Cinesexuality is a concept in film philosophy by feminist film theorist Patricia MacCormack which attempts to explain why people sometimes feel an intense attraction towards film.
Origins
MacCormack coined the term and used it as the title of her 2008 essay to describe her philosophical speculation about film, which is similar in some respects to the poststructuralist philosophy of desire by contemporary philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
Meaning
While the term is somewhat vague, she uses it to describe why there is a "desire which flows through all who want cinema as a lover," why film can feel erotic, whether such intense feelings may be explained by a psychic model of "tension and release," and why there is this "physical pleasure of cinema" which sometimes manifests itself in an "erotic and subversive" way.
Analysis
Catherine Grant suggested that MacCormack has essentially reformulated the term cinephilia, a term in film criticism which denotes passionate interest in film.
Two reviewers suggest that MacCormack explores the "inherent queerness of film," in the sense that the relation between spectators and a film is "inherently queer." According to reviewer Jill Crammond Wickham in Poets Quarterly, cinesexuality can explain not only why film audiences feel such a strong desire for what they see on screen, but why "our culture is so obsessed with movie stars."
123 Jill Crammond Wickham, April 2010, Poets Quarterly, An interview with Kate Durbin: Part I, Retrieved Aug. 18, 2014, "...Critic Patricia McCormick, who coined the term cinesexuality, ... cinema has the ability to produce intense pleasure in a viewer... why they have this strong desire [need] for cinema... why our culture is so obsessed with movie stars...."
↑ Joanna McIntyre, June 25, 2014, Culture and the Media, Cinema Studies: Cinesexuality by Patricia McCormackArchived 2014-08-21 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved Aug. 18, 2014, "...Cinesexuality is the desire which flows through all who want cinema as a lover. It knows no gender, no sexuality, no form, and no function. It describes a position of supplication before an unresponsive element. ... we are all already cinesexual’ "
↑ Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Volume 26, Issue 4, 2012, DOI:10.1080/10304312.2012.698032, Adrian Martina, pages 519-528, A theory of agitation, or: Getting off in the cinema, Retrieved Aug. 18, 2014, "... this essay proceeds to ask: is there a model of tension and release,... structure of psychic agitation,...."
↑ December 20th, 2013, Hili Perlson, Sleek Magazine, The Iron Lady No More, Retrieved Aug. 18, 2014, "... Patricia McCormack’s idea of “Cinesexuality”, which argues that spectatorship in itself is inherently queer. ..."