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The 1% figure, what's the actual percentages (Including gaps to compensate for several meanings)


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We know that there are studies that declares that 1% of the general population is asexual, but I am not aware of studies that would provide percentage gaps to compensate for different interpretation of what's asexuality is. So, what would be the actual percentage using different definitions?

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Sage Raven Domino

I'm sure that a lot more aces are still closeted, brainwashed by sex ed. It's in our power to detect them and help them come out to themselves :aven: Any tips on how to tune the radar? :D

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Burnt_Phoenix

Well, there is no hard studies aside from the 1% one, but I am would be willing to speculate that the actual percentage is probably between 2% and 3%.

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Well, there is no hard studies aside from the 1% one, but I am would be willing to speculate that the actual percentage is probably between 2% and 3%.

I'm not talking about just one percentage, but multiple percentages. The problem with just a figure is that it doesn't take into account of different interpretations of sexual orientation.

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I wonder if, with flaws in the original stuff in phrasing, the number is lower.

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Quintus Crinis

I'm sure that a lot more aces are still closeted, brainwashed by sex ed. It's in our power to detect them and help them come out to themselves :aven: Any tips on how to tune the radar? :D

There was a thread around a while ago about ace celebrities (discussing if there were any out or seeming to be ace) - I guess that could be seen as a way of tuning an "acedar", looking at any traits that regularly make people from this community wonder about people most people know of?

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Burnt_Phoenix

I wonder if, with flaws in the original stuff in phrasing, the number is lower.

I've heard of this line of reasoning,too ,because the original survey asked if 'they had experienced sexual attraction in the last 6 months' or the like, and didn't make it seem like a permanent thing. So, many people that were depressed, had a low libido, etc, may have answered 'no' despite the fact that they are not asexual (not even mentioning gray-aces or demisexuals who could answer this). However, I think that, despite this, the number is still higher than 1%.

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There are probably a lot of asexuals who've never heard of the word, and thus doesn't know it describes them. They're not "in the closet" or cowed by society --- they just don't know. That (again probably) includes a lot of older asexuals who don't do Tumblr or other sites.

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WhenSummersGone

Well, there is no hard studies aside from the 1% one, but I am would be willing to speculate that the actual percentage is probably between 2% and 3%.

I agree. Asexuality is still unknown and I think it would be higher if people knew.

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Well, it seems that people don't understand what I"m asking for, and what was I asking for was the percentages of asexuals in ranges of percentage. Something like this, there are X% - Y% of people in the world that are asexual depending on what constitutes sexual attraction or the lack of thereof. If anything, that'd make a hell lot more sense than X%.

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The 1% figure comes from a Bogaert paper in 2004, which was analyzing a British national survey from 1990 (?). I've heard that in Bogaert's book, Understanding Asexuality, he discusses a followup survey, which showed about 0.5%. However, the followup survey was inferior in terms of its sampling.

More recently, there was a survey of the University of California system, which said there are 4.6%. But obviously that's not a sample of the general population.

So I'd say 0.5 to 4.6%.

ETA: We don't really know if the different percentages are due to different definitions of asexuality, different sampling, or what. There's a lot of uncertainty in the results even when we're consistent about how the question is asked.

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Even with consistent sampling and representative samples, the variance will be relatively large when estimating small proportions (rare occurrences). Pretty sure the 1% figure comes from self-identification which has its own problems as well (people using various criteria, requires knowledge of the term, etc).

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Lord Happy Toast

The 1% figure comes from a Bogaert paper in 2004, which was analyzing a British national survey from 1990 (?). I've heard that in Bogaert's book, Understanding Asexuality, he discusses a followup survey, which showed about 0.5%. However, the followup survey was inferior in terms of its sampling.

The original study was based on the first of the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles studies. Their website explains:

The British National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and lifestyles are among the largest and most detailed scientific studies of sexual behaviour in the world. Three Natsal surveys have taken place: Natsal-1 in 1990-1991, Natsal-2 in 1999-2001, and Natsal-3 in 2010-2012.

In Bogaert's book, he makes reference to a (then) forthcoming paper of his looking at NATSAL-2, which since been published: The demography of asexuality. In Natsal-2, about 0.46% of people indicated having never felt sexual attraction to anyone.

I don't think that there have been any really large sets of survey data that allow for comparing the rates of asexuality produced by different definitions within the same group of people.

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I do not believe it is possible for 1/100 to be asexual. That's just too many from my experience.

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Lord Happy Toast

Even with consistent sampling and representative samples, the variance will be relatively large when estimating small proportions (rare occurrences). Pretty sure the 1% figure comes from self-identification which has its own problems as well (people using various criteria, requires knowledge of the term, etc).

This is from the introduction to Bogaert's 2004 paper:

In this study, I undertook the investigation of lifelong asexuality, defined as having no sexual attraction

for either sex. Note that the definition of asexuality here concerns a lack of sexual attraction to either sex and not necessarily a lack of sexual behavior with either sex or self-identification as an asexual.

From his "method" section:

The measure of sexual attraction was introduced as follows: "I have felt sexually attracted to..." Six options followed: (a) "only females, never to males" (male n = 7,482, female n = 28); (b) "more often to females, and at least once to a male" (male n = 321, female n = 21); © "about equally often to males and females" (male n = 45, female n = 21); (d) "more often to males, and at least once to a female" (male n = 42, female n = 406); (e) "only males, never to females" (male n = 42, female n = 9,969); and (f) "I have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all" (male n = 57, female n = 138). Thirty-eight men and 63 women refused to answer this question and were thus eliminated from further analyses.

For the present study, I counted as asexuals those who responded to this sexual attraction question with "I have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all." I categorized as "sexuals" the remaining participants—those reporting that they had felt attraction to either males, females, or both (male n = 7,932, female n = 10,494).

The 1% statistic is frequently mis-cited. In particular, I've seen lots of time where it's said to be about the percentage of people in the world who identify as asexual. In fact, it's about people living in Great Britain in the early 1990s, and it's not about asexual self-identification.

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