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People being attracted to each other is a complex and at times confusing thing.
Lots of different people have a wide range of perspectives on what floats their sexual boat and whatever sort of weirdness you've got going on, it's likely that somebody somewhere finds it really f**king hot.
However, it can be difficult to know what exactly it is you like if you don't have the words to articulate it properly, so fortunately according to a study from researchers at the University of Seattle there's a new word to be aware of.
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According to the research, led by Dr Sally Johnston, this new term is a 'symbiosexual'.
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What is 'symbiosexual'?
In essence it's an attraction towards an existing relationship.
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The thing that kicked off the study was an observation that some people appeared to be attracted to two or more people who were already in a relationship with each other.
Dr Johnston found evidence in other studies that supported her hypothesis that there were those who had an 'attraction to the energy, multidimensionality, and power shared between people in relationships'.
What does that actually mean for relationships?
In the basic sense it'd mean someone wanting to join their already existing relationship because of the energy the people in it are giving off.
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A symbiosexual would see what was going on between a couple and be attracted to that connection, with a member of the study called Sage saying when they see it they 'just want to be smack in the middle of that relationship'.
Among those who participated in the study and appeared to be symbiosexual were some answers as to why this dynamic was appealing.
One participant named Angel said they 'like a lot of care and affection and intimacy in my sex' and a couple 'brings a lot of that upfront', while a second called Eden said he had 'this desire to be desired and I seek a lot of validation' so when there were more people doing that it made them think they were 'doing things right'.
A third called Charlie said she was 'super compersive', which means they celebrate other people's joy even if it's not happening to them, and so she was very drawn to strong couples who would be getting a lot of joy.
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How did the study figure this out?
Dr Johnston took the research done previously for a paper called The Pleasure Study which had surveyed 373 people, and among them 145 expressed an attraction to people in a relationship.
Her team then crunched the numbers on who these people were, and ended up interviewing 34 of them for further details where they outlined what they felt.
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Among the common traits that came up in the study were extroversion, a desire for lots of intimacy, a lack of jealousy and a preference for non-monogamy.
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Science
Joe Harker