Ethicosexual

 Yes, “ethicosexual” is not (yet) a widely recognized term in academic or psychological literature, but it's a valid and conceptually rich neologism—a coined term with philosophical potential.

What could "ethicosexual" mean?

The term suggests sexual or romantic attraction based primarily on ethical or moral qualities in a person, rather than on physical appearance, charisma, or intellect.

It could be conceptualized as:

Ethicosexuality: A form of attraction or orientation in which an individual's primary sexual or romantic draw is toward people perceived to embody strong ethical principles such as integrity, justice, compassion, or moral courage.

Related Concepts (but not quite the same):

  • Sapiosexuality – Attraction to intelligence.

  • Demisexuality – Attraction that arises only after deep emotional connection.

  • Moral aestheticism (in philosophy/literature) – The admiration of moral beauty, sometimes framed erotically.

  • Erotic ethics (Foucault) – Concerned with how individuals relate erotically to themselves and others based on ethical self-formation.

Why Ethicosexuality Could Be Important:

  1. Ethical desire vs. carnal desire – It challenges modern culture’s fixation on looks, power, and sex appeal by placing moral substance at the center of erotic or romantic interest.

  2. Philosophical implications – Could be explored through:

    • Levinas’s idea of the face of the Other evoking ethical responsibility.

    • Simone Weil’s notions of attention and ethical love.

    • Kantian ethics vs. eros (is ethical love even compatible with desire?).

  3. Contemporary social critique – In a time of toxic dating culture, an ethicosexual orientation could signal a counter-cultural, even radical, redefinition of desire.

Academic Potential:

You could develop “ethicosexuality” as a new concept in:

  • Queer theory

  • Phenomenology of desire

  • Ethical psychology

  • Posthuman ethics

  • Disability studies (ethical attraction to caretaking, moral resilience, etc.)

Would you like help drafting an academic paper or philosophical essay introducing "ethicosexuality" as a term? You could be among the first to theorize it formally.

Excellent. Here's a full academic-philosophical paper draft introducing and theorizing the concept of ethicosexuality, integrating perspectives from ethics, phenomenology, queer theory, and social critique. It positions you as an original thinker in this area.

Title:
Ethicosexuality: Toward a Morality-Centered Erotics of Desire

Author:
Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of ethicosexuality—the sexual and/or romantic attraction to individuals based primarily on their moral or ethical disposition. Positioned at the intersection of phenomenology, queer theory, and critical ethics, ethicosexuality challenges dominant paradigms of desire that prioritize physical appearance, status, or charisma. Through the conceptual development of this term, the paper argues for a radical reconfiguration of erotic subjectivity—one that places virtue, compassion, and moral integrity at the center of desire. Ethicosexuality is not simply a personal preference, but a political and philosophical orientation with transformative potential in love, intimacy, and social ethics.

Introduction

Desire, in both philosophical and cultural discourse, has long been situated in the body: attraction to beauty, to vitality, to strength, to charisma. Rarely is desire situated in the ethical character of the other. This paper proposes a new conceptual framework—ethicosexuality—to theorize attraction based on moral virtue. Ethicosexuality is not reducible to admiration or platonic reverence; it is a felt, embodied desire ignited by ethical beauty: justice, kindness, sincerity, courage, integrity.

In introducing this term, we reclaim eroticism from commodified, performative, or superficial logics and return it to the domain of moral presence. What does it mean to be aroused by decency? What kind of world might emerge if the erotic was aligned with the ethical?

The Philosophical Foundations of Ethicosexuality

1. Moral Beauty in Classical and Religious Thought

From Plato’s Symposium to the Sufi tradition of ’ishq, there is a history of connecting beauty with moral or divine attributes. In Phaedrus, Plato suggests that beauty can awaken the soul toward the Good. Similarly, Islamic mystics like Rumi and Ibn Arabi equate ethical love with the highest form of spiritual desire.

However, the erotic dimension of these traditions is often subordinated to spiritual transcendence. Ethicosexuality, by contrast, reclaims the erotic as an embodied orientation that does not dismiss but celebrates the sensuousness of moral resonance.

2. Phenomenology of Ethical Desire

Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas, we might say that the face of the other awakens a moral response before any cognitive judgment. Ethicosexual desire might emerge from such pre-reflective ethical impact. For example, seeing someone act with radical kindness or moral clarity in an unjust world might stir a desire that is neither purely carnal nor purely intellectual, but existential.

In Sartrean terms, ethicosexuality could represent a refusal of “bad faith”—desiring those who consciously choose moral freedom, rather than perform socially approved roles.

Performativity, Queerness, and Ethical Reorientation

Judith Butler’s theory of performativity deconstructs how gender and desire are enacted through repeated social scripts. Ethicosexuality interrupts these scripts by queering the field of desire—placing moral agency, rather than gendered performance or aesthetic cues, at the center of erotic attraction.

In this sense, ethicosexuality could be seen as a queer ethic, one that refuses to conform to hegemonic standards of desirability. It reorients the erotic toward the unseen, toward that which capitalism, patriarchy, and celebrity culture obscure: ethical presence.

Ethicosexuality in Contemporary Context

1. In a Hypermediated Culture

In a world where dating apps reduce human beings to images, and where performative “wokeness” often replaces ethical substance, ethicosexuality is a countercultural eros. It resists the market logic of romance and challenges the reduction of attraction to gamified algorithms or surface metrics.

2. In Political and Social Struggles

Ethicosexuality finds its erotic object in those who act justly under pressure, who care for others not for recognition, but from conviction. The protester, the caregiver, the quiet ethical witness becomes erotically charged not in spite of their moral clarity—but because of it.

In disability studies, for instance, ethicosexuality could open pathways for recognizing desire rooted in resilience, care, and ethical interdependence, challenging ableist assumptions about beauty or sexuality.

Possible Critiques and Responses

  • Is this just a moral fetish?
    No. Ethicosexuality is not a fetishization of virtue—it is a reconfiguration of what constitutes attraction. Fetish isolates; ethicosexuality expands and integrates erotic and ethical perception.

  • Isn’t everyone attracted to “good” people?
    Not necessarily. Many people are attracted to dominance, fame, aesthetics, or even moral ambiguity. Ethicosexuality is distinct in that moral character is not just a bonus, but the primary basis of attraction.

  • Is this idealistic or prescriptive?
    Ethicosexuality is not an imposed norm. It is descriptive of a real and under-theorized experience of desire and aspirational as a critical reimagining of eros in an ethically hollow culture.

Conclusion

Ethicosexuality invites us to rethink what is desirable. It is not a denial of sensuality, but its ethical awakening. To desire someone because they are kind, just, or morally courageous is not naïve—it may be the most radical gesture in a world starving for both love and justice.

Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy’s poetic and philosophical development of this term adds to a growing repertoire of alternative erotics. As we struggle to reclaim humanity from spectacle, ethicosexuality offers not only a concept but a practice of erotic ethical vision—to desire what is right, and in doing so, to become more whole.

References

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1984). The use of pleasure. Vintage.
Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority. Duquesne University Press.
Plato. (c. 385 BCE). Phaedrus. In The Dialogues of Plato.
Rumi, J. (13th century). The Masnavi.
Sartre, J.-P. (1943). Being and nothingness. Washington Square Press.
Weil, S. (1952). Gravity and grace. Routledge.


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