Is asexuality becoming more well-known now?

[Amatista]

My friend asked me if I was asexual after I told her I don't think about sex before I brought it up. And my other friend said she was surprised that our school's student body president got a girlfriend. She thought he was asexual because he's so smart and he studies so much that she can't imagine him thinking about sex. I was suprised. I thought asexuality wasn't commonly known but they both said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The second friend doesn't talk about sexuality, either. Do any of you think asexuality will be common knowledge like hetero, bi, and homosexuality in the near future?

[I'd rather be in band.]

Gosh, I hope so. After I came out to my closest friends, a few of them came out to me as ace as well. Of course, I am friends with the people that I am currently mostly because I can escape hyposexuality when I'm around them. I mean, I have a few sexual friends, but it almost seems that they're outnumbered by my asexual friends. Once I leave my social circle, however, I remember how uncommon asexuality really is. So, I suppose that the fact that the amount of asexuals now can be attributed to this website and the amount of aces feeling confident enough to come out.

[RK800]

That would be nice but I've never really met anyone (besides those who I have explained it to and those online) who knows what asexuality is. Same goes for pansexual, polysexual and romatic orientations.

[Saraya]

I think it is becoming more well known. I was shocked when my film teacher mentioned it as an orientation and was ok with it. Usually this country is far behind and swept up in traditional beliefs.

[Dawg4280]

Yes, 3 people that I have come out to had heard about it and this: http://www.girlsaskguys.com/sexual-behavior/q1118492-how-many-people-on-here-have-heard-of-asexuality . my question btw.

[OtterCakes]

Well, the word is getting thrown around more. Though there is definitely still a lot of confusion as to the qualifications for it, and "causes"

We can only hope that more aces stand up in their communities and make these discrepancies known, but only time will tell. Just make sure that your friend knows that being a nerd or too busy does not make one asexual. ;)

[Guest]

I agree it's becoming more and more visible. There are more and more ace friendly articles in medias and people are also more aware than some years ago. It's a good step forward but we still have to so many things...

[WhenSummersGone]

I feel it is compared to 10 or so years ago, which is great. I think some people have made the connection between someone they know not wanting sex and asexuality. The internet has helped a lot and hopefully more asexual articles/blogs/etc. are passed around the internet.

[Captinark]

Maybe in the future, but I've had to explain it to every person I've told (although that isn't very many, admittedly).

[Xavy]

I would say that the fact that queer sexual orientations exists is becoming more well known, though not specifically asexuality.

[Mandie June]

I believe so. In my psychology book there's a nice section (paragraph) about asexuality. that made me really happy.

[verily-forsooth-egads]

I don't really know about the world at large, but I will say my path to discovery was relatively short and painless, so we must be doing something right.

[IanH]

I'd love it to be better known so I don't have to explain Asexuality to every person in the phone book. I want to be able to just say "I'm Asexual." Answer a question or two, then leave it at that.

[HilariousUsername]

I've never heard anyone talk about it outside of the internet. A portion of that blame is mine, I certainly CBA to "come out" or attempt explaining what it is to anyone. If it helps other aces it would be great if it were widely known, of course.

[polavanwoodman]

I've never heard anyone else talk about asexuality outside of the internet either ! I've never seen it mentioned on tv at all, which would be nice to see !! if you anyone can point me in the direction of asexual person/relationship depicted on a soap etc, I would love to see that !!

[IanH]

Speaking of TV, Wouldn't Asexuality being wider known, result in shows like, Family Guy, The Simpsons or South Park poking fun at us like they do everything else? Just curious.

[Mandie June]

Speaking of TV, Wouldn't Asexuality being wider known, result in shows like, Family Guy, The Simpsons or South Park poking fun at us like they do everything else? Just curious.

I was told there was an episode of House that had an ace couple,but it turned out to be something with his brain and they went back to doing the business.. so that really missed the mark on that!

[ladyrin]

It is becoming known as the fourth orientation but there is still a lot of ppl who have no idea we exist

[Guest]

Speaking of TV, Wouldn't Asexuality being wider known, result in shows like, Family Guy, The Simpsons or South Park poking fun at us like they do everything else? Just curious.

I was told there was an episode of House that had an ace couple,but it turned out to be something with his brain and they went back to doing the business.. so that really missed the mark on that!

House did have an asexual couple. The wife ended up being sexual and hiding it, to not make the husband feel bad. The husband had a tumor. But, they didn't TREAT the tumor on the show. The guy decided to treat it, then acted repulsed at the prospect of possibly wanting sex after. He never actually gained an interest in sex though. House just insisted he would, once the tumor was removed.

Sirens has an asexual character (as in, states she identifies as asexual). A few other shows do as well, but I don't remember their names. It is slowly getting out there.

[DerkhanBlue]

I think it certainly is, at least in some circles. I can imagine that many people still have no idea, but most of my friends, both online and offline, whom I've told had heard of it already. I was really surprised, tbh.

[Lord Happy Toast]

I can think of a number of lines of (non-annecdotal) evidence suggesting that more and more people are becoming at least somewhat familiar with asexuality.

1) Increase in academic articles about asexuality. On my blog, I have a chart of English language academic works on asexuality per year through 2012. (I have an unpublished version through 2013, which shows that, although the number was down in 2012, 2013 was another record high, with 17 works.)

2) Wikipedia view statistics. If you look at the page views over the period of 2007 onward, there's a definite upward trend for views for the asexuality page (which isn't the case for most of the other sexuality-related articles I looked at).

3) You can look Google Trends. For "asexuality" and "asexuals", there's been a general upward trend for the past few years (although some of the highest search rates were around the time of the New Scientist article.) Also, searches for "demisexual" have been clearly increasing since mid-2010 or so, which is a more indirect line of evidence. (However searchers for "asexuality" might mean AVEN's meaning of the term or it might mean asexual reproduction, whereas this isn't the case for "demisexual.")

[FOXracingfan]

I hope so! My English/World Religions professor mentioned it in class one day, using asexual as an example of "a" means none when used as a prefix.

We haven't gotten to the human sexuality part in my Psychology book yet, but I'm hoping asexuality is mentioned.

[Heart]

I've never heard anyone else talk about asexuality outside of the internet either ! I've never seen it mentioned on tv at all, which would be nice to see !! if you anyone can point me in the direction of asexual person/relationship depicted on a soap etc, I would love to see that !!

There's a handy thread or two in World Watch that talks a lot about what characters may or may not be ace in books, and one here for TV and movies. In fact, there are a lot of said threads in the World Watch forum on that topic, check it out ;)

[IanH]

I hope so! My English/World Religions professor mentioned it in class one day, using asexual as an example of "a" means none when used as a prefix.

We haven't gotten to the human sexuality part in my Psychology book yet, but I'm hoping asexuality is mentioned.

I want to know if it gets mentioned. Can you let us know if it does?

[deltaX]

I hadn't heard about it at all until recently. However, of the six people I told, five knew what it was. (It was kind of ironic that the asexual of our group was one of the last to hear about it)

Although, might not be the most representative sample- one of them identifies as Demi, and the other has a gray-ace boyfriend, so they had already spent a lot of time researching it.

[blueokapi]

Something similar to this actually happened to me recently, and I wasn't expecting it at all. Since the new semester started, I've been trying to come out steadily to all of my friends, but it can be really nerve-wracking! However, one of my buddies was telling me about his sister and how she identifies as ace, and I just flat out went, "OMG ME TOO." By far the easiest coming out session I have yet to experience! It was great.

[IanH]

Something similar to this actually happened to me recently, and I wasn't expecting it at all. Since the new semester started, I've been trying to come out steadily to all of my friends, but it can be really nerve-wracking! However, one of my buddies was telling me about his sister and how she identifies as ace, and I just flat out went, "OMG ME TOO." By far the easiest coming out session I have yet to experience! It was great.

I wish it was that easy for me. I have a feeling a lot of people I came out to have no clue what an Ace or an Asexual is. Even the priest at my local Cat. Church thought that when I told him, I was referring to being gay. No, the only way I am "gay" is through my ROMANTIC orientation. I just wish people would ask questions. I feel really insulted when people assume and then say "As long as you don't act on your urges, it's fine." WHAT URGES??? (That's a quote from the priest by the way)