Asexuality: prevalence and associated factors in a national probability sample

Journal of Sex Research, August, 2004 by Anthony F. Bogaert

Another possible factor related to asexuality is religiosity. Most religions have strong proscriptions against liberal sexual practices, and some (e.g., Buddhism, Roman Catholicism) see complete abstinence as a virtue. Some very religious individuals may have internalized these values to such a degree that they may not admit to arousal, or at least not label it as sexual attraction. In addition, some religious people may be less likely to have developed a strong attraction to others because they are less likely to have gone through relevant "conditioning" experiences (e.g., less early masturbation). On the other hand, religiosity may not play a causal role in the development of asexuality but it may still relate to asexuality, because asexual people may find acceptance in certain religious communities that value restricted sexuality or they may find religious regulations against sexual behavior easier to uphold than sexual people. There is some evidence that religious people relative to nonreligious people do have lower rates of some sexual activities such as masturbation or multiple partners (Lanmann, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994), but I do not know of any evidence that asexuality is higher among religious individuals.

Other factors that may be relevant are education and general economic circumstances, such as socioeconomic status (SES) or social class, if normal sexual development partly occurs within a context of a typical physical and social environment (e.g., exposure to and familiarity with peers; see Bem, 1996; Storms, 1981), then education and general economic circumstances may be relevant predictors of asexuality. Thus, low education (and low SES) may be a proxy for unusual social and physical circumstances during childhood and adolescence (e.g., fewer resources; increased stressors; fewer peer interactions), which may have altered typical sexual development. On the other hand, low education and SES and the unusual social circumstances they may underlie may not be causally related to asexuality, but may still be relevant predictors of asexuality because the putative health problems of asexual people may lead to low educational opportunities and economic hardship.

A final factor related to asexuality may be gender. It is clear that men and women differ with regard to sexuality, with men relative to women reporting higher rates of certain sexual activities (e.g., more masturbation, sexual thoughts or fantasies, and casual sex; e.g., Oliver & Hyde, 1993). These differences are argued to be a reflection of gender roles (Oliver & Hyde, 1993), strength or flexibility of sex drive (Baumeister, 2000), or evolutionarily based reproductive strategies (e.g., Buss & Schmitt, 1993). If gender differences in sexuality--in particular masturbation and fantasy--are relevant to the development of sexual orientation (e.g., Storms, 1981), then one might speculate that women will be more likely than men to be asexual because they are, on average, less likely to have had conditioning experiences relevant to sexual orientation development. Moreover, research shows that women are less likely than men to label genital responses, even when measured by psychophysical devices, as sexual arousal (e.g., Heiman, 1977; Laan, Everaerd, van Bellen, & Hanewald, 1994). As a consequence, women relative to men may be less likely to label males or females as salient sexual objects and hence more likely to report themselves as having no attraction for men or women because they do not perceive sexual arousal as consistently as men do, even under conditions when genital responses are occurring. On the other hand, men are more likely than women to have an increased prevalence of atypical sexual attraction, such as same-sex attraction and paraphilias (e.g., Freund, 1994; Laumann et al., 1994); thus, it may be the case that asexuality is another atypical sexual proclivity for which men show higher rates than do women.