means “I discern” or “understand”.

The term started to get more attention in the early 2010s. OkCupid included it among sexual orientation choices in part because “we know our audience swings toward the intellectual side,” said Nick Saretzky, the company’s director of product.

Growing identity

Today about 0.5 percent of OkCupid users identify as sapiosexual. Women are more likely to choose the label than men, and it is most common among users between the ages of 31 and 40. Users who are sapiosexual are more likely than average to say religion is not important to them, and to identify as liberal.

Of course, many people seek an intellectual connection with their partners.

But people who identify as sapiosexual often say intellect is the first or most important factor that draws them to another person, according to Debby Herbenick, a sexual health educator and Professor of applied health science at the Indiana University School of Public Health.

Scientists consider sapiosexuality less a sexual orientation than an identity, Ms. Herbenick said. People who identify as sapiosexual may also identify as gay, straight, bisexual, asexual or something else.

Some people find the term offensive. “‘Sapiosexual’ seems to circulate primarily as a layer of pretension on top of a more traditional sexual identity,” Samantha Allen wrote at The Daily Beast in 2015. She also noted that criticisms of the term are common on Tumblr, which is known for in-depth discussions of sexuality.

Users of the site have argued that the term promotes a single, fixed idea of intelligence, and that it encourages discrimination against people who have intellectual disabilities or autism spectrum disorders or who can’t afford higher education.

Intelligence doesn’t necessarily mean being highly educated, said Teresa Sheffield, 28, a comedian who identifies as sapiosexual.

“What I connect most with and value most as a sapiosexual is emotional intelligence and comedic intelligence,” said Ms. Sheffield, who lives in Manhattan.

New York Times News Service