Consummation laws: Some states, provinces, territories, and countries have laws that require “consummation” of a marriage for it to be considered binding. While failure to agree to sex does not in itself void a marriage in all these cases, in some places a partner can get a marriage voided if the other partner refuses sex or cannot perform (though this interestingly does not apply to infertility).[23] Sex being a supported-by-law requirement of access to a secure marriage if the other partner so chooses to invoke it discriminates against repulsed asexual people (along with anyone else who cannot—or does not want to—make sex part of their relationship).
This is especially relevant in international marriages wherein one person is allowed to stay in the country because of marriage to another person who is a citizen. If the couple decides against having sex in the relationship (regardless of whether they are asexual), this can work against them when being interviewed by immigration officials about their relationship. Ultimately, if they are not having sex, they are far more likely to be suspected of not having a “real” marriage, faking the relationship to allow an immigrant to stay in the country under false pretenses. These interviews can include intensely personal questions about a couple’s sex life and other practices, and it is simply considered obvious that every married couple will be having sex if they’re really married.
Adoption denial: Same-gender couples have been widely scrutinized and discriminated against if they are parents or wish to adopt children. Is there an analogous situation for asexual people? An anecdotal source says yes. Adoption denials were reported,[24] with the asexual couples in question having their marriages scoffed at by decision-makers and denied as legitimate, contributing to a negative decision on their adoption application.
Employment and housing discrimination: Is there institutional discrimination of this sort for asexual people? At the time of this writing, most employers are not aware that asexuality is possible; however, perception that a person is not a team player, is not part of the shared culture, or is not sufficiently well-adjusted can result in poor treatment in the workplace, lack of opportunity, or even employment terminations[25] directly in association with being asexual.
Not being married after a certain age or having no romantic life can signal to superiors and co-workers that asexual people are “weird” or “have something off” about them and can interfere with their job performance or employers’ perception of it.[26]
If a person is judged as antisocial or creepy because their relationships with others are not typical, they can be rejected as candidates for jobs and housing situations (This is also a problem for those with mental illnesses, and it’s compounded for asexual people who also have mental illnesses.). People who don’t have romantic relationships and people who don’t do what they’re “supposed to” within their romantic relationships are subjected to scrutiny, shaming, and shunning, sometimes for no other reason than their orientation.
Discrimination by mental health professionals: Asexual people can also experience discrimination in mental health contexts. Acquiring mental health services for issues unrelated to sex or relationships becomes complicated if the therapist fixates on asexuality and/or aromanticism as a symptom of another disorder or incorrectly diagnoses an asexual person as having a disorder because of their asexuality.
In the past, using the version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that was current from 1994 through 2013 (version IV), a diagnosis of “hypoactive sexual desire disorder” could be made based partly on whether a person’s partner was distressed by their lack of interest in sex, even if they themselves were not distressed.[27] Now, under the latest diagnostic criteria as of this writing, both female sexual interest/arousal disorder[28] and male hypoactive sexual desire disorder[29] mention an exception for asexuality, claiming “If a lifelong lack of sexual desire is better explained by one’s self-identification as ‘asexual,’ then a diagnosis of female sexual interest/arousal disorder would not be made”[30] and “If the man’s low desire is explained by self-identification as an asexual, then a diagnosis of male hypoactive sexual desire disorder is not made.”[31]
However, many medical and psychological professionals assume that sexual attraction, sexual desire, and sexual arousal are part of every person’s healthy life experience and may or may not be operating on closely held personal assumptions or older criteria they take for granted.
Asexual people have found themselves prescribed sexual arousal drugs or testosterone shots, or they were misinterpreted as lonely and repressed based on lack of certain relationships in their lives or were assigned trauma and/or fear they do not suffer from. Mental health professionals are sometimes distracted by what they think is a red flag and do not responsibly address their asexual clients’ therapy.
Unavailability of marriage equivalents: Aromantic asexual people are far more likely than any other romantic or sexual orientation to gravitate toward nonsexual but established relationships that may function in a “life partner” capacity despite not being romantic or sexual. People who wish to cement a same-gender platonic partnership that includes living together, running a household, and possibly even raising children are affected by the same laws that same-gender couples are anywhere that currently outlaws their legal marriage; without access to “civil unions” for non-romantic and/or nonsexual relationships, their access to the benefits of marriage is limited,[32] even though they may function for many intents and purposes like a married couple.
“Depending on the denomination, the responses I have often received upon broaching the topic of asexuality range from the old-school ‘it’s an unnatural defiance of God’s will’ to the more psychologically-informed ‘it’s an unhealthy aversion.’ [. . .] When it comes down to it, all of these statements make it clear that sexual attraction/desire is normalized as a characteristic of being human, and not experiencing it makes one just that little bit inhuman.”
—M. LECLERC, HYPOMNEMATA
Religious pressure/discrimination: While many LGBTQ people have been subjected to hurtful attitudes and attacks because of religious beliefs that categorize non-heteronormative behavior as sinful, asexual people can also be hurt by religious attitudes. Though it is commonly assumed that asexual people would be supported by any religious individual or organization because they are perceived to be “pure” through abstinence, they do also run into harassment to date and mate as per the prescription to “be fruitful and multiply.” If an asexual person lacks the urges that encourage reproduction, they can be deemed ungodly, unnatural, or going against their religious duty. Failure to reproduce is rarely regarded as a sin in and of itself, but failure to try to reproduce (presumably only when married) is not widely accepted by those following a religious agenda unless it is part of a vow one makes as clergy. Sexual expectations within marriage also affect married asexual people, and they may feel they have no choice—which is abusive.
“Corrective” rape: Asexual people are at a higher risk for “corrective” rape. Sometimes this is because they are commonly interpreted as being a challenge for an aggressive, confident person to “turn.” Other times this happens because a rapist feels that sex is very important for everyone and they really believe forcing someone into sex will wake them up. Disturbingly, these hypothetical rapists aren’t necessarily strangers or acquaintances. Many times they are the asexual person’s partner or spouse. Sex is presented as a given in romantic or partnered relationships, and while many recognize the appeal of “waiting for the right time,” most do not acknowledge that some people just plain never want to make sex part of the relationship. Some believe sex is owed to them as part of their relationships and that they must coax their partners into having sex and bully them into accepting it.
This sounds horrible, but anyone who’s ever discussed this issue in a public place will very quickly see comments defending the rapists and insisting that the only abusive person in this relationship is the one withholding sex. Since this is the common narrative in our society—that sex is part of the package deal—asexual people who do not desire sex in their relationships are often bullied into believing they have to have sex to deserve a relationship.
Lack of representation in media and sex education: With few or no examples of people like them in media and no mention of asexuality in sex ed, asexual people lack resources and context for their orientation. If everywhere they turn, they see a picture of maturity that only includes sexual relationships and sexual attraction, they may experience any number of negative consequences, from confusion and anxiety to depression and self-destructive behaviors.
Internalized oppression and self-hate: Given all the above, it’s not uncommon for asexual people to follow the example everyone has set: to hate and fear the signs of asexuality and try to cover them up or erase them. The pervasive mocking of virginity, the emasculation and harassment of men who don’t define themselves through sexual conquests, the degrading and defeminizing slurs lobbed at women who don’t desire sex, and the association of asexual people with aliens and robots and lack of vitality can all lead to shame and fear. Asexual people may feel they are disgusting or inhuman and may feel forced to hide their real orientation behind denial, lies, or hypersexual behavior.
Finally, even if asexual people have never experienced violent attacks, institutional denial of rights, or widespread hostile attitudes, erasure and invisibility can still be markedly harmful to asexual individuals and asexual communities. “Shut up, you’re not being hurt” is a pretty egregious example of erasure, incidentally.
In the late 1980s, Peggy McIntosh wrote a groundbreaking “privilege checklist”[33] that discussed the items in her “invisible knapsack,” which she carries around perpetually due to the fact that she is white. She “unpacked” some of those items by showing her readers what she can take for granted as a white person in a predominantly white society.
This list was eagerly adapted by other groups, and now a widely circulated checklist exists to outline what comes with heterosexual privilege. But does a phenomenon exist that uniquely oppresses asexual people, or are asexual people lumped in with all non-normative sexualities (or assumed heterosexual)? In other words, does something like “sexual privilege” exist that can benefit queer-sexual people as well as heterosexual people?
Some asexual people have considered whether “sexual privilege” exists, and the consensus is that “privilege” is the wrong word even though being asexual can be disadvantageous in society. Most just say there is definite prejudice and unpleasantness, but not in such a way that it would be classified as oppression. Ultimately, for sexual privilege to exist, it would mean that people who experience sexual attraction and feel included by the sexual culture would be offered advantages denied to people who do not in a systematic way that benefits the majority.
While the possibility of prejudice toward asexual people based entirely on their orientation has been examined,[34] some will say asexual invisibility protects asexual people, leaving cisgender heteroromantic and aromantic asexual people to receive heterosexual privilege as a matter of course unless they go out of their way to tell those with power over them that they are asexual. But as we can see if we unpack, some of those givens are not actually in the asexual knapsack, indicating at least some experience of exclusion from participation as a full member of society.
Most people who experience sexual attraction (or experience/express sexual attraction normatively) don’t realize how asexual people are excluded from the opportunities and lifestyle they may take for granted. Privilege isn’t the right word, but let’s at least assume for purposes of this discussion that being a person who experiences sexual attraction can be (and usually is) advantageous in Western society, when contrasted with the experiences of those who don’t. Here are some experiences and concepts most people take for granted, but that exclude asexual people:
And here are some experiences and concepts that exclude or potentially exclude LGBT people. Every one of these also excludes asexual people.
So clearly, moving through the world as an asexual person does put one at a disadvantage, and asexual people share quite a few of these experiences with those in queer communities. Also, people who are not affected personally have a tendency to underestimate the effect these disadvantages have on people who live this existence day in and day out. It’s very easy as someone who is not in the affected population to say “I see how my oppression affects me, but I don’t believe yours is affecting you because it is irrelevant and invisible to me, so I refuse to consider that it is real.” There are far too many parallels here to claim asexual people as a group do not experience prejudice and cannot be hurt by it.
Invisibility means not being able to connect with others like you. It means being very likely to come to the conclusion that you are broken. It means seeing no boxes to check and being filled with fear or shame or frustration. It means being isolated in a way that is unimaginable to most people who take their visibility for granted. And it means that as soon as you try to be seen—regardless of whether you’re just asking the initial questions or deliberately spreading asexual-specific awareness—the vile attitudes and unreasonable requests for justification you will be subjected to will probably make you wonder if that invisibility was really so bad.
Some LGBT people may have some inkling of what this kind of invisibility feels like if they have been forced to hide their identity and/or orientation for their whole lives or grew up in a time or place when nobody talked about what they were experiencing, but by and large LGBT issues are now acknowledged far and wide and asexual issues are still usually swept under the rug.
Any asexual person who identifies openly as asexual learns to defend the very existence of the orientation against comments like “No, see a head doctor” and “I’m sorry, but that’s not a real thing” and “If you love someone, you have to want to have sex with them” and “Sex with me will fix you.” Asexual people are told, through these messages, that they are expected to be quiet unless they want people to interrogate them about everything from sexual experiences to genital functionality.
Asexual people are commonly told they’re only getting harassed because they disclosed their orientation—that they will only experience these discriminatory and prejudicial attitudes if they discuss it. Why, after all, would they bring it up if not bringing it up would free them from being criticized?
The above attitude is more or less advocating asexual people staying in the closet. That it’s coming out itself that causes the problem, not any kind of issue with the mainstream attitude. If someone’s “solution” to asexual prejudice and discrimination is to tell asexual people to keep their orientation a secret, they’re saying the best solution to harassment is to lie by omission or pretend to be heterosexual. This is not a suggestion we see being made by LGBT allies for the most part; most truly supportive allies agree that if you’re unable to publicly identify as your sexual orientation or gender identity, you’re living in an oppressive atmosphere. It’s not different for asexual people. They’re not alone among all the sexual orientations as the one group that would be better off shutting their mouths or disclosing it only to potential partners.
And the messages asexual people are complaining about aren’t along the lines of “Sometimes people say hurtful things to us.” The messages are often much more subtle, and asexual people all grow up in the thick of them, building their brains around a “way things are” that doesn’t fit them. Asexual people are not the only people this happens to. But when asexual people’s problems are considered irrelevant even when they’re brought out into the open, it’s hard to imagine a much clearer example of invisibility than that.
Asexual communities are very diverse places, but the intersection of the members’ asexuality and their other circumstances is often unique. Here are some important concepts that are relevant in various asexual communities and some intersectional experiences of certain groups.
Because of asexual people’s isolation by geography, much of the asexual conversation, connection, and communion is happening among a rather young crowd over the Internet. Because of this—and because young people typically discuss their identity with their peers more than older people do—the Internet-based asexual communities are getting more attention and being assumed more representative of the asexual population in general, which sometimes results in misleading information. For instance, young asexual people are over-represented in polls, sometimes skewing the statistics and making outsiders less likely to take the orientation seriously because of a tendency to write off movements by young people as a phase (This is problematic in its own right, but it happens to any movement whose membership is overwhelmingly young.). But contrary to some detractors’ beliefs, the asexual culture is not entirely made up of college students.
Young asexual people, especially teens, deal with alienation and confusion when the media constantly portrays people their age as being hormonally driven or obsessed with sex and relationships—especially since their non-asexual peers will be developing their sexual attractions and are able to relate to said media. Asexual teens often feel frustrated by advertising and magazines that assume sexual attraction is part of their lives.
Young asexual people frequently face condescending and dismissive statements about their age, often from older adults (especially their parents), and sometimes even from their peers, who insist one day they’ll develop sexual attraction when they mature or after they have sex. However, since most people figure out by their early teens what kind of people they’re attracted to, it makes sense that asexual people would feel asexual in their teens as well. Even though it’s true that they may choose a different label later in life—as anyone might—and may find their tastes changing as they age, that doesn’t mean there aren’t asexual thirteen-year-olds out there. There are certainly heterosexual thirteen-year-olds and LGBTQ thirteen-year-olds!
Asexuality may look like a blank or a “not yet” when it describes a young teen, but keep in mind that if someone is asexual later in life, they probably already felt that way at this age.
The desexualization of older people starts fairly young. Kids like to pretend their parents don’t have sex, and young people will scream “Gross!” if anyone with wrinkles engages in public displays of affection. It sends the clear message that adults ranging from midlife to senior citizens are expected to be sexless creatures. But are they in reality? Of course not.
There’s a pervasive perception among the young that living a sexless life is in fact preferable and expected for elderly people. In reality, having a sex life is typical for people of all ages, and it is in fact unusual to be an older person with no sexual attraction to anyone. Older people who identify as asexual are often dismissed by younger people with phrases like “that’s just how it is when you’re older,” even if the older asexual person never felt any interest when they were younger either.
How young can you be and still be old? When it comes to sex and relationships, age thirty seems to be an arbitrary number by which most people are expected to carve out their romantic life and make their family decisions. If someone has made such a decision and it involves choosing no one, they are usually assumed to be undecided, searching, desperate, hoping, or stunted. Aromantic asexual people who enter later adulthood while single deal with this misconception constantly. Even those who say “I like being single” will be doubted and treated like they’re trying to cover shame for their failures. Partnered relationships are so expected in our society that being happy without one is often regarded as impossible.
“Asexual people—usually women—who are in their thirties still report being told that they’re ‘too young’ to know their sexual orientation, or that they’re just ‘late bloomers.’ The fact that asexuals from this same age group are also told that they’re too old to have a sexuality, that their lack of sexual attraction is simply what happens to people in their thirties, shows that the point is to invalidate asexuality by any means necessary.”
—AYDAN SELBY, MUSINGS OF AN IST
As for partnered asexual people who are older, many of them will have spent the majority of their adult lives not knowing asexuality exists and making a lot more compromises in their relationships with non-asexual partners than they might have if they’d known. Many asexual people who are in relationships without knowing they’re asexual have accepted that sex is expected of them, and they believe not being sexually attracted to their partners is just not something that should get talked about.
As awareness about asexuality grows, many partnered older asexual people are realizing they internalized damaging ideas and accepted frustrating situations in the interest of staying partnered. They can have healthier relationships if they include their partners in their revelations about themselves and negotiate better compromises. And those older asexual people who are not partnered but wish to be may be able to pursue partners more constructively than they did in the past once they are armed with more knowledge about successful asexual relationships (Additional discussions of asexual relationships are offered in Part Four and Part Five of this book.).
Older asexual people who were married and had families before discovering their orientation may have the decidedly frustrating experience of coming out not only to their spouses, but also to their kids. A child coming out to a parent usually feels more risky since the parent has power over the child, but a parent coming out to their child could make the child feel their parent is naive about sex-related issues that matter to them or that they aren’t really a respectable adult. These are damaging (and untrue) assumptions that can hurt families if the children aren’t receptive to the idea. That said, awareness is growing among the younger generations, and this may be a smaller problem in the future.
However, older asexual people without partners are saddled with much more criticism and confusion than their partnered counterparts. If someone is single and they move past their twenties without “settling down,” they are likely to be targeted with concern and sometimes unsolicited intervention even if they want to be single. Many asexual people who do not desire a partner find themselves frustrated with how often singlehood in one’s late twenties and beyond is interpreted as pathetic or lonely, and many of them may internalize these accusations and find themselves adopting poor coping mechanisms and destructive behaviors in a world that seems to have no place for someone like them.
Older men who are not married are usually excused more readily; women in their thirties and beyond are often regarded with pity, regarded as “no longer young” and therefore less valuable, and assumed unwanted and unlovable. Conversely, men who aren’t married at that age are usually assumed to have chosen to be so or to be “career focused” (unless they fall into certain perceived-to-be-undesirable categories, such as being aesthetically unappealing or effeminate; in those cases they may also be regarded as sad people who are single because no one would choose them).
Regardless of how they act or what they say or do, partnerless women past thirty are perceived as lonely “cat ladies” or as desperate for men (or regarded as creepy and “on the prowl”), and may be called condescending, sexualized, or misleading names (old maid or spinster if they seem uninterested in partners, MILF or cougar if they do want a partner)—and none of these terms have analogous male equivalents that don’t apply to younger men too. Misunderstandings about midlife sex-drive peaks and menopausal hormones may lead some people to think partnerless asexual women will inevitably “blossom” during a supposed sexual prime.
Not being married or partnered—especially for women—is perceived as practically pathological, and society tends to process partnerless people as either desperate to change their status or as resigned to a sad life. When people are younger and partnerless, they’re usually considered “not married yet,” while older people are frequently asked, “why aren’t you married?” or “when are you going to find a mate and have some kids?” Partnered, family-oriented life is regarded as the default—as something we can assume everyone wants, and we’re certainly considered a failure if we haven’t achieved it by our third decade. This issue disproportionately affects older asexual people who either don’t want a partner or have trouble finding one who won’t regard their asexuality as “a sex problem.”
However, we don’t know as much about the attitudes and experiences of the pre-Internet generation of asexual people because most of the census data is gathered through Internet communities whose populations skew young, leaving the voices of older asexual people underrepresented. As more awareness spreads, more older asexual people will recognize themselves in the description, and as the generation that spurred widespread use of the term asexual ages, fewer tropes like “this is a phase for the young” will persist in popular perceptions of asexual people.
There are more women than men represented in asexual communities.[36] The reasons for this are not completely clear since asexual people as a group have not been subjected to much scientific study, but certain gender-specific trends hint at some possible reasons.
First of all, there aren’t as many men online or in meetup groups talking frankly about feelings or lack of feelings, so in some cases men may simply be less inclined to participate in asexual communities. Also, many people believe men have higher sex drives, which may contribute somewhat to their seeking out sex even without attraction. They may be less likely to recognize anything different about how/why they seek out sex, especially since men aren’t as likely to be shamed for avoiding committed partnership or emotional attraction while still desiring sexual activity. If they’re sexually functional cisgender men, they may believe their ability to get erections and their response to stimuli means they can’t be asexual or that they must be sexually attracted to anyone with whom they enjoy sexual activities.
Men are also popularly expected to define themselves through sexual conquests, lust, and bedroom performance, so sometimes they can be less likely to identify as asexual because they fear having their masculinity challenged. Also, more asexual men report being willing to have sex they don’t particularly want when pressured or invited; among men, sex is usually considered less of a “big deal” to try despite lack of interest, though there are, of course, asexual men who are sex repulsed. They may be shamed by partners if they do not desire their partners sexually, and they may be invalidated by outside observers if they have partners with whom they do not have sex.
Heteronormative men are also more likely to label other men homosexual, as failures who “can’t get laid,” or as having “just given up” if they aren’t aggressive about chasing women, so this sort of peer pressure and the stigma some people associate with homosexuality can make it much harder to come out as an asexual man than it is to come out as an asexual woman.
And among gay, bisexual, polysexual, and pansexual men, a man with same-gender romantic leanings but no sexual leanings may be treated like he is repressing his sexuality because of internalized oppression or shame. Queer men who don’t pursue other men sexually or don’t experience sexual attraction can be harassed to get past their supposed hangups, leaving them assuming their disinterest is a hurdle, not an orientation. It is possible that some combination of fewer asexual men existing and fewer asexual men realizing their orientation/coming out has resulted in men’s lower numbers in asexual communities.
Some teenage boys may be able to shrug off the taunts and harassment they may receive when they aren’t enraptured with pornographic magazines or constantly talking about which partners they would like to have sex with, but most are very alienated by it if they are unlucky enough to become targets. Girls, of course, also talk about desired partners, but in their younger years, girls may be more positively regarded (or at least not as often harassed) if they’re not obsessed with sex. Not all boys are immersed in this culture, but most are aware of it and many are affected by it.
However, as people get older, men and women are expected, because of heteronormative assumptions, to define themselves through relationships with each other, and men are sometimes assumed weak and spineless if they haven’t “gotten” a partner while women are assumed pathetic and lonely if no one has “chosen” them. Regardless of whether they want to date, marry, or have sex, they will be judged by these standards for not doing it if they choose not to and may feel pressure to behave normatively so they go against their own inclinations. Fostering knowledge about asexuality may help both of these genders minimize uncomfortable expectations.
White asexual people are very over-represented at all levels, especially Internet-based communities. Class and socioeconomic status are partially to blame for this in the West, because the Internet is less accessible to many non-white groups and in non-white-majority countries, and since asexual communities form and educate and congregate overwhelmingly on the Internet as of this writing, this tends to minimize the involvement of people of color. But there are many other roadblocks to people of color embracing an asexual orientation or identifying with asexual communities as well.
Asexual people of color are more invisible than white asexual people. Because people of color within Western culture are more criticized, more harshly observed, held to higher/different standards, and in general already viewed/treated as “other” in many societies, it can be very difficult to come out when doing so can result in rejection from one’s own community or family.
“My asexuality doesn’t save me from racism—it just means I get to deal with people being racist and anti-ace, sometimes simultaneously. Despite the thrilling arguments about asexuality being a ‘white sexuality,’ white supremacy doesn’t want me to be asexual any more than the patriarchy does.”
—QUEENIE, THE ASEXUAL AGENDA
First off, there’s the problem of not feeling like part of an in-group if they attempt to socialize in asexual spaces. Individual non-white asexual people have made great strides in asexual leadership and activism, but nearly all the mainstream news and visible asexual community efforts are fronted by white people, with the most popular communities dominated by white voices. Faced with an asexual community that is overwhelmingly white, asexual people of color may feel alienated and uncomfortable trying to find a place there, especially if the white majority talks over them or erases their experiences.
Some will join online asexual communities and not bring up their race as they perceive it may cost them a sense of belonging or because white participants may suggest their perspectives or discussions of race-related intersectionality are irrelevant. They may also feel pressured to consider class issues, race issues, and religious issues that affect their communities and cultures disproportionately as “more important” and may feel shamed for thinking attention to asexuality awareness is actually worthwhile.
There is also the fact that, from an early age, people of color—especially young black people and to some extent Hispanic and Latinx/Latino/Latina people—are automatically sexualized to a higher degree by white observers in Western society. Women in these groups are more often considered sexual objects (along with Asian women being fetishized), while black, Hispanic, and Latino men in these groups are regarded as overwhelmingly sexual. For these folks, being recognized as asexual and respected for it is markedly less likely, in some cases from both outside and inside their communities. They are assumed to like sex or be sexually promiscuous or have high sex drives more consistently than their white counterparts, and they can be defined by these interpretations in different ways both within and outside of their communities regardless of how they actually feel or behave.
Some asexual people of color are perceived as deliberately avoiding sex as some kind of commentary on or reaction to the “sensual, sexual” image thrust upon them, and may be regarded as rejecting their culture if they reject its supposed sexual norms. It can be perceived as simply a reaction rather than an organic expression of who they are.
“By virtue of being black, I am already considered hypersexual by white society. That I am sexually attractive and I am sexually attracted to many people and act on those attractions regularly. By being an asexual who is not sexually attracted to anyone and is celibate, I can be seen as either combatting that racist stereotype or simply repressing my ‘true sexuality’ because of that racist stereotype.”
—FIISH
And then there is the flip side: there are also cases of people of color being desexualized in certain situations; certain ethnicities are regarded by white outsiders as less sexual or prudish (like, in some cases, East/Southeast Asian people, especially men, or people of Middle Eastern descent, especially women). They’re sometimes invalidated and told they’re just repressing their instincts because their cultures have weird hangups about sex. Western society treats these groups as if they exist to perform certain functions for the majority rather than to have their own wants and needs, so their sexual agency is rarely respected.
If an asexual person of color comes out, they are sometimes assumed to be playing into these tropes rather than expressing their intrinsic lack of desire or attraction, and they may be subjected to attitudes like “well of course you’re asexual, that’s how people like you are” from the white majority and attitudes like “can you stop making us look like we’re all frigid?” from within their own community. These folks may feel that all these messages mean asexuality is for white people and they are betraying their culture by buying into it.
And then there are certain non-white groups that value and enforce heteronormativity in such a way that people who don’t conform (including LGBTQ and asexual people) may be treated like they are offending, disappointing, or bringing shame upon their community or family. Cultures wherein loyalty to the family unit is of utmost importance may expect sacrifice for the perceived good of the family and will not tolerate a person who comes out as asexual. They may interpret lack of conformity as a betrayal and may even threaten or go through with punishment and shunning. Coming out as asexual in these situations might cause unacceptable loss of access to family and community, which will disadvantage them more than a similar situation would disadvantage a white asexual person.
Being a minority within a minority requires safety, conviction, and comfort with one’s environment that is not always available to the more persecuted and oppressed people in Western society. Asexuality will seem especially rare among racial minorities if the statistics are believed, but all signs point to their simply being less visible, and some of them face attitudes that are even less friendly to asexuality than the mainstream.
Many asexual people consider themselves to be some form of LGB because their primary relationship is not a cross-gender relationship or is not perceived by others to be so. They may not specify that they are “asexual homoromantic” or “asexual panromantic” or whatever their full orientation is; if an asexual-identified person also calls themselves gay, bi, pan, or queer, they’re usually referencing their romantic relationships or their patterns of romantic attraction.
Most asexual people tend to be supportive of consensual sexual relationships of any kind, including kink and polyamory. Acceptance is the norm in many asexual spaces online, and any kind of hate speech is frowned upon, though of course it still occurs (and isn’t always dealt with appropriately). Not all asexual people support queer orientations, but since there is lots of overlap between asexuality and these other marginalized sexual and romantic minority groups as well as lots of opportunity for empathy, phobic attitudes are not generally tolerated.
Many asexual people who experience romantic attraction to their own gender and/or to more than one gender enjoy being part of queer communities, but they may find that their asexuality confuses or upsets other queer folks. They may be mistaken for suffering from internalized homophobia if they do not desire sex, do not experience sexual attraction, or are not willing to engage in sex. In these spaces, sometimes they’re strongly encouraged to “get over” their supposed reluctance to have sex, and more education about asexuality in LGBTQ spaces can help avoid these harmful assumptions.
Transgender communities and asexual communities have a significant amount of overlap. There are transgender asexual people, and both groups seem to know more about each other’s existence and issues than the general population—probably partly because of how much education both groups do on the Internet and the special efforts of trans asexual educators. There is no known cause-effect relationship between being asexual and being transgender, but on surveys and in online forums, the percentage of people identifying as transgender is higher than it is in the non-asexual population.
| In a survey of 3,436 self-identified asexual-spectrum people administered on the Internet in September–October 2011, respondents were asked to state whether they considered themselves transgender[37]: | |
| Yes | 10.2% |
| No | 80.4% |
| Unsure | 9.4% |
* This survey was limited to one answer.
A fraction of trans people who plan to transition or are going through transition feel asexual only until they’ve begun transition or transitioned (possibly due to dysphoria), though most trans asexual people continue to identify as asexual in post-transition life.
Sometimes trans asexual people who wish to medically transition will be asked why they want to have surgery if they don’t intend to have sex. This question is sometimes even offered by other transgender people and is usually presented as though the asexual trans person is unreasonable or behaving paradoxically. Putting aside that being asexual doesn’t even necessarily mean a person won’t have sex, a transgender person who wants a medical transition usually has many reasons besides using their genitalia for sex. Even if nobody except the transgender person in question ever saw them naked, having the genital configuration they want is very important for some. Not all transgender people feel surgery is necessary for transition, but those who do aren’t necessarily doing it for reasons related to sexual intercourse.
Trans asexual people can find support and camaraderie in some asexual organizations and groups online.
Other Non-Cisgender/Non-Binary Identities and Asexuality
Acceptance of various non-normative, non-cisgender, and non-binary identities is common in asexual communities.
| In a survey of 3,436 self-identified asexual-spectrum people administered on the Internet in September–October 2011, respondents gave the following answers when asked to provide their gender identity[38]: | |
| Female | 64.1% |
| Male | 14.1% |
| Gender neutral | 12.0% |
| Androgynous | 11.4% |
| Gender queer or gender variant | 11.1% |
| Gender fluid | 8.0% |
| Unsure/confused | 7.5% |
| Questioning | 6.6% |
| I don’t have a gender identity | 6.2% |
| Other | 4.3% |
* Participants were allowed to choose more than one answer
As seen in the gender census above, a significant portion of asexual people consider themselves gender neutral (or neutrois), androgynous, genderqueer, gender variant, gender fluid, unsure, questioning, without gender (or agender), or something else non-binary.
There is no known cause-effect relationship between being a non-binary gender and being asexual, but there is significant overlap in these populations. One’s gender and one’s attraction to others are, of course, related for most people, and not identifying as one of the most common genders may be tied up with complications in how one relates to others sexually and romantically, but that does not at all imply that being non-binary causes asexuality or vice versa.
In communities that encourage exploration of the self and help provide new perspectives on assumptions about gender and sexuality that many take for granted, it makes sense that more people would feel comfortable identifying as non-binary or would gravitate toward participating in communities that foster both their gender identity and their sexual orientation.
All non-binary identities will find similar people in asexual communities and can enjoy support from others like them, with whom they can discuss gender presentation and the intersection of their gender with their sexual orientation. Some non-binary folks call themselves enby/enbies (formed from saying the initials for non-binary—N.B.—out loud). And in asexual spaces online, some non-binary asexual people who needed a space to discuss gender issues began to refer to themselves as transyadas, and they created their own forum.[39]
Autistic communities and asexual communities also have an overlap.[40] There are commonalities between some autistic folks and some asexual people. For instance, some autistic people have atypical ways of forming relationships and emotional attachment, and it is much more common for an autistic person to be touch averse than for a non-autistic person to be so,[41] which may hinder some adult autistic people’s ability to form romantic relationships (or at least may lower their confidence in attempting to do so). And some autistic people are on the other end of the spectrum, craving touch to maintain their well-being. Being cuddly and wanting tactile stimulation can be misinterpreted as sexual advances in some adult relationships, so asexual autistic people in this situation can experience high levels of frustration.
There has been no cause determined, no genetic or other type of link between asexuality and autism, but there is a correlation. However, most asexual people are not autistic, nor are most autistic people asexual. It’s simply been noted that the percentage of known autistic people in the known asexual population is higher than that of the general population; some say it might be because both communities encourage self-analysis and self-examination, which leads to more people identifying non-normative traits about themselves. An autistic asexual person can find community and be in good company.
Unfortunately, a pervasive tendency to desexualize autistic people contributes to the perception that asexuality is part of autism or at least that if an autistic person does not pursue or desire sexual relationships, that it is directly because of their autism (or that if they do pursue such relationships, it’s “in spite of” their autism). There are so many different kinds of autism, and so many different ways of forming asexual relationships, that it would be misleading to conflate asexuality and autism as necessarily intertwined with each other.
This narrative of ignoring the sexuality of autistic people can sometimes make asexual autistic people feel ashamed of coming out; they may worry their visibility might strengthen the belief that autistic people aren’t sexually inclined or that asexual people are all autistic. But autistic people are a natural percentage of every population, and asexual communities are enriched by the neurodiversity they provide.
Some autistic asexual people believe their autism and their asexuality are not at all related to each other. Some other asexual autistic people do feel that the two are linked, but they usually say so only while speaking for themselves. This is a lead everyone who knows an asexual autistic person should follow.
Disability, Illness, Mental Illness, Disorders, and Asexuality
Asexual people can have disabilities and illnesses—visible and invisible[42]—and can often experience higher than average harassment rates because of these complicating factors. Detractors perceive that they have a disability or a disorder or a condition, proceed to use it to invalidate their experience of themselves, and cause them stress. And just like other groups that experience discrimination, alienation, and hardship, asexual people may experience depression and substance abuse at a higher rate than the general population.[43] But it’s well known in asexual communities that some cross-section of any population will have a disability, a health condition, a disorder, or a mental illness. Asexuality isn’t an orientation that can only be claimed by those with able bodies and optimum health.
Asexual people are subjected to most or all of the same pressures in society as everyone else with their other traits, and they can suffer from self-image issues, eating disorders, social anxiety, and many other issues, regardless of whether or how much their orientation and related experience has to do with it. Sometimes disabilities and health conditions can affect or be related to lack of libido, lack of interest in sex, or lack of passion for or ability to engage in sex, but if this is the case for a person who self-describes as asexual, there is really no practical reason to say that person’s experience of asexuality is less legitimate. Everyone is affected by their physical existence, and asexual is what we call someone who isn’t experiencing sexual attraction to others, regardless of why.
Asexual people with disabilities or health issues are often told “you just feel that way because of your condition,” as if that would make it less “real” or as if a sexual orientation could clearly have a single “cause.” It’d be like saying to a non-asexual person, “You just want sex because your hormones are making you think you do.” In other words, useless, demeaning, and pointlessly oversimplified. Most asexual communities understand and accept that people with disabilities and health issues do not have a less valid form of asexuality.
Asexual people and people with disabilities have one (problematic) thing in common: they are often regarded by outside populations as being less human, less complete, “suffering” from their situation, or missing something. The conflation of disability with lack of sexuality is a big problem for everyone in both these groups, but especially so for people who are both asexual and have a disability. Not only is their asexuality written off as a symptom of their disability, but it helps reinforce people’s belief that all people with disabilities are asexual (or at least that people with disabilities do not want or desire sex, do not experience arousal, or do not want partners).
It’s very important to understand that asexuality can coexist with disability and/or all types of illnesses—and interact with those conditions as part of being a whole person—without assuming that one causes the other or that they always go together. Asexual people with disabilities or illnesses shouldn’t have to worry that announcing their orientation will reflect poorly on the validity of asexuality.
Many asexual people with disabilities or illnesses worry that coming out will contribute to the desexualization of disabled/ill people or to the misconception that people become asexual because of disabilities or illnesses. Increased focus on the intersection of both can help prevent this. It would be ridiculous to suggest the asexual population, as large as it is, would contain no one with disabilities or illnesses, so why should those people be singled out and told their disability or illness is the most important aspect of who they are when it comes to how they experience attraction?
There’s nothing wrong with suggesting that a disability or illness (or treatment for a condition) can and very well might interact with a person’s experience of themselves in every way, including how they feel about potential partners. But an asexual person with a disability or illness isn’t just one or the other, and it’s not anyone’s business to decide what conditions have to be fulfilled before a person’s experience is designated as a symptom. It’s all right for a person’s asexuality to be partially tied into some aspect of their physical existence, and it’s also all right for a person to say they don’t believe their orientation has anything to do with a condition they have. Everyone is different in this regard. Most asexual people don’t have disabilities or illnesses, and most people with them are not asexual, but where they intersect, there should still be respect for both.
Asexual People and Entertainment
Among Internet-savvy asexual folks, there is a wide appreciation for subcultures, but this shouldn’t suggest that asexual people are by nature nerdy or socially awkward or that they are forced to be “geeks” because they can’t have normal relationships.
Entertainment-wise, some asexual fans tend to appreciate television shows and other media works that center around characters who aren’t consistently motivated by sex or are rumored to be asexual. Some examples at the time of this writing are the television shows The Big Bang Theory, Sherlock, and Doctor Who. Even though it’s not necessary for a character to be “canon” asexual for asexual people to relate to them, it’s also not completely unheard of for characters in fictional works to self-identify as asexual. Here are some examples of media containing explicitly asexual characters:
Television Shows:
Sirens (United States, USA Network, 2014 –) / Character: Voodoo
Divorce (The Netherlands, RTL 4, 2012 –) / Character: Desiree
Huge (United States, ABC Family, 2010) / Character: Poppy
Godiva’s (Canada, Bravo!, 2005–2006) / Character: Martin
Shortland Street (New Zealand, Television New Zealand, 1992–) / Character: Gerald
Novels:
Demonosity (Amanda Ashby, Puffin, 2013) / Character: Nash
Quicksilver (R.J. Anderson, Carolrhoda Books, 2013) / Character: Tori
Banner of the Damned (Sherwood Smith, DAW, 2012) / Character: Emras
Guardian of the Dead (Karen Healey, Little, Brown, 2010) / Character: Kevin
The Oathbound (Mercedes Lackey, DAW, 1988) / Character: Tarma (magically induced)
The Bone People (Keri Hulme, Spiral Press, 1984) / Character: Kerewin
Webcomics:
Supernormal Step (Michael Lee Lunsford) / Character: Fiona
Ignition Zero (Noel Arthur Heimpel) / Characters: Orson and Robbie
Shades of A (Tab Kimpton) / Character: Anwar
Girls with Slingshots (Danielle Corsetto) / Character: Erin
Rain (Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick) / Characters: Chanel and Arthur
There are some celebrities who have come out as asexual, suggested themselves to be asexual at some time, or have claimed to be celibate due to lack of interest—a short list includes comedians Janeane Garofalo, Paula Poundstone, and Ben Rosen; writers J. M. Barrie, Keri Hulme, and Kenji Miyazawa; artist Edward Gorey; musicians Bradford Cox and Steven Morrissey; and fashion designers Tim Gunn and Karl Lagerfeld (Note that some may have changed how they describe their orientation or don’t mean “asexual” in the sense discussed in this book.).
Representation matters a lot to asexual people because there is so little of it. Most portrayals of people who do not have sex or are not interested in sex in media also include aberrant or non-human behavior; uninterested people are serial killers, aliens, mythical creatures, robots, or deeply damaged people who either have their lack of sexual interest used by the writers to show how strange or inhuman they are or are later “saved” or “made whole” by human emotion (in the form of a romantic relationship and sex). But when celebrities or mainstream media characters proudly or nonchalantly embrace an asexual identity (or, better yet, actually use the word asexual in a non-problematic way), asexual communities get very excited.
Unfortunately, asexual people are still the butt of jokes or presented as a big lie most of the time. A popular television show—the medical drama House, M.D.—featured an asexual-identified married couple as patients in a subplot of one episode.[44] It was a poor example, since the “asexual” man was debunked as suffering from a pituitary tumor inhibiting his sex drive and the “asexual” woman was found to be lying about her orientation to avoid making her husband feel guilty. The hero doctor of the episode, having debunked not one but two asexual people, concluded that “anyone who doesn’t want sex is dead, dying, or lying,” and the episode ended with asexuality “solved” as a sickness or a ruse. Asexual people reported having previously supportive friends and family see the episode and suddenly express concern for them, urging them to seek medical treatment.
And yet, that episode spurred a spike of interest in the topic. The Wikipedia article “Asexuality”[45] typically had around four thousand hits per day before the episode aired. The day it aired, more than fifty thousand people clicked through to the Wikipedia article, and the Asexual Visibility and Education Network beat its previous record for the most users online at once (most of whom were not registered). Many of these were probably people who had wondered whether they or someone they know might be asexual. If a show as mainstream as House, M.D. featured asexuality in a positive light, whether in a one-off or with a recurring asexual character, asexual people would be much better off.
Not everyone who’s asexual relates to the communities’ beloved television shows or popular symbols (and some may even feel alienated by how enthusiastically other asexual people participate), but any group of people that shares space and intersects tends to develop a culture of sorts. Plenty of asexual people don’t associate themselves with any of the following symbols or jokes, but here are a few themes that may pop up in asexual spaces.
Asexual people have a few inside jokes. They don’t enjoy being mocked, but some are fond of poking fun at themselves, and one of the jokes sometimes thrown around is asexual people referring to themselves as amoebas. This refers to “asexual” being a type of reproduction when used in a biological context; sometimes, detractors suggest asexual people must be claiming to be plants or single-celled creatures if they use the word asexual. Reclaiming the taunt and using it in an empowering fashion, some asexual people enjoy the absurdity, but this and other dehumanizing terms have been used by outsiders to harass asexual people too, so non-asexual people should check for understanding before using it.
Especially on AVEN—the Asexual Visibility and Education Network—it is common to reference sharing and eating cake. This developed when some members discussed “what’s better than sex?” and cake was the most popular answer. Cake is frequently featured in asexuality-related banners, logos, and blog names.
Asexual people have their own terms. Just like most heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, polysexual, and pansexual people have shorthand ways of referring to their orientation (like straight, gay, bi, poly, and pan), asexual folks sometimes prefer to use a shorthand. Since just a sounds ridiculous and would be misunderstood easily, the term ase or ace developed (ace being far more popular because of how intuitive the spelling is), and from this, certain playing-card-related imagery cropped up (with Aces of Hearts sometimes used as symbols of romantic asexuality, and Aces of Spades assigned to aromanticism). As for graysexual and demisexual people, it’s common to see gray and grace, and of course demi, or demigrace/demigray to cover both categories.
Some people, when referring to something or someone being appealing to asexual people or appealing in an asexual way, might call that thing or person asexy. It’s sort of a joke, and sometimes also refers to something or someone being “sexy” with an acknowledgment that the asexual person saying so isn’t actually expressing sexual attraction.
Asexual people who have romantic partners sometimes use traditional words to refer to them—words like husband, wife, partner, significant other, boyfriend, and girlfriend—but sometimes aromantic people use different words to describe their attraction to their partners. Some people will refer to the aromantic version of a crush as a squish. And some aromantic people with a queerplatonic partner might refer to their partner as their zucchini (It’s more or less an inside term that started as a joke to be a little absurd on purpose, but some people really do use it, and it’s understood in many aromantic circles.).
A common scale used in describing sexual attraction is the Kinsey Scale. It allows people to describe their sexual orientation along a continuum, with “totally heterosexual” being a 0 on the scale and “totally homosexual” being a 6. The Kinsey Scale, while it has flaws, is relevant to asexual people because a value known as X was also included off the scale completely. It stood for people who don’t feel any sexual attraction. Because of this, there are sometimes references to “being an X” or “on a scale of 0 to 6, I’m an X.”
| THE KINSEY SCALE (HETEROSEXUAL-HOMOSEXUAL RATING SCALE)[46] | |
| Rating | Description |
| 0 | Exclusively heterosexual |
| 1 | Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual |
| 2 | Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual |
| 3 | Equally heterosexual and homosexual |
| 4 | Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual |
| 5 | Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual |
| 6 | Exclusively homosexual |
| X | Non-sexual |
Asexuality has its own flag. The flag was voted on by members of several separate asexual groups; there is no “president of asexuality,” of course, and some people in the various communities don’t like the flag and don’t use it to represent themselves, but it’s widely accepted. The flag is rectangular and is made of four horizontal stripes of identical width. A black stripe on top stands for asexuality, a gray stripe underneath it stands for the gray areas (demisexuality, graysexuality), a white stripe underneath that represents asexuality allies, and the final stripe on the bottom is purple, symbolic of community.
Some asexual people have adopted an outward signal of their sexual orientation by wearing a black ring on their right middle finger. This is not widespread, and it’s certainly not very likely to work as a recognizable signal to either other asexual people or sexually interested people who are considering propositions, but some people like it as a regular reminder and some just think it’s fun, and it’s not uncommon to see black rings on the fingers of people who are participating in asexual awareness activities.
Asexuality has an awareness week. It has historically been celebrated in mid-October, but does not have firm dates as of this writing. The organization Asexual Awareness Week (www.asexualawarenessweek.com) is the best place to check for dates and events. Many asexual people celebrate Asexual Awareness Week by wearing asexual-friendly messages on their clothing, writing and sharing awareness materials, and even attending or organizing events. Colleges and universities often have gay/straight alliance organizations or LGBTQ clubs that include asexual people, and they sometimes plan panels with asexual guests or present an event like a documentary screening or awareness presentation. Mainstream press sometimes picks up stories for Asexual Awareness Week, and common understanding of asexual people is growing all the time.
Because asexual people frequently see a big difference between romantic attraction and sexual attraction (while most non-asexual people experience those elements as going hand in hand), asexual people often use complicated strings of terminology for something that seems like it should be simpler. It’s not uncommon to encounter people describing themselves as “demisexual homoromantic” or “asexual demiromantic in a poly queerplatonic relationship,” and wonder why they’ve analyzed themselves and their relationships to this degree.
But asexual people don’t experience one or more of the aspects of traditional sexual and romantic attractions, and to figure out how their relationships can still work, they may have to unravel all the pieces and keep the ones that apply to them. Doing so often requires very specific terminology that may look overwhelming or even ridiculous at first glance. Rest assured they’re not picking their feelings apart so exhaustively they don’t have time to feel them properly (nor are they doing it as an attempt to confuse others). They just have to develop alternate models to figure out how they experience some but not all of the elements of intimacy and attraction, and they may need these tools to figure them out. Most other types of relationships have scripts and shorthand that everyone understands without explaining what attractions and experiences others can assume they entail; most asexual and especially aromantic relationships do not have these shortcuts.
As of this writing, popular places for asexual people to hang out online are AVEN (the Asexual Visibility and Education Network—lots of articles and forums); LiveJournal’s asexuality community (themed discussions with functional commenting, in blog format); Tumblr’s various asexuality-themed blogs (largely image-heavy, with easy tracking of who and how many people are sharing and who’s saying what); and various asexuality-themed groups on Facebook. These are discussed in more detail in the references section.
In referring to people who do experience sexual attraction, some asexual people say “sexuals” or “sexual people,” but a controversy erupted over this term because people who experience sexual attraction sometimes feel like it pigeonholes them or shames them (among other problems), representing them as being defined by the fact that they like sex or feel sexual attraction. And many people (especially people of color who are commonly sexualized no matter what they actually do) find it offensive or even triggering to be called “sexual.” It’s difficult to talk about the majority without naming it, but there seems to be some problem with just about every term that’s been tried.
Non-asexual would exclude demisexual and graysexual people from discussions relevant to them. Normatively sexual excludes any sex outside of sex between two heterosexual cisgender partners. Normal people suggests anyone who is otherwise is abnormal, which is problematic. And people who experience sexual attraction is clunky.
Other attempts to establish a name for the majority include allosexual (prefix allo—means “other”), consexual, monosexual, alisexual, *sexual, and even zedsexual (like a reference to the opposite end of the alphabet from asexual), but none of these are universally accepted as of this writing. (Allosexual is probably in the widest use, but because it is easy to misinterpret its meaning as “people who are attracted to all,” the term may fall out of usage.) Until or unless there’s a term like cisgender (which developed when trans people wanted to refer to people who were not trans), disagreements will probably continue over this.
Asexual people have a lot in common with each other even though they’re also a diverse and varied group. Sometimes the diversity of the asexual population can make it difficult for a newly identified asexual person to figure out whether they fit in and whether they relate. If you are asexual or think you might be, Part Four of this book will help you with some of your questions, learning whether this label fits you, and figuring out how to navigate as an asexual person in a sexual world. And if you are a non-asexual person interested in understanding more about the asexual people in your life, Part Five is a great place to start.
1“While a romantic dimension might be a relatively unique axis of sexuality, asexual individuals in this survey also described their sexual identity in relation to the gender of their partner(s). [ . . . ] None of the self identified aromantic asexual individuals [out of 11] indicated gender as important in relationships, in contrast to those who identify as romantic, where all but one [out of 22] described the gender of their partner(s) as important to their sexual identity” (Scherrer K., 2008).
2Community Census (Asexual Awareness Week, 2011).
3Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment carried out by Erwin Schrödinger describing a cat put in a potentially lethal situation and hidden from the view of the experimenters, at which point they determined the cat, in quantum terms, is alive and dead at the same time.
4“Asexuals reported significantly less desire for sex with a partner, lower sexual arousability, and lower sexual excitation but did not differ consistently from non-asexuals in their sexual inhibition scores or their desire to masturbate” (Prause & Graham, 2007).
5Childhood masturbation involves stimulation of the genitals and typically begins at about two months of age, although in utero masturbatory behavior has also been reported. Incidence of this behavior typically peaks at four years of age and again in adolescence (Yang, Fullwood, Goldstein & Mink, 2005).
6“[M]asturbation frequency in [asexual] males was similar to available data for sexual men” (Brotto, Knudson, Inskip, Rhodes & Erskine, 2010).
7“Asexuals may be willing to engage in sexually motivated behaviors to achieve nonsexual goals without experiencing sexual desire” (Prause & Graham, 2007).
8Community Census (Asexual Awareness Week, 2011).
9Asexual & Kinky on FetLife: fetlife.com/groups/7247
10Ace BDSM Support Group on FetLife: fetlife.com/groups/41247
11Ace Fet: www.acefet.org/
12Community Census (Asexual Awareness Week, 2011).
13“Someone who is incapable of meeting a sexual’s needs has no business dating a sexual in the first place, if you ask me. At the very least, asexuality must be disclosed.” Dan Savage on relationships involving asexual people (Savage, 2009).
14“[S]ome asexual identified individuals describe current or idealized relationships that fit definitions of polyamorous relationships” (Scherrer K. S., 2009).
15Heteronormative refers to norms about a person’s lifestyle that dictate acceptance and assumption of heterosexuality, cisgender identity, and traditional gender roles.
16The Asexual Sexologist offers asexuality-related materials for use in sexuality courses (Asexual Sexologist, 2012).
17Allison Hope examined whether asexuality is queer in her Huffington Post article “Does Asexuality Fall Under the Queer Umbrella?” The comments sometimes agreed that asexual people belong, and sometimes insisted that asexual people experience no discrimination and therefore do not deserve support from LGBT organizations (Hope, 2012).
18“Attitudes toward homosexuals, bisexuals, and asexuals were more negative than attitudes toward heterosexuals, revealing a sexual minority bias. Within sexual minorities, homosexuals were evaluated most positively, followed by bisexuals, with asexuals being evaluated most negatively of all groups. [ . . . ] A sexual minority bias was evident, whereby participants were most willing to rent to and/or hire heterosexuals relative to homosexuals, bisexuals, or asexuals” (MacInnis & Hodson, 2012).
19Polysexual refers to someone who is sexually attracted to people of multiple sexes and genders, but not all sexes and genders. It is not the same as someone who is in sexual or romantic relationships with multiple people.
20Pansexual refers to someone who is sexually attracted to people of all sexes and genders.
21Some folks prefer the term transsexual, but it is often considered offensive or rude. When in doubt, use transgender, but if someone identifies as transsexual, that’s their right.
22Community Census (Asexual Awareness Week, 2011).
23“For instance, in some states, nonconsummation of a marriage is a ground for voiding the marriage. Failure to consummate renders it voidable, however, not void; the exception that proves this rule is South Carolina, where nonconsummation can render a marriage void, but cohabitation suffices to prove consummation. In addition, consummation of a marriage seals the marriage off from some attempts to void it. And while fraud is not generally grounds for voiding a marriage, fraudulent intent ‘not to consummate the marriage or not to have intercourse likely to produce progeny’ can be. Also striking is the fact that many states make impotence a ground for annulment, whereas infertility is not an independent ground for annulment in any state (unless misrepresented or concealed), suggesting that sex per se matters more to marriage than reproduction” (Emens, 2014).
24“There was a couple of cases which were really, really distressing of asexual couples who approached Social Services to adopt children and Social Services asked them ‘How come you don’t have children by yourselves,’ and the couple said ‘We are asexual.’ And Social Services said ‘Well this is not normal, if you are asexual, you are not fit to be married’” (Cormier-Otaño, 2011).
25In a blog post about the experience of getting fired from a job due to alienation over explicit sex talk in the work place, asexual employee Lasciel said, “I don’t think I would have been fired if it hadn’t been for my asexuality. The reason I was fired may have stemmed from a facet of my asexuality.”
26“A sexual minority bias was evident, whereby participants were most willing to rent to and/or hire heterosexuals relative to homosexuals, bisexuals, or asexuals” (MacInnis & Hodson, 2012).
27Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder: “A. Persistently or recurrently deficient (or absent) sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity. The judgment of deficiency or absence is made by the clinician, taking into account factors that affect sexual functioning, such as age and the context of the person’s life. B. The disturbance causes marked distress or interpersonal difficulty. C. The sexual dysfunction is not better accounted for by another Axis I disorder (except another Sexual Dysfunction) and is not due exclusively to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition” (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
28“Lack of, or significantly reduced, sexual interest/arousal” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
29“Persistently or recurrently deficient (or absent) sexual/erotic thoughts or fantasies and desire for sexual activity” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
30Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
31Male Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
32“Current regulation of sex devalues both sexual relationships that lack an intimate component and intimate relationships that lack a sexual component” (Rosenbury & Rothman, 2010).
33This concept was examined in McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (McIntosh, 1989)
34“[W]e uncovered strikingly strong bias against asexuals in both university and community samples. Relative to heterosexuals, and even relative to homosexuals and bisexuals, heterosexuals: (a) expressed more negative attitudes toward asexuals (i.e., prejudice); (b) desired less contact with asexuals; and (c) were less willing to rent an apartment to (or hire) an asexual applicant (i.e., discrimination)” (MacInnis & Hodson, 2012).
35“Asexuals were attributed significantly lower uniquely human traits than any other sexual orientation group” (MacInnis & Hodson, 2012).
36During one survey administered over the Internet in September–October 2011, about 64 percent of those surveyed identified as female, with only about 14 percent identifying as male (The rest were “other” or non-binary gender in some way.) (Asexual Awareness Week, 2011).
37Community Census (Asexual Awareness Week, 2011).
38Community Census (Asexual Awareness Week, 2011).
39Transyada forum: transyada.net/forum/
40“[A] higher rate of asexuality was found among individuals with [Autistic Spectrum Diagnoses]” (Gilmour & Schalomon, 2012).
41In a study comparing typically developing children with children on the autistic spectrum, 22.1 percent of the autistic children “react emotionally or aggressively to touch” when compared with only 5 percent of typical children (Tomchek & Dunn, 2007).
42Some “visible” disabilities and illnesses include symptoms or require use of equipment that can be seen, while “invisible” disabilities and illnesses will not be apparent unless they are disclosed; some invisible disabilities and illnesses include chronic pain, mental illnesses and mood disorders, sensory problems and sensory processing problems, medical problems controlled with medication or kept under control through diet and limited activity, and illnesses with long treatment plans like cancer.
43“Large-scale studies on mental health issues in gay men and lesbian women have found evidence that these sexual minorities do have higher rates of mental health problems (e.g. depression, substance abuse) than heterosexual individuals. [ . . . ] If asexual people feel similar pressure to other sexual minorities to conform to heterosexual norms, then it is possible that they too may have elevated rates of mental health problems” (Yule, Brotto & Gorzalka, 2013).
44“Better Half,” House, M.D., aired January 23, 2012.
45en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality (Asexuality, 2002).
46(Kinsey, 1948).