Interesting view from my doctor

[Sarcastic Bob]

I know people always (rightfully) complain about having doctors, psychologists etc. who don't believe asexuality is real, but I visited my doctor a few weeks ago to get advice on my medication. We made casual talk for a few minutes, I mentioned offhand that I was asexual, and he said that he's got a lass who comes in who's the same. He also said that in his opinion, the way they got the 1% statistic is inaccurate and the actual amount is more like 3-4%, which as far as I can remember is around the number who are gay. It seemed like an interesting viewpoint, and I'd be really interested to know what everyone else thinks. He's really high up as far as local doctors go so he certainly knows his stuff.

[5_♦♣]

I'm curious how your doctor came up with 3-4%. Was he including grays and demis as well or does he go by the 'no desire for sex' definition or both?

[Badgerclaws]

I've always thought the 1% estimate was rather low. From what I remember, it was only people in the UK that were surveyed, and about 30% of the people able to take the survey refused due to lack of sexual experience (many of which could be asexual). Also, that was back in 1994, when asexuality was much less known about. I think that if everyone knew the proper definitions of ace, grey, and demi, there'd be a lot more of us.

For example, my school had a sexuality fair recently, and thanks to one of the booths being about sexuality, two of my friends realized they were demisexual. They just never knew about it, since they assumed everyone was like that.

[catsaregood]

I've always thought the original figure was fairly dubious in its methodology, if only because people tend to confuse celibacy and decisions to have a break from sex and relationships for a while with being genuinely asexual, and the figure was obtained from a single, incidental question. I was wondering the other day if there was any way that regular society sex surveys could be expanded to include asexuality, and not just y/n, but allowing more flexibility for demis, greys etc to comment. I know there's a regular, quite extensive survey in Britain that's been going for decades, that has people commenting on their sexual behaviours and orientations - I wonder if there's any way of getting us onto that, or something similar? It's the only nation-wide one I've heard of...

[Techie]

If the true number is basically the same as the number in the LGBT community then it would be mathematical symmetry (and the stars and universe would align).

In Anthony Bogaert's book "Understanding Asexuality", he talks about the study of rams and the occurrence of hetero, homo and asexuality. I would be curious if anyone has published numbers of the percentages of each orientation in the ram population. Do they mirror what is seen, or believed to be seen, in the human population?

[Honey_Badger]

You know, the number being greater than 1% makes sense. I've met three other aces in real life just going around my day-to day business, and while I don't doubt that I've come into contact with about four hundred people over those years, I definitely haven't met and gotten to know four hundred people, more like 100 to 150. Obviously, personal information isn't a valid method of study, but given the scientific problems with the original sample (and the fact that asexuality is pretty hard to recognize if you don't know that it exists or if you don't distinguish between romantic and sexual attraction,) I wouldn't be surprised that the number we have is too low.

[Philip027]

I think it's actually way less than 1%, but I'm not sure how much of that is due to me having a rather stricter view of asexuality than most, and/or how much of it is due to people being confused on what asexuality (or sexual desire/attraction) actually is.

I believe many people simply think that being asexual means they don't wanna have sex right now, like it's a switch you can flick on and off.

[Human_001]

I think most Aces don't even know what asexuality is. Only 1% "identify" as asexual. I'm sure another 2 or 3% don't identify because they think they're just underdeveloped or weird heteros or homos.

[Xavy]

Why does the % matter ? As far as I see the % number will Always and forever be debated, so it very very irrelevant to me.

[Quintus Crinis]

Certainly the 1% figure seems to have come from outdated research - would be very interesting to see what a modern survey/study would come up with. Although I thought it was supposed to be about 10% of any population that were homosexual.

Having said that I study Classics (Romans and Ancient Greeks) and the evidence we have from that period suggests that the majority of humanity at that time was presumed to be bisexual/romantic (For example in Suetonius, there is equal surprise expressed -implied as a scandal - that the emperors Galba and Claudius are only interested in men or women respectively).

Hence I feel that the idea of the "Kinsey scale", if not perfect, is probably heading in the right direction.

Quintus. :)

[The Not So Impossible Girl]

I think I remember reading somewhere that they actually tried to do the study again, but they got a much lower percentage like .5% or something. Damn statistical errors! I swear Stats is the most frustrating form of mathematics out there.

[Xavy]

There is an old saying that you can always lie with statistics (by manipulating the sample size. Demographic, etc) I think that is very true, whether it is intentional or not, statistics are fatally prone to lying.

[WhenSummersGone]

I still think the % is higher because some people may be lying that they are having sex just to fit in, like males, and anyone who is doing it to please their partner. Sex is seen as normal and something everyone does so with that lots of people could be having sex they don't really want.

[Mycroft is Yourcroft]

Well is the the 1% meant to be the Asexuality umbrella or people who identify as totally asexual? I can understand 1% maybe being people who ID as totally ace, but if it's the whole umbrella term, I think it'd be a bit more than 1%. :P

Hence I feel that the idea of the "Kinsey scale", if not perfect, is probably heading in the right direction.

Quintus. :)

I think Storms' model is pretty good :)

[Zash]

There is an old saying that you can always lie with statistics (by manipulating the sample size. Demographic, etc) I think that is very true, whether it is intentional or not, statistics are fatally prone to lying.

Stats are prone to lying when used with laypeople. Anyone who knows how to use stats can use them to lie, or use them to catch out other liars. When I hear someone throwing out stats, I usually ask for sources. Then I go look at those sources before I believe the stats. Peer reviewed sources are better, of course, but, I will take a look at informal forum polls and that sort of thing too.

As the old joke goes, 75% of all statistics are made up. (Like that one, for example).

[cavyX]

I'd really like to hope it's more than 1% and realistically he could be right. There's no information out there for people really so the number could be a lot higher!

[Techie]

Why does the % matter ? As far as I see the % number will Always and forever be debated, so it very very irrelevant to me.

The only reason I would like to see a higher percentage is the old adage, "there is strength in numbers". I recall perhaps twenty years ago, the homosexual (I am reluctant to use LGBT as the focus was on homosexuality at the time, not bi-, transgender, etc.) population was estimated to be 10% of the population. Then more intense scientific studies were performed and that number now sits at the 3% to 4% we see reported now. However, there was a huge uproar from that community at the perceived loss in "status" due to reduced numbers. Of course that did not materialize and the LGBT community now has far greater freedoms than they did in the 1990's.

In the case of asexuals, it seems as if we have the opportunity to go in the other direction.

[Honey_Badger]

I think I remember reading somewhere that they actually tried to do the study again, but they got a much lower percentage like .5% or something. Damn statistical errors! I swear Stats is the most frustrating form of mathematics out there.

There is an old saying that you can always lie with statistics (by manipulating the sample size. Demographic, etc) I think that is very true, whether it is intentional or not, statistics are fatally prone to lying.

Other things I've thought of (sorry guys, I just came out of thesis mode, which is also known as "telling other people how they screwed up taking their statistics,")

1) People have brought up that small sample sizes can't necessarily represent all of humanity. It was a pretty small sample.

2) Scientifically, although the experiment was repeatable, it hasn't been repeated, so we don't actually have a consensus. Statistics, as much as any other science, needs to have multiple tests done for a number to be relevant at all.

3) People have already brought up the fact that this was self-identification, that there are problems with the test itself that would have excluded asexuals who were still virgins, and that there may be problems from people who replied that they had experienced attraction because they'd experienced romantic attraction to someone.

4) Population percentages can easily vary over time and distance, without any change in awareness or change in the global population. Keeping in mind that there are people being born and dying every minute, and that if you take stats and know about probability you realize that you can have samples where you toss a coin and it comes up heads ten times in a row, you don't have good data until you have a bunch of different tests at different times in different places and average them.

... That said, I think the "at least 1%" number is actually somewhat useful for us. Once you've hit one percent or more, the chances that any single person, who may have about fifty to a hundred acquaintances over the course of several years, is acquainted with someone asexual, is pretty good. It's much better than say, the chances that an individual is acquainted with someone who has an IQ above 145, which is statistically somewhere around 0.01% of the population. And society accepts that geniuses exist despite this extremely low number, because there's enough of them known throughout history, but often I see people around here not being believed because many non-aces are unaware that any asexual person other than the one they just met exists.

TLDR: on second thought, I think 1% is inaccurate no matter how you slice it, but until we get a better number, it's at least empirical evidence that we exist to rub people's faces in.

[Xavy]

As the old joke goes, 75% of all statistics are made up. (Like that one, for example).

Exactly. Lol !

[Sarcastic Bob]

Why does the % matter ? As far as I see the % number will Always and forever be debated, so it very very irrelevant to me.

I can think of a couple of reasons. Firstly there's the fact that finding an exact number can be very encouraging for some people, e.g. sex repulsed romantics who feel depressed because they think they'll never find another asexual partner. Then there's the outreach value; "1 in every X amount of people are asexual" goes down much better than "we're sure some of the population is ace, but we've got no idea how much". It also has the advantage of shutting up idiot commenters who think it's all an elaborate ploy to make us feel special, or something.

[Braydin]

The study that determined the 1% also had 1% for homosexuality and bisexuality combined.

[Xavy]

Why does the % matter ? As far as I see the % number will Always and forever be debated, so it very very irrelevant to me.

I can think of a couple of reasons. Firstly there's the fact that finding an exact number can be very encouraging for some people, e.g. sex repulsed romantics who feel depressed because they think they'll never find another asexual partner. Then there's the outreach value; "1 in every X amount of people are asexual" goes down much better than "we're sure some of the population is ace, but we've got no idea how much". It also has the advantage of shutting up idiot commenters who think it's all an elaborate ploy to make us feel special, or something.

Interesting views. Maybe it is just me, which is fine, but I don't need to know the exact number of asexuals out there to be encouraged or to not feel depressed.

[ithaca]

The study that brought up the 1% figure was done in 1994, before asexuality hit the news. How did it come up? In UK, a study (in the form of a questionnaire, IIRC) was being conducted about sexual habits. One of the questions was about who the person was sexually attracted to, and one of the answers was "I've NEVER felt sexual attraction toward ANYONE AT ALL" (emphasis is mine). Out of 18k+ people, 1% chose this option. The 2004 study by Bogaert used this figure, but Bogaert himself believes asexuals are way more than 1%.

There are a few factors to consider:

1- The answer was very "strict" ("never to anyone at all"): so what if someone had felt attraction to one or two people in their whole life, and chose based on that? They would maybe identify as gray (or asexual) with some info that they didn't have.

2- There wasn't much awareness on asexuality, and as a consequence on romantic attraction as separate from sexual. Many asexual people likely chose their answer regarding sexual attraction following their romantic one (I know I would have).

3- The fact that it's possible to be "normal" and not experience sexual attraction (i.e. being asexual and not diseased) was not known as much as it is today, and that may have skewed results.

I do believe that 1% is a much smaller number than the actual percentage of asexual people, or people who are gray etc.

EDIT: I almost forgot. A 4th factor to consider is that it's possible (if not likely) that many asexual people have not participated in a survey on sexual habits, for several reasons including lack of interest.