Jennifer
Power is an Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow
at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society,
La Trobe University, Australia.
This article is
republished from The
Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
In
recent years, we’ve seen a burgeoning social movement
for the acceptance of asexuality. We’ve also seen more
asexual characters popping up in shows such as Heartstopper
and Sex Education.
Despite
this, asexuality remains widely misunderstood. So what does
it mean?
Asexuality
refers to low or no sexual attraction. However, this does
not mean all people who identify as asexual, or the shorthand
“ace”, never experience sexual attraction or never
have sex.
People
who identify as asexual may feel intense romantic attraction
to someone, but not sexual attraction. Others may find sex
pleasurable but rarely feel attracted to another person.
There are also variations of asexual identity that fit broadly
within the ace umbrella. People who identify as demisexual,
for example, experience sexual attraction only to people with
whom they have a strong emotional bond.
Across
the spectrum of ace identities, many people have romantic
or sexual relationships. For others, sex is not part of their
lives.
Asexual
identity also cuts across other sexual or gender identities.
Some asexual people identify as queer, transgender or gender
diverse.
How
many people identify as asexual?
Asexuality,
as a sexual identity or orientation, has only recently been
included in large-scale surveys. So data is limited.
Analysis
of data from a 2004 British population-based survery found
1% of respondents indicated, “I have never felt sexually
attracted to anyone at all”. This measure, however,
may not be accurate given many asexual people wouldn’t
agree they have “never” felt sexual attraction.
In
2019, a large Australian survey of the lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities,
showed 3.2% of the sample identified as asexual.
The
Asexual Visibility and Education Network, an international
online network, has more than 120,000 members.
When
did asexuality become a social movement?
Asexuality
has always been part of human sexual diversity. However, the
movement to establish asexuality as a sexual identity, and
build a community around this, has its roots in the early
2000s.
The
rise of internet technologies created a platform for asexual
people to connect and organise, following a similar path to
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights activists.
Asexual
identity also cuts across other sexual or gender identities.
Shutterstock
Asexuality, as an identity, sits alongside heterosexuality,
homosexuality or bisexuality as a description of self that
is determined by the shape of one’s desire.
However,
the significance of defining asexuality as an “identity”
is often misunderstood or critiqued on the basis that many
people experience low or no sex drive at some points in their
life.
What’s
the difference between sexual identity and sex drive?
In
his work on the history of sexuality, sociologist Jeffrey
Weeks points to the psychoanalytic interrogation of men attracted
to men as a milestone in the contemporary Western understanding
of sexuality. It was at this point, in the late 1800s, that
“homosexuality” came to be seen as core to an
individual’s psyche.
Before
this, homosexual sex was often considered sinful or degenerate,
but sex was seen as just a behaviour not an identity –
something a person does, not who they “are”. There
was no category of “the homosexual” and heterosexuality
was only determined in response to this categorisation of
sexuality.
This
history means that, today, sexual identity is considered an
important part of what defines us as a person. For lesbian,
gay or bisexual people, “coming out” is about
building a sense of self and belonging in the face of institutional
and cultural opposition to homosexuality.
Asexuality has not been subject to legal or moral sanction
in the ways that homosexuality has. However, many asexual
people similarly do not conform to conventional expectations
regarding sex, relationships and marriage. Families and communities
often don’t accept or understand asexuality.
Sexual
relationships are central to the expectations we place on
ourselves and others for a “good” life. Sex and
desire (or desirability), not to mention marriage and childbearing,
are highly valued. People who are asexual, or who do not desire
sex, are often given the message that they are “broken”
or inadequate.
This
can be reinforced through medical or psychological definitions
of low sex drive as a problem that should be fixed. Hypo-active
sexual desire disorder is a category within the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the handbook mental
health professionals use to diagnose mental disorders.
While
diagnostic categories are important to support people who
experience distress due to low sex drive, they can also mean
asexuality is viewed in pathological terms.
Building
awareness of asexuality as a legitimate sexual identity is
about resisting the view that asexuality is a deficit.
By
challenging us to rethink everyday assumptions about human
sexual experience, the asexuality movement is far from anti-sex.
Rather, affirming and celebrating the legitimacy of asexual
identity is very much a sex-positive stance – one that
asks us to expand our appreciation of sexual diversity.
