ArticleFrontiers in psychology2020
Fictosexuality, Fictoromance, and Fictophilia: A Qualitative Study of Love and Desire for Fictional Characters.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Factors influencing anime-generated parasocial relationships: a systematic review.BMC psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Fictional Fantasies: Exploring Paraphilic Narratives in Literary Spaces.Archives of sexual behavior · 2026Article
- Character style and relational judgments in human-AI romance: trust, commitment, intimacy, and passion.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- The impact of game character identification on otome game players' mate selection criteria.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Refuting Six Misconceptions about Romantic Love.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Fictosexuality, fictoromance, and fictophilia are terms that have recently become popular in online environments as indicators of strong and lasting feelings of love, infatuation, or desire for one or more fictional characters. This article explores the phenomenon by qualitative thematic analysis of 71 relevant online discussions. Five central themes emerge from the data: (1) fictophilic paradox, (2) fictophilic stigma, (3) fictophilic behaviors, (4) fictophilic asexuality, and (5) fictophilic supernormal stimuli. The findings are further discussed and ultimately compared to the long-term debates on human sexuality in relation to fictional characters in Japanese media psychology. Contexts for future conversation and research are suggested.
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Registered trials
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