Have you ever had a traumatic experience or strong influence that may have affected your desire for sex

[In_Omnia_Paratus]

this is the last. and probably the most important question I need to ask. I'm sure that pretty much every therapist in the world thinks we're all irrevocably traumatized or something.

so choose an option. thank you everyone for all of your support. and for continually taking part in my absurd polls :D

I will bother you no longer :D

(also this isn't to say, there aren't some asexuals that are traumatized... it's just to show it's not the ONLY reason. :D)

[happylife]

according to an AVEN poll, approximately 27% of the respondents say they were abused/molested as a child. yes, this is huge. however, it would not be very surprising to see the numbers considering that Wikipedia says "Approximately 20% to 25% of women and 5% to 15% of men were sexually abused when they were children."(click here to see the page) though i hesitate to give full credit to the Wikipedia data at times, i thought it would be interesting to think about this. a traumatic incident can occur anywhere anytime so both sexuals and asexuals can become victims. and.. "a traumatic experience" seems too broad in some sense. experiencing(surviving) earthquakes or massacre can be pretty traumatic. i picked yes as my childhood was never boring because of some very interesting things. :)

[avril]

nope.

really nothing like that has happened..

I used to think there has to be something but now I know I'm normal the way I am:)

[EGAD!]

according to an AVEN poll, approximately 27% of the respondents said yes they were abused/molested as a child. yes, this is huge. however, it would not be very surprising to see the numbers considering that Wikipedia says "Approximately 20% to 25% of women and 5% to 15% of men were sexually abused when they were children."(click here to see the page) though i hesitate to give full credit to the Wikipedia data at times, i thought it would be interesting to think about this. a traumatic incident can occur anywhere anytime so sexuals or asexuals can become victims. and.. "a traumatic experience" seems too broad in some sense. experiencing(surviving) earthquakes or massacre can be pretty traumatic. i picked yes as my childhood was never boring because of some very interesting things. :)

I agree.

Hypothetically.

1) Something traumatic could have happened to me and I am unwilling to admit to it. In surveys we have to assume people are telling the truth.

2) Something traumatic could have happened to me and I do not attribute this event with influencing how I am asexual.

3) Something traumatic could have happened and I could think it has a link to feeling no sexual attraction.

4) In some cases like phobias or extreme anxiety we start experiencing symptoms, characteristics of a disorder; we know our behavior is irrational, but are unable to pinpoint a cause.

As an aside given the estimated life time prevalency and 1-year prevalency of anxiety, mood disorders among many others I sincerely doubt there is a link between asexuality and psychological disorders until the evidence strongly suggests otherwise.

The problem with the research on sexual abuse or sexual abuse experienced as a child is researchers normally have their own definition of what constitutes abuse which makes it difficult to generalize the findings if everyone is using a different definition. Limiting the discussion simply to whether someone has been abused or not also obscures that there are other variables that determine how severe the consequences are down the line (who the abuser was, over what period of time the abuse took place, how often did the abuse occur, how severe was the abuse, did the victim recieve support).

And based on the studies I have seen women who have experienced sexual violence do after a period of time do start to have a greater interest in sex. The studies do not control for whether or not they experienced sexual attraction which when trying to make the findings applicable to asexuality is very important.

[Shockwave]

I don't remember experiencing anything traumatic that I think could have affected my sexuality.

[Forensic]

Most traumatic thing that happened to me as a child was bonking my head on my parent's bed because I couldn't watch the television show I wanted. Or something like that.

Well and the stairs, but that was more trauma on my brother. In retrospect, he bounced very well. :lol:

[Windmill]

Absolutely nothing.

[In_Omnia_Paratus]

thanks guys for all the help :)

you guys have a lot of good points for sure. I'm going to check out those links you posted. this will help with my project :D

[Windmill]

The thing with asexuality is a lot of people aren't afraid of sex. Its more just- the desire never came. You didn't go out of your way to be disgusted/indifferent to it. It just was never a part of your life. I think this is how most asexuals roll.

If abuse caused it, you'd think you'd still think a lot about sex because its still in you too but you are repulsed by it from negative memories.

Asexuality is very calm.

[Ack42]

Is this question assuming that the form of trauma is abuse? If so, I answered wrong. My trauma was having primary nocturnal and diurnal enuresis as a kid (e.g. childhood incontinence that happened during the daytime until tapering off around 6th grade and during the night until a year before puberty). I learned shame of genitals and anything associated with them. I also confused nocturnal emissions of puberty with a return of enuresis (those the occurrence only averaged once a year). This may explain my dislike of the sight of thought of physical contact with genitals, but I don't think it would explain my dislike of transferral of bodily fluids (not just with sex, but with french kissing).

[happylife]

thanks guys for all the help :)

you guys have a lot of good points for sure. I'm going to check out those links you posted. this will help with my project :D

it may be a tough task since not much research has been done on asexuality yet as far as i know. i believe your report will be a small but important contribution. good luck with your project! :D

[happylife]

.

[TTauri]

You didn't put in an option for those (of us) who have a feeling that something happened, but no distinct memories of it for certain.

[Kamtoad]

Nope, not at all.