Pramana Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 I was doing some research regarding asexuals and mental health. I found one study on the topic. It compared a sample group of asexuals recruited primarily through AVEN to heterosexual and homosexual/bisexual control groups recruited through other avenues. The authors found elevated levels of a variety of mental health issues among asexuals compared to both sexual control groups. They suggest the following explanations for this finding: 1. Like members of other sexual minorities, asexuals may face social alienation and isolation. 2. Particularly hard for asexuals to find relationship partners given a low population prevalence rate, and thus increased levels of loneliness. These hypotheses are plausible, but I would argue that the study should have compared asexuals recruited from AVEN to sexuals recruited from AVEN. The 2015 asexual community census report found that 61.2% of asexual spectrum respondents and 64.7% of sexual respondents had visited a mental health professional at least once in the past. https://asexualcensus.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/2015_ace_census_summary_report.pdf This raises a question regarding whether AVEN is representative of asexuals, or whether AVEN is representative of asexuals and sexuals who prefer to conduct most of their socializing through an online asexuality forum? I would be sceptical of any study that attempts to extrapolate from AVEN-based research to conclusions about asexuals in general. Perhaps the more important question, though, concerns whether – given that there are elevated rates of mental health issues among the AVEN population – there is anything additionally that AVEN as an organization could do which would be of assistance to its members on this front? Journal Article Reference: Morag A. Yule, Lori A. Brotto, Boris B. Gorzalka, “Mental Health and Interpersonal Functioning in Self-Identified Asexual Men and Women” Psychology & Sexuality 4:2 (2013): 138-139, 146-147. http://med-fom-brotto.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2014/11/Yule-Brotto-Gorzalka-2013-Mental-health-interpersonal-functioning-in-self-identified-asexual-men-women-3133.pdf Link to post Share on other sites
divided_sky Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 I am the most mentally healthy person I have ever known Link to post Share on other sites
QuantumEcho Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 I am fked up in the head. I have severe depression and social anxiety. Link to post Share on other sites
divided_sky Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 5 minutes ago, AstroCookie said: I am fked up in the head. I have severe depression and social anxiety. Me too!! Let's be pals Link to post Share on other sites
Snao Cone Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 8 minutes ago, divided_sky said: I am the most mentally healthy person I have ever known My dude. On the serious topic, admods do pass on mental health resource information when they see members post things that imply they're in serious distress. There have also been some ideas brought up (I can't think of specifics at this time) about compiling lists of more specific resources that are known to be ace-friendly...but then, that often applies to certain localities, and it would be near impossible to cover anything beyond major urban centres and more specific locations of the members volunteering to compile them. Link to post Share on other sites
StormySky Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 I have no known mental/emotional disorders, but I have very irrational thoughts, limited common sense, problems showing responsibility. I feel guilty and conscientious about my flaws, I guess that shows something! Link to post Share on other sites
Chimeric Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 I wish this study did a better job describing how they recruited their sample. It seems to me that much of the ace component comes from AVEN, but there's a line in there about a "main city of recruitment" for some of their non-ace subset, which suggests to me there was some level of face-to-face participation. I can't figure out if it was unilateral or if it was a selection methodology that applied to both samples. I agree with you, that introduces some pretty significant bias. I wonder also how many of their ace sample identifies as ace as a result of some of their mental health issues. Their conclusion excludes this as a possibility, which seems irresponsible to me. Hooray, AVEN lip service, though. =) Link to post Share on other sites
CosineTheCat Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 *Studies Psychology and often talks about this exact topic as much as I possibly can* This area highly fascinates me and an argument that I often make is that it's possible that there is a percentage of people on AVEN that actually not asexual they are experiencing mental distress. This being said, I understand what I'm saying and it's not a stance people like to hear. This is my personal opinion from the research and work I've done with mental health and asexuality and is not a reflection on any of my volunteer work with AVEN. I want to clarify this before I continue. It's late, and I don't really want to make a super detailed post about this, I might make a better one tomorrow when I have more time, but basically this: Asexuality is very much a grey zone. Yes, it is a real sexual orientation that needs to be recognized. And No, it's also a health - whether it be mental or physical- issue that should be considered before fully accepting the asexual label. It's also a revolving orientation, people can grow out of it or grow into it. Some people are Ace for life, other are not. It is almost imperative that people consider their health, especially when dealing with mental illness surrounding asexuality. Link to post Share on other sites
Chimeric Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 It just occurred to me, as well, they mention nothing about controlling for gender identity as a confounding variable. This will impact their results on either side of the analysis, but I would wonder if their ace sample is composed of people who struggle with their gender identity more than their non-ace sample. Addendum - the more I think about this, the more of a blaring oversight it seems to be. I'll re-read it in more detail tomorrow, there's no way they handily left this part out... Link to post Share on other sites
MoraDollie Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 Anecdotal evidence doesn't disqualify an entire study folks so you commenting saying something like "WELL IM OK" doesn't actually contribute to the commentary on the study. Not to come off as harsh or cruel, but this is the reality. I'm honestly not too surprised by the results of the survey, given the fact that asexuals and asexual umbrella often do face increased segregation, even within the LGBT+ community (the dreaded exclusionists). Not to mention recent stats show at least anywhere between 33-65%+ of the world population qualifies for some diagnosible form of mental illness. Link to post Share on other sites
Chimeric Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 3 minutes ago, Kumoku said: Not to mention recent stats show at least anywhere between 33-65%+ of the world population qualifies for some diagnosible form of mental illness. Which makes me wonder how much of that is illness and how much of that just is, but that's another topic. Link to post Share on other sites
Pramana Posted January 10, 2018 Author Share Posted January 10, 2018 5 minutes ago, Chimeric said: I wish this study did a better job describing how they recruited their sample. It seems to me that much of the ace component comes from AVEN, but there's a line in there about a "main city of recruitment" for some of their non-ace subset, which suggests to me there was some level of face-to-face participation. I can't figure out if it was unilateral or if it was a selection methodology that applied to both samples. I agree with you, that introduces some pretty significant bias. They recruited the sexual control groups from their university human research sample pool and through ads on websites like Craigslist (I've read a number of other asexuality research papers which use Craigslist in this fashion, and it is also the norm in this literature to refrain from providing a precise breakdown for sample recruitment). In any case, presumably the city would be Vancouver and the institution would be University of British Columbia. According to the procedure section, though, all the data was collected from an online SurveyMonkey questionnaire. 10 minutes ago, Chimeric said: I wonder also how many of their ace sample identifies as ace as a result of some of their mental health issues. Their conclusion excludes this as a possibility, which seems irresponsible to me. I suspect they felt bound by political correctness requirements to maintain that asexuals are "born this way" and that any mental health issues are the result of outside social pressures which negatively affect members of sexual minorities. Link to post Share on other sites
daveb Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 1 hour ago, divided_sky said: I am the most mentally healthy person I have ever known That almost sounds presidential. I do think it's worth studying mental health and it's relationship to asexuality. But I will leave that up to the professionals. I am not a doctor, nor have I ever played one on tv. Link to post Share on other sites
Chimeric Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 7 minutes ago, daveb said: I do think it's worth studying mental health and it's relationship to asexuality. But I will leave that up to the professionals. I am not a doctor, nor have I ever played one on tv. The professionals read the textbooks that cite the sources that are published studies in peer-reviewed journals (admittedly with a higher impact factor than this one has...). This is how it starts. =) Link to post Share on other sites
Sally Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 I don't know anyone IRL who hasn't visited a mental health specialist in the past. And considering that I don't know any asexuals IRL, I'd think that it wouldn't be unusual for asexuals to have had contact with mental health specialists also, including asexuals on AVEN. That doesn't mean that AVEN should do more than it's doing now to help members with mental health problems. Link to post Share on other sites
LeChat Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 8 hours ago, Pramana said: ...This raises a question regarding whether AVEN is representative of asexuals, or whether AVEN is representative of asexuals and sexuals who prefer to conduct most of their socializing through an online asexuality forum? I would be sceptical of any study that attempts to extrapolate from AVEN-based research to conclusions about asexuals in general. Perhaps the more important question, though, concerns whether – given that there are elevated rates of mental health issues among the AVEN population – there is anything additionally that AVEN as an organization could do which would be of assistance to its members on this front?... Since AVEN was started by--and originally only/mostly had--a small group of U.S. college students as members, I'd say that AVEN has definitely become more representative of a diverse population than it used to be, with more of a variety of age groups; careers; income and educational levels; races, religions; and members from various countries. I remember AVEN founder, David Jay, saying this, as well, either in the asexual documentary or his TED talk presentation about AVEN and the asexual community. I've seen other sexual and gender educational websites for youth offer links for mental health, so, I guess AVEN could do that, too, if they wanted. Although, not all asexuals experience depression only due to being asexual; some become depressed due to past/current abuse; struggles with gender dysphoria/identity or poverty, too. Link to post Share on other sites
Chimeric Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 8 hours ago, Pramana said: I suspect they felt bound by political correctness requirements to maintain that asexuals are "born this way" and that any mental health issues are the result of outside social pressures which negatively affect members of sexual minorities. Yikes. I retract "irresponsible" and raise you "dangerous." Link to post Share on other sites
Pramana Posted January 10, 2018 Author Share Posted January 10, 2018 On 1/10/2018 at 8:22 AM, Chimeric said: Yikes. I retract "irresponsible" and raise you "dangerous." The authors found some evidence to suggest that avoidant attachment styles or Schizoid personality might underlie asexuality for some people, although they seem reluctant to pursue the point against more politically correct alternatives: "Combined, this evidence implies that asexuality may be the product of social functioning, rather than the root of it. Although this speculation cannot be ruled out, there is mounting evidence (including biological markers such as handedness and number of older siblings (Yule et al., in press)) supporting the assertion that a lifelong lack of sexual attraction would be more accurately considered a sexual orientation and a stable and intrinsic part of an asexual individual’s self. It could alternatively be argued that the experience of growing up feeling different from one’s peers and experiencing stigma associated with one’s lack of sexual attraction may lead to difficulties developing social and/or intimate relationships." (at page 148). Link to post Share on other sites
Yatogami Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 I'm the most sane, insane person on this site. But in all seriousness, I have always admitted my asexuality is the result of mental illness (schizoid and bipolar). I also don't agree it is an orientation, for the same reason atheism isn't a religion. Link to post Share on other sites
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