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Comparisons of Asexual and Sexual People on Predictor Variables
Source publication
I used data from a national probability sample (N > 18,000) of British residents to investigate asexuality, defined as having no sexual attraction to a partner of either sex. Approximately 1% (n = 195) of the sample indicated they were asexual. A number of factors were related to asexuality, including gender (i.e., more women than men), short statu...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... shown in Table 1, relative to sexual people, asexual peo- ple had fewer sexual partners, had a later onset of sexual activity (if it occurred), and had less frequent sexual activi- ty with a partner currently. Overall, then, asexual people had less sexual experience with sexual partners, and this fact provides some validation of the concept of asexuality. ...
Citations
... There has been an increase in systematic research on the subject of asexuality along with a shift from a pathological to a more affirming viewpoint (e.g., Bogaert, 2004;Bulmer & Izuma, 2017;Gressgård, 2013;Gupta, 2017;Van Houdenhove et al., 2013;Vu et al., 2021;Yule et al., 2017). Johnson, in 1977, used the term asexuals and defined it as "men and women who, despite their physical or emotional condition, sexual history and relational status, or ideological orientation, chose not to engage in sexual activity" (p.99). ...
... Initially, asexuality was labeled as category X by Kinsey et al. (1948, p.407), meaning individuals "without socio-sexual contacts or reactions." Past research considered asexuality to be a lack of sexual activity (Rothblum & Brehony, 1993), a lack of sexual desire (Prause & Graham, 2007), a lack of sexual attraction (Bogaert, 2004), and having little to no sexual attraction while self-identifying as asexual (Chasin, 2011). Regarding experiences, intersecting identities (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, and romantic identities; , and expressions, asexuality is widely diverse, like any other sexual orientation. ...
Introduction
Anti-asexual bias has received limited but growing public and academic attention. Examining prejudice towards asexuals expands the depth of intergroup and intragroup relation research.
Methods
The current study is aimed at clarifying anti-asexuality bias by examining attitudes towards asexual individuals with a multi-item measure in Greek culture. An exploratory cross-sectional study was conducted between April 4 and May 4, 2021, via an online survey. One hundred and eighty-seven undergraduate students participated in the current study. Bivariate correlation was used to explore the associations between variables of interest. Next, hypotheses were examined by performing a bootstrapping analysis for parallel multiple mediation models.
Results
The findings of this study support the role of context-related socio-cultural (religiosity, political positioning) and social-psychological factors (adherence to social norms) in predicting participants’ anti-asexual bias.
Conclusions
This study draws attention to the stigmatization of asexuality. It warns professionals, policymakers, and social agents about the dominant sexually normative socio-cultural context that may negatively affect asexuals’ lives.
Policy Implications
Providing information about the supporting base of outgroup dislike might be a way of promoting social change. Stakeholders and professionals who influence people’s lives (educators, health professionals) should be aware of possible stigmatization to no further stigmatize asexual individuals, ensuring they do not internalize and project these stereotypical assumptions.
... As a result, it is perhaps unsurprising that men are far outnumbered by women and nonbinary individuals in identifying as asexual (experiencing low/no sexual attraction) (Bogaert, 2004(Bogaert, , 2013Greaves et al., 2017;MacNeela & Murphy, 2015;Weis et al., 2021). More strikingly, survey research has found that men are similarly outnumbered in identifying as aromantic (experiencing low/no romantic attraction) (AUREA Aro Census Team, 2021; Weis et al., 2021). ...
... Although asexual identity challenges the notion that everyone desires sex (Chasin, 2015;Gupta, 2015;Przybylo, 2011Przybylo, , 2019Winer et al., 2022), until recently, research on asexuality has been limited. Nonetheless, various studies have found asexual men are markedly outnumbered by both women and individuals who are neither men nor women (Bogaert, 2004(Bogaert, , 2013Brotto et al., 2010;Greaves et al., 2017;MacNeela & Murphy, 2015;Weis et al., 2021). One meta-analysis of data from seven asexuality studies found that asexual participants were more likely to identify as women than men, which further suggests men are minorities in asexual communities (Antonsen et al., 2020). ...
... Some evidence suggests that the interaction between asexual and aromantic identification itself may be gendered; however, existing data are limited (Bogaert, 2004;Brotto et al., 2010;Gupta, 2019). For example, Van Houdenhove et al. (2015) find in a sample of asexual respondents that a higher percentage of men than women identify as simultaneously asexual and aromantic. ...
This study examines men as a minority in asexual (experiencing low/no sexual attraction) and aromantic (experiencing low/no romantic attraction) communities. First, we situate our research in existing literature on asexuality, compulsory sexuality/compulsory romance, and hegemonic masculinities. In our analysis, we use survey data from the 2020 Asexual Community Survey (n = 4974) and 2020 Aromantic Census (n = 3018) to provide evidence that asexual and aromantic men are demographic minorities within asexual and aromantic communities. Next, we turn to two interview samples with 39 individuals who identify as aromantic and 77 individuals who identify as asexual. We analyzed these interviews to explore how sexuality and romance contribute to the construction of hegemonic masculinities. Our interviews reveal several important themes that highlight how asexual and aromantic men navigate their masculinity and identity amid asexual and aromantic communities as majority‐woman spaces. We focus on three main themes: (1) masculinity as inherently sexual; (2) masculinity, heteronormativity, and the gendered construction of romance; and (3) asexual/aromantic identity, masculinity, and the split attraction model. Taken together, our results show how (hetero)sexuality and romantic relationship formation are fundamental to hegemonic masculinity. We find that asexual and aromantic men face cultural pressures and social stigma around initiating sex and performing romance. Asexual men must contend with managing a sexual identity that runs counter to men's supposedly innate sexual desire, thus situating them as inadequately masculine. Aromantic men, meanwhile, must manage inhabiting an identity that is conflated with the fuckboy/player trope, situating them as excessively masculine. This study demonstrates how centering asexual and aromantic perspectives reveals complexities in the ways hegemonic masculinity relies on participation in both sex and romance. We conclude by relating our findings to larger conversations on gender and sexualities as well as implications for future research on marginalized sexual identities.
... Population-level research suggests that asexuality may account for 0.41-1.82% of the population (Aicken, Mercer, and Cassell, 2013;Bogaert, 2004;Lucassen et al., 2011). Asexuality is a unique sexual orientation and is generally characterized by a lack of sexual attraction (Bogaert, 2015). ...
... Unlike the well-documented increased risk of poorer mental health in some sexual minorities (e.g., lesbian, gay, or bisexual), compared with heterosexual people (Wittgens et al., 2022), the mental health of asexual individuals is underresearched. This may be especially important as the prevalence of people identifying as asexual appears comparable to those identifying as other sexual minorities in population-level samples (e.g., in Lucassen et al., 2011, 0.91% were homosexual, 3.37% were bisexual, and 1.82% were asexual; also see Bogaert, 2004 for comparable estimates). ...
We aimed to test whether asexual individuals were at increased risk of higher levels of depressive symptoms, self-harm attempts, and suicide attempts compared with heterosexual, bisexual, or gay/lesbian individuals using multivariate meta-analysis. Seventeen, five, and eight samples were included for depressive symptoms, self-harm attempts, and suicide attempts, respectively, reaching a total sample size of 125,675, 30,116, and 73,366, respectively. Asexual individuals reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than heterosexual individuals (Hedges' g = -0.44, 95%CI = [-0.61, -0.26]) but did not differ from heterosexual individuals in the risk of self-harm (odds ratio = 1.11, 95%CI = [0.88, 1.39]) and suicide attempts (odds ratio = 0.76, 95%CI = [0.56, 1.04]). Asexual individuals were at lower risk of self-harm and suicide attempts than bisexual and gay/lesbian individuals but did not differ from bisexual and gay/lesbian individuals in the levels of depressive symptoms. The greatest risk of higher levels of depressive symptoms was found in bisexual and asexual, followed by gay/lesbian individuals; the greatest risk of self-harm and suicide attempts was found in bisexual, followed by gay/lesbian individuals, and the lowest risk was found in asexual individuals. The magnitude of the disparities in the risk of poorer mental health among heterosexual, bisexual, gay/lesbian, and asexual individuals depended on the type of mental health outcomes.
... É a própria estrutura da percepção ou da experiência erótica que está alterada em Schn. ii) Na contemporaneidade, é robusto o número de indivíduos que se definem pela orientação assexual -cerca de 1% da população, em inventários epidemiológicos (Bogaert, 2004) The Foundation of the Sexual Being ...
... (ii) Today, a significant number of individuals refer to themselves as asexual -around 1% of the population, according to epidemiological surveys (Bogaert, 2004). They maintain that asexuality is not celibacy. ...
O fenômeno da sexualidade, cujo estudo é historicamente consagrado por teorias explicativas dualistas, pertence ao domínio do ser em geral. Daí, a necessidade da fundação a priori da experiência sexual enquanto possibilidade inerente à condição humana. Primeiramente, revisitamos as ciências dos séculos XIX (a obra de Krafft-Ebing e os modelos neurobiológicos da resposta sexual) e XX (a psicanálise de Freud), e, na outra ponta do espectro epistemológico do tema sexual, a literatura de Kenzaburo Oe. Então, nomeamos o capítulo V da Fenomenologia da Percepção, de Merleau-Ponty, como escrito de fundação do ser sexual. Em método fenomenológico, concebe a sexualidade como forma intencional original, ancorada pré-reflexivamente na consciência e condicionada pela intersubjetividade corporal. A concepção do ser sexual, afinal, aponta para a ligação (de significação) entre existência e sexualidade. Por fim, como evidência e via de acesso ao ser sexual, apresentamos dois quadros de aplicação da fenomenologia da sexualidade na psicopatologia.
... Approximately 1% of individuals in North America and European nations identify as asexual, with estimates ranging from 0.4% to 3.3% (e.g. Bogaert, 2004Bogaert, , 2013. ...
... Asexuality has been studied from biological, psychological, and sociological perspectives. From a biological perspective, asexuality is the low level of sexual attraction experienced by a small minority of the population (Bogaert, 2004). Asexuality does not necessarily imply identification as asexual, although identity is important in online communities (Van Houdenhove et al., 2015); and it does not necessarily imply homoromantic, biromantic, or aromantic. ...
Compulsory sexuality refers to the ways that social institutions both assume and privilege sexualities while marginalizing asexuality—the relative lack of sexual attraction. However, experiences of compulsory sexuality are not uniform. This paper documents how the institutions of compulsory sexuality can variously impede or facilitate the development of asexual citizenship, sometimes simultaneously. Data come from exploratory, semi-structured interviews with young adults who identify as asexual in the central U.S. Informants talk about their experiences with intimate relationships, religion, media, and LGBTQIA + groups in contradictory ways: each institution figures into discourses of both citizenship and alienation. We argue that there are multiple pathways to sexual citizenship for aces, which depend not only on how compulsory sexuality intersects with other structures, like race and gender, but also according to one’s experiences with the institutions of compulsory sexuality.
... Kinsey et al. (1948Kinsey et al. ( , 1953 were among the first researchers to mention people who indicated a lack of sexual contact with men or women, assigning them a rating of X on the Kinsey scale. One of the earliest researchers to investigate the prevalence of asexuality was Bogaert (2004) who estimated that about 1% of the British population was asexual. More recent estimates of asexual people are 0.4% (New Zealand; Greaves et al., 2017) and 1.7% (the United States; Rothblum et al., 2020). ...
... Asexuality is broadly defined as having no (or low levels of) sexual attraction to people of any gender. By some estimates, asexual people consist of approximately 0.5%-1% of the general population (e.g., Aicken et al., 2013;Bogaert, 2004), although some have suggested that the actual number is much higher than that (Poston & Baumle, 2010;Van Houdenhove et al., 2014). For a long time, asexuality has largely been viewed as a symptom of a medical or psychological pathology, but nowadays there is a growing recognition that asexuality is part of the spectrum of healthy human sexuality (Bogaert, 2006;Brotto & Yule, 2017). ...
Similar to other sexual minorities, asexual individuals often face prejudice and stereotyping. However, the source of these attitudes and beliefs is not well understood. We hypothesized that asexual stereotypes stem from the belief that sexual attraction is an inevitable part of human development. This attraction inevitability assumption can lead to the deduction that people who identify as asexual do so because they are going through a transitory stage or excusing socially avoidant tendencies. To test this stereotype deduction account, we examined whether specific asexual stereotypes (immaturity and non-sociality) were associated with adherence to the attraction inevitability assumption. Heterosexual participants (N = 322; 201 women, 114 men; mean age 34.6 yrs.) from the UK and the US read vignettes describing a target character that was either asexual or heterosexual. People who assumed that attraction is inevitable were more likely to evaluate asexual targets (but not heterosexual targets) as immature and non-social. The impact of the sexual inevitability assumption was present even when social dominance orientation, an attitude closely related to negativity toward all sexual minorities, was accounted for. Participants who adhered to the attraction inevitability assumption also showed a reduced inclination to befriend asexual individuals. These findings suggest that generalized negativity toward sexual minorities does not fully explain stereotypes and prejudice against asexual people. Instead, the current study highlights how perceived deviation from the shared understanding of sexuality uniquely contributes to anti-asexual bias.
... The term sexual orientation was introduced by sexologist John Money in place of sexual preference, arguing that attraction is not necessarily a matter of free choice (Ehrhardt, 2007) According to Bogaert (2015), sexual orientation is traditionally defined as including heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality, while asexuality is considered the fourth category of sexual orientation by some researchers and has been defined as the absence of a traditional sexual orientation. Bogaert (2004) added that asexual has little to no sexual attraction to people and it is usually considered a lack of a sexual orientation and there is significant debate over whether or not it is a sexual orientation (Bogaert, 2015). ...
This research examined the influence of sensuous musical videos on the sexual orientation of students at the National Open University of Nigeria, Benin Study Centre. The researcher intended to establish the different effects of sensuous musical videos on students and how they influence sexual orientation among Nigerian youngsters. Anchored on the Social Learning and Cultivation Analysis Theories, survey research design that employed quantitative research method was employed. Questionnaire was employed as research instrument, and 209 copies of the questionnaire were sampled on respondents. The research findings show that most respondents who participated in this study watch musical videos, which have a significant effect on their sexual orientation as well as their sexuality. This is because the respondents are young and active members of society who are ardent consumers of mainstream media contents and see the artistes and celebrities as role models and idols, hence their significant level of exposure. It was also found that due to the rate of exposure to musical videos, viewers are invariably influenced to fantasize about the streams of endless images projected into their minds, even for dramatization and special effects. Hence the influence it had on their sexual orientation. Given the findings of this study, it is recommended that negative sexual behaviour and dispositions learned by students from musical videos be unlearned through well-designed programmes of sexuality education. It is also recommended that the National Film and Videos Censors Board (NFVCB) be equipped to monitor Nigerian stations that air these musical videos and place heavy sanctions on them.
... Because heterogeneity within the asexual community exists and competing definitions for asexuality complicate research on this community, current researchers recommend against allowing self identification and operationalizing the identity (Van Houdenhove et al., 2017). Prause and Graham (2007) similarly cautioned against Bogaert's (2004) research model that included a single selfidentification question about asexuality, which has questionable validity. They criticized the lack of measures of desire, attraction, and arousability and cautioned that the lack of operation alization might hinder the collection of representative samples. ...
The presence of minority stress has been welldocumented among members of the transgender and gender nonconforming community, as has the effect of minority stress on their psychological distress. Little attention has been given to transgender and gender nonconforming people who identify as asexual. This study examined the relationships among minority stressors and psychological distress among individuals holding the intersecting identities of transgender and gender nonconforming and asexual. Data were collected from 300 adults using various listservs and social media platforms. It was hypothesized that all minority stressors assessed would predict psychological distress. However, multiple regression results revealed that only vigilance (β = .22, p < .001) and gender expression minority stress (β = .24, p < .001) were significant positive predictors of psychological distress, F(11, 258) = 10.21, p < .001, f 2 = .43; the overall model accounted for approximately 30% (R 2 = .30) of the total variance in psychological distress. Implications for practice and research are discussed.
