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First published online August 15, 2011
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There’s more to life than sex? Difference and commonality within the asexual community

Mark CarriganView all authors and affiliations
Volume 14, Issue 4
https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460711406462

Abstract

Asexuality is becoming ever more widely known and yet it has received relatively little attention from within sociology. Research in the area poses particular challenges because of the relatively recent emergence of the asexual community, as well as the expanding array of terms and concepts through which asexuals articulate their differences and affirm their commonalities. This article presents the initial findings of a mixed-methods research project, which involved semi-structured interviews, online questionnaires and a thematic analysis of online materials produced by members of the asexual community. The aim was to understand self-identified asexuals in their own terms so as to gain understanding of the lived experience of asexuals, as well as offering a subjectively adequate grounding for future research in the area.

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1.
1. These were primarily the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), apositive.org (APositive), asexuality.livejournal.com (Asexuality LiveJournal) and asexualexplorations.net (Asexual Explorations). I also looked at a wide variety of asexual blogs and forum postings found via links on the above sites and search engines.
2.
2. Although this could be construed as similar to biromanticism, in actuality it rests on a crucial distinction: the object of one’s romantic attraction may happen to be of either sex or gender but this is incidental to the attraction. Sex or gender are not experienced as being relevant to romantic attraction.
3.
3. It should be noted that although this is a term used online, only one survey respondent (describing herself as ‘very sex-positive’) and no interviewees explicitly used it to describe themselves. As a term it also has political connotations, pertaining to the ‘sexpositive movement’, which many asexuals who are positive about sex would distance themselves from.
4.
4. In the sense that the satisfaction derived from is extrinsic to the act rather than intrinsic to it.
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5. Interestingly a number of respondents recounted the discovery that, unbeknownst to themselves, they already had friends who identified as asexual. This might suggest that some individuals achieve self-clarification and then see little reason to talk about their asexuality.

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