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CosineTheCat

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CosineTheCat
What Percentage Of The Population Is Asexual?

july 25th, 2015

Asexuality is defined as the lack of sexual attraction to anyone, or a low or non-existant interest in engaging in sexual activity. It is often considered a lack of sexual orientation, or sometimes an orientation on its own, like hetero, homo, and bisexuality. But how many people in the world are actually asexual?

Asexuality expert Anthony F. Bogaert conducted research in 2004 that found that as many as 1% of the world may be asexual.

Despite the LGBT community slowly finding more and more acceptance all over the world, Bogaert thinks we have a long way to go before society can embrace asexuality as an actual sexual orientation. Even with asexuality being portrayed in popular television characters like Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes, it is still not commonly accepted or understood.

Bogaert recently wrote a column for The Independent, in which he explained why accepting asexuality could be good for our sex-crazed world.

“Examining asexuality also can afford a clear view on how deeply infused sex is in our society—from the pervasiveness of sex in the media to our enduring interest in gossip on the sex lives of others. We also may begin to see more clearly the strange and often mad complexity of sex, with its jealousies, obsessions, and distortions of reality.

Sex is unquestionably part of the great story of human life – our means of reproduction and a deep source of passion and pleasure for many – but it is also a strange and mad world at times, and one that is better understood if we take a glimpse or two from the outside.”

The independent article Bogaert wrote

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andreas1033

I wonder when you hear 1%, is that number correct, or just a number put out there.

Also i wonder what percentage of each gender is really asexual? I would think like you know there is a stigma about males defining themselves in that way.

I am glad its got into the media though, as i am sure there has always been a percentage of people not interested in sex. But seeing if it is like 1%, that shows you how important sex is to the vast majority of people. ie to connect with others.

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Don't remember the exct details, but I think it was a survey on a university, where 1% stated they aren't interested in men or women. Something like that, or I'm completely wrong :P

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I actually am in the process of taking a large internet survey and so far...

from a total of 1070 participants,

(the results were rounded to the nearest whole number, which is why the percentages might not add up to 100 exactly)

  • 27% asexual
  • 13% demisexual
  • 5% graysexual
  • 10% bisexual
  • 20% heterosexual
  • 5% homosexual
  • 17% pansexual
  • 4% questioning
  • 2% other

I think it's very interesting to see those results. I've been gradually compiling over data for over a year and posting the survey link on all sorts of websites to try to get a varied amount :)

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Ricecream-man

Interesting. Kumo, would you be willing to send me your survey questions and the websites you put them up on?

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I actually am in the process of taking a large internet survey and so far...

from a total of 1070 participants,

(the results were rounded to the nearest whole number, which is why the percentages might not add up to 100 exactly)

  • 27% asexual
  • 13% demisexual
  • 5% graysexual
  • 10% bisexual
  • 20% heterosexual
  • 5% homosexual
  • 17% pansexual
  • 4% questioning
  • 2% other

I think it's very interesting to see those results. I've been gradually compiling over data for over a year and posting the survey link on all sorts of websites to try to get a varied amount :)

27% Asexual

20% Heterosexual

Yeah, not trusting this. Otherwise, the world would be a very different place.

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NothingMuchToDo

Oh I think I took that survey. Yeah, as reptilian says, it can't be an accurate representation or the world would be very different. I think it may well be people saying "oh I'm on a break I'm totally asexual now" I've heard the term used incorrectly far more than I've heard it used correctly. If it's not just that though, then I wonder why so many asexual people took the survey. I'd also be interested to know where you've been promoting the survey, but I wonder if it's not got something to do with the fact that we're forced to learn about our sexuality pretty much exclusively online so a lot of us end up taking these sort of surveys and quizzes fairly frequently. I know I do. I think the number's very likely more than one percent though - wasn't there some thing recently that suggested 2.8%? Or did I make that up?

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I've been posting the link on a large variety of sites and platforms to try to get a varied amount of types of responses. The point is, the 1% is definitely false and as more people become educated about human sexuality every day, we'll learn more and more. Yes, it's not 100% accuracy for a reflection of the world's populations, but I'm happy that there's an internet survey at least trying to gauge.

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Ricecream-man

Well if it's the one you have linked in your signature, the fact that you're putting it on a site for asexuals in and of itself immensely skews the data. That's why I'm curious where else you're posting it.

That's not even including the bias involved with those who falsely believe they're asexual because they just had a bad break up or the sexual "asexuals"

It may be more than 1% but I doubt it's even remotely close to 27.

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CosineTheCat

There is a quote somewhere out there that says that asexuality is around 1-5 % of the population.

And if you look at the world scale of things even only 1% of the population makes 70,000,000 Asexuals in the world.

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There is a quote somewhere out there that says that asexuality is around 1-5 % of the population.

And if you look at the world scale of things even only 1% of the population makes 70,000,000 Asexuals in the world.

A percentage gap would be helpful because there lies the problem of what defines asexuality. If you define asexuality as one way, it may lead to 1%, and if you define asexuality another way, it may lead to 5%. Is A(n)egosexual is a form of asexuality? For some, it is, and for other it isn't.

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