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bigthink.com — Is asexuality psychological or biological?


Homer

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  • The term "asexuality" refers to someone who does not feel sexual attraction to others and/or has a lack of interest in sex. According to a UK survey on sexuality, 1% of the population identifies as asexual, although some researchers suspect it's even more.
  • While research on asexuality is limited right now, there has recently been a surge of interest in asexuality with Brock University Professor Anthony Bogaert and Stanford scholar Karli Cerankowski making strides in research on this topic.

Feb 7, 2020 — https://bigthink.com/sex-relationships/what-is-asexuality?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2

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This RGPD setup screen was terrible. They are sharing data with several hundred partners 🤑

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everywhere and nowhere
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Karl-Maria Kertbeny, a Hungarian journalist, was the first known person to use the terms "heterosexual" and "homosexual" to describe sexual experiences. During this time, he also used the word "monosexual" to describe people who don't engage in sexual activity with other people, only themselves, through masturbation.

It's interesting. However, I prefer the word "monosexual" in the meaning "heterosexual or homosexual", as it's typically used nowadays. It's sometimes very convenient as a counterpart to "bisexual".

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During his analysis, he found that 1% of the people in the study agreed with the statement "I have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all."

Now I know better where does this statistic come from. And it seems even more likely to me that this percentage is understated. A lot of people just don't get What The Hell Is Sexual Attraction ("and how are they supposed to know whether they experience it?"). A lot of people mistake different things, such as esthetic, sensual or romantic attraction, for sexual attraction. Some people consider themselves to experience some kind of sexual attraction and still explicitly don't want to have sex (which, in my opinion, makes them "at least effectively asexual"). While I'm not extraordinarily enthusiastic abour the Asexuality Identification Scale (I think it's just too obvious, and psychometric tests and experiments are most successful if the subject isn't sure what exactly is being tested), I consider it much better that only a question about sexual attraction. When the scale was being tested on a group of self-declared asexuals and a more random control group, over 4% of people in the latter scored above the cutoff point for asexuality.

Generally, I consider asking a person to check whether they agree or disagree with statements like "I would be perfectly happy if I was to never have sex ('again' if applicable)" much better in determining asexuality that the nebulous "sexual attraction".

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I think this is a good article, but I'm not a fan of the headline. "Is asexuality psychological or biological" is pathologising, and unnecessary. The author really only addresses this question briefly halfway through the article. I hate that this is what draws people in to click through. The headline becomes the frame for a pathological approach to what is an otherwise informative piece on asexuality. 

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