Could asexuality be inherited?

[The 50-Year-Old Virgin]

Obviously not directly from your parents, but I've done extensive genealogy on my birth father's ancestors (back to the 1600s), and I've found an interesting number of people who never married at a time when sex without marriage would have been unacceptable. They were hardcore Quakers too, so even less likely to have sex outside of marriage. I'm thinking they may have been asexual too, and this may be a family trait.

The most recent I see it in my direct line is my 2nd-great-grandfather, who was one of 10 children born in the late 1700s. Only 4 of them (including my 2ggf) married and had children. Three of the others lived in their father's house until their old age and never married. I have seen their death certificates that confirm this.

His aunt (born in the 1750s) had 8 daughters, and all of them lived to adulthood but only one of them married and had children. Their failure to marry and have children is very well-documented, because their father was a member of a very prominent New Jersey family and the house they grew up in is now a historical site.

There are many others floating around the tree who never married, or married very late in life to old men (unlikely to want sex before the age of Viagra). Brothers and sisters who lived together into their 60s and 70s.

Of course, my first reaction to this was that this family was very wealthy, and didn't need to have children because they didn't need free farm labor, so marriage and children was not a necessity. But that's my asexual response to the information; I don't think sexual people would see it that way.

What do you think?

[Techie]

Obviously not directly from your parents,

Why not? There is no rule that says asexual people cannot be sexually active and marry. There are quite a few people on this site, currently and formerly married, with children who discovered their orientation after the fact. So I would not rule out genetic inheritance from your parents. I strongly suspect that either my mother or father was demi just from the fact that my family never expressed any sexuality. My parents would often hug and kiss but I never grew up in an environment where we talked openly above love, sex and relationships. Also, I have wondered if two of my nieces are asexual as they are in the same pattern I was at their age. Neither dated in high school and are not dating in college, focusing instead on academics. Years ago, before I knew about asexuality, my sister had casually mentioned to me in a TMI moment that she really had no real interest in sex but did it to please my brother-in-law. Another sister, who is also married, has told me she has no interest in having sex and is perfectly happy to not have to do it. My brother-in-law does not seem to care either. As I have never experienced lust, I never had motivation to act on my heteroromantic feelings. As I currently plan to be single the rest of my life, I at least take comfort in knowing I would not be passing this on to another generation.

[Honey_Badger]

It could be one of those sliding scale tendencies: I've long suspected that there are plenty of demisexual people in my maternal line, and that it's not all just because good Catholics don't stray. I have a great aunt who chose to become a nun (I don't know her reasoning behind that, but it seems she never looked back,) and if I'm remembering correctly I think I have some second cousins who never married (though again, I don't have much data as to why.)

And since most things related to brain patterns aren't simple on/off genes, but spectrums with a multitude of little genetic triggers, I'd imagine there's some genetic component.

[lazypanda]

I have no firsthand data on this but i have an asexual friend...and we were openly talking about our asexuality to his mom (shes really cool...not the usual traditional mom )....she knows her son is asexual and actually shared with us that she and her husband are also asexuals...and they only had sex once...to make my friend !!! So, mom and dad are asexual...son is asexual...i guess its genetic !!!

[fuzzipueo]

My mom mentioned that she had several aunts who never showed any interest in getting married or otherwise engaging in romantic relationships. While we have no hardcore data on the phenomenon, I'm willing to bet that, much like with gay/Lesbian folks, there might indeed be a genetic component to asexuality, even if it's not from direct descent.

[Skycaptain]

It's certainly possible, there are all sorts of weird recessive genetic traits where both parents need to be a carrier for the trait to be present. Add in the fact that until fairly recently society expected you to conform. This may have forced people to act against their will.

It is possible that the more offspring the more likely an asexual, but I would have to research that to see if it is true.

[Anthracite_Impreza]

I'm almost certain my dad is a/greysexual; he's been separated from my mam for about 15 years and has only had 2 relationships since then which I think were more out of loneliness than lust. He's been single for ages now and has always told me he's not interested in sex, so I'm pretty sure that's where I got it from. So glad I got it from my dad instead of inheriting my mam's genes...

My auntie is also a long-term singleton now I think about it, so maybe there are more of us than I thought!

[Skipper Valvoline]

I think so. My dad's side of the family is the one with any ambiguities. Like, okay:

His parents had three kids: my aunt, my dad, and my uncle. My aunt couldn't have natural children. My uncle is gay. So my dad's the only one who passed down genes. I'm ace. And when talking with my mom, she's mentioned that though dad's not ace, there are times where it seems like he could be.

Gay uncle, ace grand-kid, possible ace dad- all on my father's side of the family. I figure yeah, genes have got to be playing a role in this somewhere.

[Skycaptain]

Being serious for a moment here, neither A Bogaert, Understanding Asexuality, Rowman & Littlefield, 2012, or our own SwampIvy, Julie Sondra Decker, The Invisible Orientation, Carrel 2014, mention genetics or inheritance of aexuality, and these are both people of considerable renown within the field. It is more than possible that this topic has never been subjected to University level research. So we could well, all be voyaging in the dark here.

[Zash]

I think it may not be inherited, but, some families are more accepting of it than others. An ace in a family that doesn't pressure them to marry will probably be less likely to marry than one in a family that will continually apply pressure.

This may not be the only factor, but, it could be contributing to it.

[Larkaloke]

I wouldn't be at all surprised, at least, not going by my personal experience. My brother is certainly asexual as well, one of my parents is almost certainly somewhere on the spectrum and the other could be (certainly going by the "number of relationships had since separating" metric, which in both of my parents' cases, is zero).

Could partially explain why I have such a small extended family with typically long generations, potentially. The only people I can think of in my family who I would definitively rule out from being somewhere on the asexual spectrum would be my uncle and one grandfather. Of the ones I know about anything about, of course -- I know a lot less about my family tree on both sides than I would like (something I've often wanted to remedy, but have not been sure of how to approach).

The above also makes sense to me. I know that my parents would support and accept my brother and I no matter what, and they never have tried to pressure us about relationships in any way. Neither have my grandparents, for that matter; to my knowledge, they've never even asked (certainly, they have not asked me), despite me now being in my mid-20s and my brother being in his early 20s.

[NotApplicable785]

I have been wondering the same thing! I have an aunt on my mother's side who never married (who I absolutely love and who I think is very like myself), and an uncle on my father's side who never married either. I don't think they even dated. Both were from largish families (5 and 6 children respectively). I am the youngest of 4 and sometimes I wonder if my brother is asexual as well... though recently he started an online dating profile.

[Autumn Season]

Not sure about my family... They lived in a state where marrying and having children was a must. My sister looks aro/ace though. Also, my father's mentality wasn't exactly normal. My guess here is that our ancestors can influence our sexuality in more ways than with their own sexuality. Other mental issues might apply. I think my mum is demi, not sure though. (None of my family members would ever admit not being "normal".)

I heard something about uncommon sexualities (homo/ pan/ bi/ poly/ a) on a youtube channel: That something in the uterus of our grandmother can influence our parent's body in a way that they will have a child with an uncommon sexuality. I don't quite remember because it was so confusing.

Also, I'm remembering a book I read (The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins) which metioned animals who didn't have children of their own. The author talked about how it was seemingly a weird situation: After all the animals should (want to) have children so they could spread their genes. He then said that the animals' siblings had the same genes (same amount of identical genes actually) that their possible children could have. So when the elder siblings helped their parents to a) nourish their siblings b) have more children, they were very successfully helping their genes to spread. Also, this way it was easier for everyone to survive.

This again reminds me of wolves who have less puppies when there is not enough food.

What I'm saying here is that not only inheritance can influence our sexuality, but also a situation (no food). I might be wrong, of course. After all maybe a situation makes an existing sexuality more fluid in a new direction and inheritence might form a new sexuality in a child. But I think this thought is worth considering.

(OK, this might be slightly off-topic, but it concerns inheritance, so I will write this down. There is a study which says that parents who had to suffer from hunger for a prolonged period of time, had an increased chance of having an obese child. A possible explanation: Assuming that the child would be born during the same harsh times that their parents lived in, meaning when there is a starvation going on, they were more likely to survive if their bodies could store fat very well.)

[The 50-Year-Old Virgin]

@Remmirath: Interesting that you mention the long generations, because in the direct male line where I have noticed this pattern, we have VERY long generations. My 5th-great grandfather, the immigrant ancestor, was born in 1690. I was born in 1965, which means the average age at childbirth in my direct male line was 40. My great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, and his grandfather voted for George Washington.

Of course, many of my ancestors were far from the first born -- my father was his father's 6th child (born when my grandfather was 55), and two of our ancestors were the 9th child. But it's interesting to think that children born late in the father's life might be part of the pattern.