Meaning
What does Sister complex mean?
If a person has a sister complex, it means that they have a stronger-than-usual relationship to their sister.
The person with the “sister complex” may either be her brother or her sister, but in any way, they are way too close.
Siblings in general have a very unique bond, often a love-hate relationship, but if you have a “sister complex”, you have taken things way too far.
It means that you obsess over her, you talk about her constantly, you likely have infinite amounts of pictures of her, or both of you together. You will protect her from anything – even when she doesn’t really need protecting.
She can do anything, and you will still admire her, even if it’s wrong.
Origin
What's the origin of Sister complex?
A complex, in general, means that there are some deep emotional and psychological factors inside of you that control your behaviour, often unconsciously.
The exact origin of the “sister complex” is unclear, but it was likely motivated by older brothers’ tendency to be overprotective of their younger sisters, particularly from their friends. The friends would then mock the brother by saying that he has a “sister complex”.
According to Google Trends, the expression appeared around the late 90’s and early 00’s.
Spread & Usage
How did Sister complex spread?
While “sister complex” should be a somewhat innocent phenomena, it was soon sexualisized.
As people today have around-the-clock access to unlimited online adult entertainment, this has caused frequent users to be desensitized to “normal” sexual activities.
Because of this, a rather young genre has found its way to the majority of these sites: incest content.
Family role-play content has seen a massive increase in searches during the last decade (as of 28.08.2020).
This is where the “sister complex” comes in. Adult entertainment has taken the innocent, overprotective big brother story to a whole new level. Step-sibling.
Looking at Google Trends, we can see that the search term “sister complex” is very frequent in English speaking countries such as the US. But, another rather surprising find is that it is an even more popular subject in Asia, particularly Indonesia and Japan.
External resources
- Urban Dictionary – Sister Complex