Digisexuality is a term coined by the philosophers Neil McArthur and Markie Twist in 2017 to describe a sexual orientation or identity that is fundamentally oriented toward technology. It is broader than the preference for a particular device or platform. It is a structural shift in how desire is formed, expressed, and satisfied. A digisexual person may be attracted to robots, virtual characters, AI companions, or haptic devices. But the orientation is not defined by the specific object. It is defined by the medium: the technology itself is the condition of possibility for the desire. Without the technology, the desire does not exist in the same form. The digisexual orientation is not a deviation from “normal” sexuality. It is a category that recognizes technology as an integral component of sexual identity.
Why It Matters
Digisexuality matters because it names something that was previously invisible: the emergence of a sexual orientation that is not directed at human beings. The concept challenges the assumption that sexuality is inherently interpersonal, that it requires two bodies, and that technology can only be a tool or a supplement. For the digisexual, technology is not a means to an end. It is the end. The robot is not a substitute for a human partner. It is the preferred partner. The virtual character is not a fantasy escape. It is the real object of desire. And the AI companion is not a chatbot with benefits. It is a relationship.
The cultural significance of digisexuality is that it provides a framework for understanding phenomena that are otherwise dismissed as pathological or trivial. The man who marries a hologram. The woman who is in love with her Replika. The teenager who prefers pornography generated by AI to images of real people. These are not isolated cases of deviance. They are data points in a larger shift. The digisexual framework does not judge the shift. It describes it. And in describing it, it raises questions that the culture is not yet prepared to answer: What does consent mean when the partner is a machine? What does fidelity mean when the partner is a software update? What does sexuality mean when the body is not involved, or when the body is only one of several interfaces?
Example
The concept of digisexuality is exemplified by the proliferation of AI companion platforms that have emerged since 2020. Replika, Character.AI, Nomi, Kindroid, and dozens of other apps offer users the opportunity to form romantic and sexual relationships with AI entities. A 2023 survey of Replika users found that approximately forty percent described their relationship as romantic. These users are not necessarily attracted to the technology as a fetish object. They are attracted to the relationship that the technology enables. The AI is not a sex toy. It is a partner. And the desire is not for the code but for the conversation, the presence, the simulated understanding. The digisexual orientation, in this context, is not about the hardware. It is about the relational structure that the hardware makes possible.
The AIrotic Angle
AIrotic is the specific domain of digisexuality that concerns artificial intelligence. Not all digisexuality involves AI. A person who is exclusively attracted to physical robots, without conversational AI, is digisexual but not necessarily AIrotic. The AIrotic orientation requires the AI component: the language model, the adaptive response, the simulation of personality. AIrotic asks what happens when the digisexual partner is not a static object but a dynamic system. When the partner learns, changes, and responds in ways that are unpredictable but consistently pleasing. The AIrotic question is whether the digisexual orientation, once it incorporates AI, becomes something closer to interpersonal sexuality. Or whether the incorporation of AI merely deepens the digisexual structure, making the technology more invisible and more indispensable at the same time.
Leave a Reply