What is autosexuality?

Autosexuality as a umbrella refers to self-attraction, it can be alongside other active relationships/attraction to other people, but it stands out as the self attraction is more extreme then attraction to another person. Selfcest irl basically. LOL

The term was used for the first time by a guy named Bernard Apfelbaum back in 1989, through a paper, [CW: VERY NSFW, SLURS, its very offensive imo, but hey, history was never quite pretty.

Common Misconceptions

"But everyone loves themselves! Why do you need a label?"

Autosexuality is different to general self love/attraction, generally by the severity of it. Loving yourself is a very healthy and normal practice, which doesnt automatically equal autosexuality. Autosexuality is more when somebody feels as if they're dating/in a relationship with themself. What a non-auto might consider falling in love with someone else, eg, blushing at the sight of them, feeling extra happy and lovey around them, and ecetera, autosexuals can feel those exact same things, just directed to themselves. (Just as all love, it may look different. Your experiences are unique to you and yourself. < 3)

"So you're narcisstic and have a big ego?"

This could easily be true. There are infact, autosexuals who may have a big ego or may have NPD, or some sort of personality disorder. We, personally do. This doesnt automatically equal that as a *bad* thing, nor do ALL autosexuals have a big ego or a PD. It shouldnt be treated different to a relationship between two physical beings, who may be egocentric or "narcissistic" about their relationship. The two arent inherintley related.

"Is autosexuality an asexual orientation?"

Techincially, yes. Just as any other asexual orientation, it is very different for everyone. It's considered asexual due to the general lack of attraction to OTHERS, though you can still be dating other people, or feel attraction to others alongside being auto. Its a spectrum. This often makes people assume autosexuals have no interest in sexual activity at all, which isnt true.

Autosexuality & Plurality

We arent here to explain what plurality is, we'll make an article for it one day-- if you dont know what it is, just look up "plural system" on google. Anyway. Autosexuality and Plurality is something we find overlaps with ourself. Its a very interesting topic, and nobody really talks about it- So, here we are.

It's very common in plurals for headmates to be in love, or date eachother, or something of the sort. While generally being called "in sys relationships" ive seen people who wonder if that counts as autosexuality. Kinda. It depends on the person.

Some plurals see their headmates as seperate people, which could possibly rule out the idea of it being 'auto' since, theyre technically *two* people, right? (Will get back to this later,)

Some headmates could be 'doubles' of eachother, or not exactly feel like different people, and be in love, which could very well qualify as autosexuality. Or, some plurals could identify with autosexuality just like how a singlet would. A general collective attraction to the physical body. Seeing yourself as "one" (Lack of better word) and knowing you're in love, headmates or not. That's last one's our experience, at least.

An exception of ours goes to our host/core, Liadan. She's in love with our cohost, Indianna- The two were the very first headmates and have been madly in love since (eight years?). The two generally consider their relationship to be auto, as the physical aspect of sharing a form and brain makes them feel like one, despite being recognised as seperate headmates. Something about hugging, always being with eachother, is perfect enough for them to count as self love. Which too, is a lovely thing.

It really does come down to personal preference. We hope to see more plurals talk about their experiences with autosexuality, it really is just intresting!

Autosexuality & 'Kinning'

Again, 'kinning' just in reference to a severe and genuine relation to a (generally fiction) character. This could be seen in relation to delusional attachment, plurality, as far as soulbonding & introjects go, and fictosexuality/yume. Our experience with auto & 'kin' is moreso soulbonding & yume related (Yes, i'm infact going to bring mahiro into this. Fuck off,) though we have had passing conversations with others who are not plural, and their experiences in this.

Sometimes, people can get so attached to a character that they seem themselves in them. That they fully believe they *are* them, and know they are. This is the case for us, the character being Mahiro Oyama from Onimai: I'm Now Your Sister. Our autosexuality affects this in the sense we're in love with her, because she IS us. It's hard to explain to those who dont experience such closeness to characters to begin with, but to us, its like a much more serious equivalent to an introject. The love, attachment, etc. feels the exact same to 'normal' autosexuality.

What's interesting is that, when we do talk about shipping ourselves with Mahiro in her canonical universe, we do actually have a 'self insert' who isnt Mahiro. It just sort of makes sense to us in that context, despite how we do picture ourself as one. Keep up!

Relevent Sub Terms.

Auto-fictosexual / Auto-fictoromantic
"auto- and ficto- orientations where one is attracted to a fictional(ized) version of oneself. most often in the case of introject & kin, but can also be used to describe an attraction to a self insert, or anything similar."
Coined by "Webby Mogai on tumblr" Archive

Autosexual/Romantic/Rose NPD
"For people with NPD who are autosexual / autoromantic / autorose."
Coined by "theflaggerrrr on tumblr" Archive Unavailable

Autoplurid & Plurautonic
"Autoplurid: A plurid in which the system collectively identify as auto-spec (i.e. autosexual, autoromantic, etc.), even if not all individual members do." "Pluratonic: is a word to describe attraction that between members of the same system that feels auto-spec as a result of them sharing the same body."
Coined by "ix-c-999 on tumblr" Autoplurid Archive Pluratonic Archive

While not mentioned in this article, a lot more unique sub labels can be found through sites like tumblr. There's always a word for what you experience.

There arent many resources for autosexuality out there that isnt incredibly untrue or uneducated etc, I will update this article as i find them. Thank you for taking the time to read this!