Asexuality: prevalence and associated factors in a national probability sample

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

The results regarding the demographic variables suggest that one pathway to asexuality may relate to an environment different from a traditional middle-class or upper-middle-class White home (e.g., one with fewer resources). I found large differences between asexual and sexual people in education and social class, with asexual people tending to score lower on these demographic variables. This suggests that the educational system and the home environment play fundamental roles in typical sexual development, and that alterations of these circumstances can have a profound effect on basic sexual attraction processes. Moreover, the fact that the social class-asexuality and education-asexuality relationships remained significant when I controlled for general physical health suggests that these relationships do not occur merely because people with serious health problems, which may contribute to asexuality, are less likely to be able to attain a higher education or improve their life circumstances. Rather, these results suggest that the health problems of some asexual people may be the result of disadvantaged economic and social conditions. It is difficult to know what aspects of the educational and home environments may contribute to asexuality. As mentioned earlier, perhaps processes related to exposure to and familiarity with peers (see Bem, 1996; Storms, 1981) are altered when the home and educational environment are atypical. It is also important to point out that an atypical home environment for asexual people may have occurred prior to childhood during gestation, as might be expected if an altered prenatal milieu (e.g., altered prenatal hormones) partly underlies asexuality and other atypical sexual inclinations (e.g., Bogaert, 2001; Ellis & Ames, 1987; Lalumiere et al., 2000; Williams et al., 2000).

Gender was also an important predictor of asexuality. More women than men reported being asexual. This difference may be a reflection of gender roles and/or sexual strategies in which men are or at least are expected to be more sexual than women. If so, perhaps some women have internalized to an extreme degree, and hence "overadapted" to, these feminine roles or strategies (e.g., Mazur, 1986). Some research has also suggested that women's sexuality (or at least their sex drive) is more "plastic" than men's sexuality (e.g., Baumeister, 2000). Thus, cultural influences may have a more profound effect on women's sexuality than on men's; as a result, more women than men may become asexual if life circumstances are atypical. A related explanation is that women relative to men may be less likely to label males or females as salient sexual objects and hence may report themselves as having no attraction to either sex because they may not be as aware of their own sexual arousal as men are, even under conditions when genital responses are occurring (e.g., Heimen, 1977; Laan et al., 1994). A third possibility is that women may have fewer conditioning experiences (e.g., masturbation) relevant to sexual orientation development and this may lead to an increased likelihood of asexuality, along with other conditions.