Why isn't there a science of asexuality?

[neoclasic]

Hi everyone!

I understand science as the exercise of explain phenomena upon empirical evidences. I am aware of the limitations of the technique: many times what we need to explain is devoid of empirical anything, let alone evidences. However I believe in the usefulness of sciences so I am interested in understand asexuality or at least some aspects of it through sciences.

I've read almost all the scholarly publications available on the field. A goal easier than what we may think given the scarcity of such works.

At the other hand, I have notice that these kind of ideas have not permeate in AVEN, our general discussions follow the lines of civil rights movements (as the LGBT community and the Queer Theory) instead to a more scientific approach.

Then here is my question:

Why isn't there a science of asexuality?

Please notice that I am asexual myself for self-identification, hetero-romantic, and aware of my situation from the last eight years. That is what I found here in AVEN and in AVENes (the Spanish branch of our beloved forum) in the first week I spent reading here. After that I have learning nothing new. In eight years zero progress. Hey! I am happy guy, but eight years is a long time... one that I guess it's enough to advance towards a better or more profound understanding.

So, what do you think?

[binary suns]

I think it makes sense to consider emotions empirically, and try to elaborate upon it. isn't that psychology? IDK

[Perissodactyla]

@neoclasic

"... sexual arousal is measured through a penile plethysmograph (a rubber band type of device). "

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/125977-male-asexual-participants-needed-for-a-study-on-sexual-arousal-vancouver-canada/

[Jea]

I thought about this too, but I have no answer to contribute. We know nothing about it from a scientific point of view. I wondered if there might be some genetics involved, but I never got a definite answer.

[lazypanda]

There isnt enough "science" regarding asexuality because nobody cares enough about us to do much research on this topic. I think to intrigue researchers,the issue has to be either interesting or threatening. We are neither. We are just normal humans,living our lives,nothing out of the ordinary.And we are pretty harmless.

Asexuality does not have any major implications for the world at large,at best its induvidual psychological ones.

[Guest_49836]

Making an "empirical" statement about a person's sexuality is dangerous turf because of how fluid, subjective and individual each experience is.

I'd think "It's not your business unless we're into each-other." should cut it for most things gay/bi/straight/ace/whatever. It's as empirical as it gets to set boundaries, and everyone has to respect those boundaries lest they get put in a registry of sexual offenders.

If somebody is going to be ignorant or insensitive about your orientation, empirical evidence will not change that. Know that there are people who believe the cosmos is a mere 6,000 years old. The empirical nature of evidence rarely persuades the kind of slack-jawed moron who thinks your sexuality is any of their business.

EDIT: there is no profit in studying asexuality - esp in a society where "sex sells" is a pretty powerful mantra

[Telecaster68]

There's also the more political position that scientific research into causes of asexuality could be seen as pathologising something normal, and as with research into, say the 'homosexual gene' (although most geneticists would reject such a concept) it could be used as a way to promote the 'they're broken' agenda.

I think closing off avenues of investigation because someone might use the results to support an opinion you disagree with is limiting though.

I guess the research could cover genetics, neurology and biochemistry. Psychology and anthropology too, though they're not a science in quite the same sense

[Tarfeather]

The way to do science is to put down hypotheses, then try to disprove them through data. Asexuals are rare, though, so getting meaningful data is expensive.

[neoclasic]

Emotions are hard to observe. Actually we may feel something but hide it for years or for the entire life. So it's hard to build an empirical science about them. The same may be said about the mind, the ego and many other psychology concepts in popular sciences. Then the science of psychology is not about emotions or about the mind. Please take a look at the following definition:


psychology

plural psy·chol·o·gies

Medical Definition of PSYCHOLOGY

1. : the science of mind and behavior
2. a: the mental or behavioral characteristics typical of an individual or group or a particular form of behavior <mob psychology> <the psychology of arson>
   
   b: the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity <colorpsychology> <the psychology of learning>
3. : a treatise on or a school, system, or branch of psychology

(source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/psychology)

In plain English, psychology is more about patterns of behavior than about emotions. We may measure our forum, by example, and uncover pattern that may remain unseen. Perhaps hidden amount the thousand of thread are a dynamic that talk about the typical evolution of a AVEN user... IDK, but is anyone among us looking right now?

Please note that if we are not an interesting topic for the establishment of science, then the responsibility to explore our reality lies in us.

[Perissodactyla]

"Please notice that I am asexual myself for self-identification, hetero-romantic, and aware of my situation from the last eight years. That is what I found here in AVEN and in AVENes (the Spanish branch of our beloved forum) in the first week I spent reading here. After that I have learning nothing new. In eight years zero progress. Hey! I am happy guy, but eight years is a long time... one that I guess it's enough to advance towards a better or more profound understanding."

I'm not sure how to interpret what you say here. Do you mean that you read the asexuality literature 8 years ago, but that nothing significant has been published since then to answer questions you have?

Have you made a list of research questions that you have, which you feel that no scientific researchers are addressing?

Along with questions you have so you can learn more, have you investigated what are the empirical methods that have been used so far, and which new methods might be used in new studies to result in new data and findings?

As for hypotheses and theories that help increase understanding of asexuality, are there any that you tend to value/agree with versus others that you are critical of? Based on your current studies, are you attuned to the new directions in inquiry and understanding that could result from new research projects?

My feeling is that research in this field is gradually increasing and gaining credibility and interest.

Also, the researchers *appear* to be open to suggestions, questions, feedback and participation.

It's very good that you pose this question, and I encourage you to become involved if you have the time and interest to engage in the research at some level. You could even considered designing a research project of your own as someone who sincerely cares a lot about producing more understanding for yourself and many others.

Since I'm new to this whole concept since April, I don't have the 8 years perspective that you and others benefit from.

[neoclasic]

@neoclasic

"... sexual arousal is measured through a penile plethysmograph (a rubber band type of device). "

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/125977-male-asexual-participants-needed-for-a-study-on-sexual-arousal-vancouver-canada/

I saw that ^_^

The core technique is good and adequate to gain empirical evidence on males. I will support the project in spirit from here.

[neoclasic]

My guess is we have many topics to explore beyond the ultimate nature of our sexuality. I mean, we may take the route of reproduce the demographic research available, after all, the time has passed since the last published paper about this. Another route is perform data mining in our forums and blogs to identify unobserved patterns. Also we may track our users in the long run and check if they experiment changes in their sexual lives. Do I need to come with more examples?

I ask again: why isn't there a science of asexuality?

I believe is a legitimate question.

[penaynay]

Because researches needs funding to conduct and that funding comes from either the government or companies. Asexuality is something that most people are not aware of, and a lot of people does not believe that it is a real thing. Companies wants research that will provide findings that can be used to make a profit that is why that when looking at certain researches you need to look at who funded the research because there might be a funding bias. But I feel like the more people are aware of asexuality the more likely that people will begin to recognize it and start to look into it more like homosexuality and remove from the DSM.

[Torquil]

In plain English, psychology is more about patterns of behavior than about emotions. We may measure our forum, by example, and uncover pattern that may remain unseen. Perhaps hidden amount the thousand of thread are a dynamic that talk about the typical evolution of a AVEN user... IDK, but is anyone among us looking right now?

Please note that if we are not an interesting topic for the establishment of science, then the responsibility to explore our reality lies in us.

The study of behavior does encompass emotions; emotions underlie a lot of behavior. As you pointed out though, emotions can be difficult to study because they are subjective (internal) experiences.

I agree with your suggestion that we should explore ourselves and not just wait until more scientific research comes out, which is exactly what forums like AVEN are for.

[Nidwin]

Asexuality has been inviisble and it only started to surface at the beginning of this new century so it's normal that there's a lack of Ace science. Science takes time because how the scientific method works, often Years, and a lot of dedication to investigate scientificly a defined subject.

The feeling that I have is that we're still at the point where the burden of proof lies on our shoulder. We are the ones making the claim of being asexual so it's up to us to come forward with evidence of our claim that can be investigated by others. And here, burden of proof wise, we aren't doing well and the folks believing us are doing it on , more or less, faith.

There's a lot of "raw" data around here on different subjects but that's not enough. We can't just knock on Skepchick, Queereka, ... doors and say

"Hey look, we've great polls, great topics on our forums. Can you have a look and write something about it and us."

It's up to us to come forward with properly written stuff and posted on our "portal" that can be used and referenced too by others.

We could do a brainstorming to identify interresting subjects that we can investigate and elaborate on, on our level of expertise. After that chose 2 or 3 of those subjects, create workgroups, agree about a working method, define a schedule, and so on and so on.

I don't know, plenty of subjects I presume e.g.

• mixed couples
• different kind of attractions, who experience what and how is it experienced
• Sexual attraction and the lack of it, viewed by both Aven aces and allos
• Aces can have sex but can live without it
• ...

My two cents

[Tarfeather]

Isn't studying asexuality just part of the study of human sexuality in general?

Not exactly. It was only discovered by chance when the Kinsey Institute did a study on the hetero-/homosexual spectrum. In order to study asexuality you would have to develop theory specific to that subject, and that just doesn't seem to be interesting enough to foot the bill.

[BlueSaint]

Not exactly. It was only discovered by chance when the Kinsey Institute did a study on the hetero-/homosexual spectrum. In order to study asexuality you would have to develop theory specific to that subject, and that just doesn't seem to be interesting enough to foot the bill.

I still think it would fall under sexology. A quick search shows the Kinsey Institute was in involved with a paper published in 2007.

As other people have said research takes time, money and interest. Sadly a lot of issues aren't actively researched unless funding can be found somewhere.

[neoclasic]

Sexology is definitely one of the field we may explore in order to gain scientific understanding about us. Our sexual behavior (or lack of it) is of interest for the sexology. This imply we must find a way to express our situations under a common frame with what the sexology has defined. Probably we'll reach a point when we must to discard our beloved labels (aro, wtf, and the rest) or at least create a translation from these to those that sexology understands.

However sexology is not the only field out there. We may do big data with our forums or create statistical models to describe dynamics in our population. Let say that science is the exercise of explain phenomena upon empirical evidence. Any phenomena around us will be science of asexuality if we may explain it with evidence and hard facts.

[cgom]

There is actually a study going on right now at my school investigating arousal in asexual men. I'm thinking about participating, but they use, well physiological measures (i.e., the plethysmograph mentioned above), and I'm not really comfortable with people getting close to my man parts.

In any case, though, and as others have said, asexuality as a term hasn't been around for too long, so there hasn't been much visibility and thus much opportunity for study. I do, however, know some individuals who have actually published empirical, psychological research specifically about asexuality; I won't get into it more for the sake of personal confidentiality, but just want to point out that there is some research on the topic going on out there!

P.S. I'm actually attending a psychology conference right now, and one of the presenters investigated arousal in heterosexual men and women across hetero, bi, and animal sexual contexts (i.e., they watched videos of people of different and same sexes have sex, in addition to watching animals, and then reported their arousal). Unfortunately, the study used self-reports and not physiological measures of arousal, but the women in the study reported being aroused by all contexts, which is consistent with the previous literature, and the men actually reported being more aroused by the men on men scenes in comparison to other scenes (keep in mind that these are heterosexual people). I took the findings to mean that, well, guess what, sexual attraction and sexual arousal are different things, and sexual arousal can occur without attraction, which is consistent as far as I know with the definition of asexuality. Keep in mind, though, that that doesn't mean that all individuals will get aroused by all sexual content regardless of whether they are sexual people or not; it's possible for different people to not experience arousal and not attraction to a certain thing, attraction but not arousal, or arousal but not attraction.

[nikarose7]

I have been very interested in this as well. We are starting to get some great research on GLBTQA, but not on Ace. I think part of this stems from how under-recognized we are though. Most people still use the A in the acronym above for advocate. Even in classes where we have discussed GLBT issues, no one has mentioned asexuality. It's like it doesn't exist.

[praetorius]

For the "practical" answers to why there isn't much currently by way of a "science of asexuality":

- the terminology is relatively new in the sense used here with respect to human behavior

- the population using the term is relatively small

- it takes a long time to build up a community of researchers interested and able to pursue a particular topic

so, as a product of these three, "asexuality studies" is currently a tiny and slowly-growing field. I would expect it to lag a decade or two behind the "popular" adoption of the word; the time it takes for today's asexuality-aware tumblr teens to make their way into scientific research positions with an interest in that area of study. This is a process we can already see in motion, with an expanding trickle of early-career research interest in asexual communities.

For the "philosophical" answer: I don't think a "science of asexuality" makes sense because "asexuality" is itself not the type of object that science addresses. "Asexuality" is a loose philosophical framework developed within overlapping communities, constructed without scientific rigor, rather than a concrete object with "material reality." Specific items related to and motivated by the idea of asexuality are amenable to scientific scrutiny: studying physical arousal, courtship and mating patterns, sexual behaviors, etc. --- things already often studied, but usually with the "asexual datapoints" shuffled aside as outlier noise to addressing questions in a gay/straight/bi sexual-only framework. There is also the study of the spread and use of the word "asexual," and the demographics of "asexual communities." But, "asexuality" in the whole remains a community-developed philosophical method for understanding (in a non-scientific sense) a broad range of human experiences, which is a different kind of thing than what one can have a "science of."

[Tarfeather]

- it takes a long time to build up a community of researchers interested and able to pursue a particular topic

It also takes money. People need to eat. If there isn't funding for research into asexuality right now, why would such a community of researchers start building up?

[praetorius]

- it takes a long time to build up a community of researchers interested and able to pursue a particular topic

It also takes money. People need to eat. If there isn't funding for research into asexuality right now, why would such a community of researchers start building up?

Indeed; money is a major part of the "able" part of "interested and able." There is some flexibility for getting funding according to researcher interest --- there is still a moderate amount of academic research done on "non-profitable" topics, funded by government grants or university endowments without criteria for immediate commercial applicability. I don't anticipate that interested researchers will have particularly more trouble getting funding for incorporating asexuality into sexuality-related research fields than they generally already do for most moderately abstruse topics (which is difficult enough already). There is also the counter-balancing effect that the newness of the field will make it easier to write grant proposals appealing to funding agencies for being "original" and "ground-breaking" work, instead of struggling for distinction from prior decades of similar research. Asexuality studies can also piggy-back on existing sexuality research, by framing studies/questions/analyses to pay attention to "asexual responses" in the data as something worth paying attention to alongside "established" sexual categories.

[Elin]

I agree with most things said here -- I mean, I would dearly love for some good research into asexuality, if only to satisfy my intellectual curiosity of why I lack what seems to be a very primary aspect of human attraction, but I can see how there is a lack of demand for this research by the general populace, whether out of lack of awareness or lack of profitability...

[Sally]

We could do a brainstorming to identify interresting subjects that we can investigate and elaborate on, on our level of expertise. After that chose 2 or 3 of those subjects, create workgroups, agree about a working method, define a schedule, and so on and so on.

That isn't how things get investigated within the rubric of science. This is a visibility/educational forum, not a work group of scientists.

[neoclasic]

We could do a brainstorming to identify interresting subjects that we can investigate and elaborate on, on our level of expertise. After that chose 2 or 3 of those subjects, create workgroups, agree about a working method, define a schedule, and so on and so on.

That isn't how things get investigated within the rubric of science. This is a visibility/educational forum, not a work group of scientists.

Some people around here are scientists or at least study/teach at universities. Think in this thread as a first attempt to make contact between us.

"The rubric of science" will come when we will be able to express our ideas and theories in a scholastic way: papers published in a peer-reviewed journal.

About the visibility/educational part, I am aware of the goals of AVEN but I fail to see how to assemble empirical arguments may not be part of these objectives. We had invented (discovered?) a lot of new terms and concepts, why not bring empirical support for them? Fear perhaps?

[Sally]

We had invented (discovered?) a lot of new terms and concepts, why not bring empirical support for them? Fear perhaps?

Fear has nothing to do with it. That's kind of a conspiracy notion: that we'd be afraid of what was discovered. And the plethora of terms we've invented in the last year doesn't mean anything except that we've invented a lot of terms.

Expressing ideas and theories in a peer-reviewed journal comes after a logical hypothesis is developed and studies are carried out to investigate that hypothesis. Peer-reviewed journals do not simply publish ideas that arise from people on an internet forum.

Yes, there are scientists on AVEN. But they are not working together in a cohesive team to investigate a hypothesis. And no, that wouldn't really be realistic, because they work in all sorts of venues, all over the world, not all in academia, and some may actually be working in fast food restaurants, because all jobs are hard to get now.

[neoclasic]

I guess your point is valid... however nobody around here asks for a degree in sociology before to apply the Queer Theory to our situation. In the same line, no one will care about our literary background if we come with poetry about asexuality. Our poetry will be good or bad in its own terms, our arguments will be good or bad in its own evidences. That is my point: build up empirical arguments around the asexuality. No one should care about our degrees in sciences more than they care about our majors in English or Foreign Languages to appreciate our poetry, or our tags.

Please notice that science of asexuality is more that explain why we are asexuals. I have listed some possibilities in areas as Big Data, Statistics and others. There is more about us that the ultimate reality of our sexual preferences.

[Sally]

Our poetry will be good or bad in its own terms

That's probably true.

our arguments will be good or bad in its own evidences.

No, that's not true -- scientific research takes more than "arguments". But I don't think you understand what the practice of science takes, so I give up.

[neoclasic]

I understand science as the exercise of explain phenomena upon empirical evidences. I am aware of the limitations of the technique: many times what we need to explain is devoid of empirical anything, let alone evidences. However I believe in the usefulness of sciences so I am interested in understand asexuality or at least some aspects of it through sciences.

Just quote my own definition. It is more that "arguments", it takes empirical evidences.

Sally, let's talk again in another thread. See you then.

Oh, before we leave, please read this:

Fishing and ultraviolence

So-called Islamic State is known for its brutality.

But it's also hooking people in far subtler ways.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-88492697-b674-4c69-8426-3edd17b7daed

It is a note from BBC about the Islamic State. It has stats, graphics, research, deep. Is it science? Not yet. But such piece has more content that anything I have saw so far about asexuality. So think about it. Maybe I am wrong to call for science, but maybe I miscalled what we need: good arguments.

The current theory (or what I think is the theory) talks about labels. Under the umbrella of asexuality, we may be aro, sensuals, demis... all of these, tags that encompass the 1% of the general population. (See Bogaert (2004)) but that figure grows up to 10% if you define asexuality as one of three possibilities: a) self identification; b) desire; c) behavior. (See Poston and Baumle (2010))

What behavior? What desire? What exactly is an observable pattern of experience and conduct that identify one person as asexual? Do you know? Anyone?