0.8% of the UK are asexual?

[DMG]

First I'm very sorry but I read this in a newspaper this morning so I don't have a linkable source, but I was reading an article featuring newly released figures from the Office of National Statistics which reported that "only 1.5% of the UK identified as homosexual" - that part didn't interest me though, I was interested in the part that said that 0.8% stated "other" (i.e. not heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or 'no answer'). That really only left room for asexual.

Does 0.8% sound like a fair figure for the number of asexual's?

I thought it was interesting :)

[BadKarma]

Other also means anyone who may have gender identity problems, heavily fetishized people, people who don't know, people who are fluid, people who are pansexual, and people who didn't want to answer.

Not that .8% is an inaccurate number, but there are quite a few other options for "other" than "just asexual".

[JJButterworth]

Even though the commonly accepted number is one percent, that does not mean that asexuals are evenly distributed around the world and .8 % does not seem too far off. In some places it might be 1.2% but as for the world's population it should be about one or so percent. As, for the homosexual population that does seem low I would peg it at about 10%.

[Guest member25959]

''Other'', or 'no answer', could just mean ''I don't feel comfortable sharing that'', or ''I don't know''. Not necessarily asexual. Though, 0.8% seems about right.

[Wineblood]

And think of all the aces who don't know about asexuality yet. They probably consider themselves straight/gay/bi.

[Batman's Ace]

I was always puzzled by the 1% statistic. Is this including an estimate of asexuals who don't know about the concept?

Also, I'd expect distribution to be uneven. So, based on the general number of 1%, the 0.8% seems reasonable.

[birdnerd]

Even though the commonly accepted number is one percent, that does not mean that asexuals are evenly distributed around the world and .8 % does not seem too far off. In some places it might be 1.2% but as for the world's population it should be about one or so percent. As, for the homosexual population that does seem low I would peg it at about 10%.

Just out of curiosity, where do you get the "should"? Is there any authority behind the 1% figure beyond the Bogaert article?

[PiF]

Using aven as a guide and given how many are unsure & who hide being asexual i'm not convinced when they say percentage figures

[Kelly]

reported that "only 1.5% of the UK identified as homosexual"

OK. And this one says that 6% of UK people are gay:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1505277/Six-per-cent-of-population-are-gay-or-lesbian-according-to-Whitehall-figures.html

Perhaps the 0.8% other is off as well.

[EricK]

Even though the commonly accepted number is one percent, that does not mean that asexuals are evenly distributed around the world and .8 % does not seem too far off. In some places it might be 1.2% but as for the world's population it should be about one or so percent. As, for the homosexual population that does seem low I would peg it at about 10%.

10%? Seriously? I would be surprised if it were that high. Maybe half that.

Also, assuming there is not a huge cultural/environmental component to asexuality, then if the world population of asexuals is 1%, then no country is at all likely to be that far from 1%.

[Lord Happy Toast]

The 10% figure has been widely cited as the rate of homosexuality. If you're interested, here's an email by Charles Silverstein on the origin of that:

I can tell you where the figure came from because I was there. It came out of the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) in the early 1970s. There was a Press or PR Committee headed by Bruce Voeller and Ron Gold. Ron was an experienced PR man & Bruce a researcher at Rockefeller. The media always wanted to know how many men were homosexual. When Bruce would talk to them about statistics and sampling problems, their eyes would glaze over. The press does not want to know about sampling probabilities. So Bruce decided to tell them that 10% of males were gay, since that was a neat and easily understood figure. It then became the mantra of gay liberation. I’m sure that Bruce got 10% from somewhere in the first Kinsey book, but can’t remember specifically where. Nor did anyone at the time care how accurate it was. We were fighting for our rights and publicity was extremely valuable to our cause.

Studies since then which have used much better sampling techniques than Kinsey had available in the 1940's have consistently found much lower rates, generally between 1-3%. As for asexuality, the 1% figure came from a single item on a single study (albeit a large scale one) that wasn't really interested in asexuality. As a general rule about science, don't put too much weight on a single study. Put more weight on findings that have been well-replicated, and where there has long been careful attention to methodology towards the specific issue of interest--which there hasn't been for asexuality. The research on that subject in still in very early stages.

[JJButterworth]

Even though the commonly accepted number is one percent, that does not mean that asexuals are evenly distributed around the world and .8 % does not seem too far off. In some places it might be 1.2% but as for the world's population it should be about one or so percent. As, for the homosexual population that does seem low I would peg it at about 10%.

Just out of curiosity, where do you get the "should"? Is there any authority behind the 1% figure beyond the Bogaert article?

"Should" was probably the wrong word choice, "from what I know" would have been better. I am not aware of anything else that supports or refutes that Bogaert article.