Berrisexual: The Definitive Guide to Attraction to Fictional Characters in the Digital Age
Friday, December 5, 2025.
Every era invents new language for longing.
Victorians had swooning.
Millennials had situationships.
Gen Z has turned desire into a full-time classification project—half anthropology, half fandom studies, half committee meeting.
And now, from the unruly compost pile of digital culture, we meet the newest micro-label: berrisexual.
A word so charmingly absurd it feels pre-approved for a tote bag.
But as always, behind the joke is something earnest: a very old human ache dressed in new pixels.
To understand berrisexuality, we must understand its lineage: fictosexuality, nijikon, parasocial attachment, and the centuries-long tradition of falling in love with beings who do not strictly exist.
As scholars of sexual identity construction note, desire often expands faster than language, which is why new terms emerge at cultural flashpoints, as explored in Barker’s analysis of sexual identity labels (Barker, 2016) and in Fahs’s work on naming practices and desire (Fahs, 2019).
So let’s begin—with affectionate bemusement for the human heart and its unfettered enthusiasms.
What “Berrisexual” Means (The Short Answer)
“Berrisexual” is an emerging, internet-born identity describing someone who feels sexual or romantic attraction toward a fictional or animated character—most famously Berri from Conker’s Bad Fur Day, an anthropomorphic squirrel whose geometry suggests her animator was paid by the curve.
Online, the term broadened immediately. It now refers to attraction toward:
• stylized animated characters.
• video game avatars.
• fictional beings.
• AI characters.
• digital creations embodying idealized traits real partners cannot sustain.
It is essentially a humorous, self-aware subset of fictosexuality, an orientation researchers have examined in studies of parasocial bonds, identity formation, and sexual scripting (Weinberg, 2018; Rust, 2000).
And as with all good micro-labels, the joke is not the point. The clarity is.
Why This Word Exists (And Why It’s Not Silly)
Here’s an essential cultural truth; new words emerge when interior life outpaces vocabulary.
As Katz demonstrated in The Invention of Heterosexuality—a history of how sexual categories themselves are made and remade (Katz, 2013)—identity labels are cultural tools, not fixed truths.
Digital life has expanded the landscape of fantasy, intimacy, and erotic imagination. New vocabulary is not a frivolity; it’s a requirement.
Berrisexuality is not merely a meme. It signals:
• self-recognition.
• shame reduction.
• playful vulnerability.
• a desire to articulate attraction without clinical scrutiny.
Humor, as Haslam’s research on concept formation reminds us, often precedes institutional recognition (Haslam, 2016). Micro-labels are linguistic trial balloons—released into the culture to see who feels seen.
Berrisexuality’s Older Siblings
To make sense of berrisexuality, you need to peruse its family tree.
Fictosexuality
Fictosexuality refers to enduring romantic or sexual attraction to fictional characters. Researchers studying sexual identity shifts through time have shown that these attachments often reflect deeper emotional or psychological needs—not passing whims (Twenge et al., 2017).
Fictosexuality includes attraction to:
• animated characters.
• literary characters.
• AI companions.
• avatars.
• narrative-based figures.
It is far broader than berrisexuality.
Nijikon / “2D Complex”
This Japanese term describes attraction specifically to 2D characters—figures prized for their predictability, emotional coherence, and narrative reliability.
Nijikon predates Internet culture and demonstrates that “fictional attraction” is older than the digital age.
Parasocial Desire
Parasocial relationships—emotionally meaningful, one-sided attachments to media figures—have been documented since the mid-20th century.
Hall and Barrett’s work on identity formation through mediated figures (Hall & Barrett, 2017) shows how deeply humans bond with characters who cannot bond back.
Berrisexuality belongs neatly inside this lineage.
Why Berrisexuality Feels Different
While fictosexuality is a broad category, berrisexuality is intentionally narrow and intentionally funny. It is extremely elegant in that it accomplishes four things at once:
• names a specific desire.
• removes shame through humor.
• signals self-awareness.
• functions as identity-play without rigidity.
It is the linguistic equivalent of placing a party hat on a longstanding psychological phenomenon.
And as Berlant & Edelman argue, naming discomfort—even ludicrous naming—creates space for emotional truth (Berlant & Edelman, 2014).
The Psychology Behind Attraction to Fictional Characters
Let’s take this seriously, because it is serious.
Folks attracted to fictional characters are rarely responding to anatomy. They are responding to:
• emotional clarity.
• reliable narrative logic.
• idealized responsiveness.
• predictability.
• safety without vulnerability.
• intimacy without negotiation.
• fantasy unburdened by human volatility.
Real humans have histories, moods, triggers, and poorly timed opinions.
Fictional characters, by contrast, have consistency. They are built for coherence.
Studies of shifting sexual attitudes and fantasy use (Twenge et al., 2017) and analyses of sexual identity construction in mediated spaces (Weinberg, 2018) help explain why fictional attraction is rising: the more unpredictable real relationships become, the more appealing idealized ones feel.
Berrisexuality as Emotional Refuge
People don’t turn to fantasy because they’re unserious. They turn to fantasy because it doesn’t fucking hurt.
Fictional characters offer:
• no judgment.
• no misattunement.
• no rejection.
• no emotional labor.
• no volatility.
They offer uninterrupted attunement—something real couples lose when life becomes too loud.
Viewed through a therapeutic lens, berrisexuality is not avoidance. It is self-protection.
Is Berrisexuality “Real”?
If "real" means:
• formally recognized by academia.
• clinically validated by social science.
• included in diagnostic frameworks.
Then no—berrisexuality is not an orientation.
But if “real” means:
• culturally meaningful.
• used by actual people.
• psychologically coherent.
• describing recognizable patterns of desire.
Then yes—berrisexuality is absolutely real.
Many sexual identities began this way: culturally emergent, linguistically playful, and rooted in emotional truth.
Why We Should Celebrate the Word
Because naming helps people understand themselves.
Because humor makes vulnerability survivable.
Because desire deserves dignity—especially when strange.
Because fantasy is one of the few safe harbors modern intimacy hasn’t wrecked.
As Fahs’s work on sexual naming practices argues (Fahs, 2019), micro-labels generate self-recognition, not pathology.
Berrisexuality is not a crisis. It is a sign that folks still want to feel.
Final Thoughts
Berrisexuality is not a joke, a pathology, or a cultural collapse.
It is a witty, tender, culturally useful label for a type of attraction that predates the internet but thrives online.
It belongs to the family of:
• fictosexuality.
• nijikon.
• parasocial desire.
• digital intimacy.
• fantasy-based identity exploration.
And like all micro-labels, it will continue to evolve.
But its emergence reveals something hopeful: people are still naming their inner worlds. Still inventing ways to speak desire. Still trying to understand themselves in a culture that rarely pauses long enough for self-reflection.
May we all be so brave.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Barker, M. (2016). Sexuality and gender for mental health professionals: A practical guide. Sage Publications.
Berlant, L., & Edelman, L. (2014). Sex, or the unbearable. Duke University Press.
Fahs, B. (2019). Uncomfortable labels: Challenging harmful structures in sexual naming practices. Journal of Sex Research, 56(7), 865–878. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2018.1511390
Hall, K., & Barrett, R. (2017). The role of social semiosis in sexual identity formation. Annual Review of Anthropology, 46, 69–84. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041455
Haslam, N. (2016). Concept creep: Psychology’s expanding concepts of harm and pathology. Psychological Inquiry, 27(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2016.1082418
Katz, J. (2013). The invention of heterosexuality (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.
McCormack, M. (2012). The declining significance of homophobia: How teenage boys are redefining masculinity and heterosexuality. Oxford University Press.
Rust, P. C. (2000). Bisexuality: A contemporary paradox for women. Journal of Social Issues, 56(2), 205–221. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00162
Sedgwick, E. K. (2008). Epistemology of the closet. University of California Press.
Twenge, J. M., Sherman, R. A., & Wells, B. E. (2017). Changes in American adults’ sexual behavior and attitudes, 1972–2012. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46(8), 2273–2285. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0760-0
Weinberg, T. S. (2018). Sexual scripts and evolving identities in contemporary culture. Sexualities, 21(6), 905–922. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460717701699.