Asexuality in the United States

 

After an extended search, I was finally able to find prevalence data on asexuality in the United States.  

An asexual is someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction. 

Last month, I discussed asexuality in my article on Sexual and Romantic Orientations.

A team of researchers conducted a survey of 1,987 adults in the United States, ages 18-70, in February and March 2020.

The researchers published the preliminary results of their study in PLOS One, a research journal.

 

The long and wordy title of their study is “Age, sex, and other demographic trends in sexual behavior in the United States: Initial findings of the sexual behaviors, internet use, and psychological adjustment survey.”

Researchers asked respondents about their sexual orientation, and provided them with several options to choose from, including asexual.

The results of the sexual orientation question appear below.

 

100% Heterosexual                          82.4%

Mostly Heterosexual                         6.9%

Bisexual                                            6.0%

Mostly Homosexual                          1.2%

100% Homosexual                            3.0%

Asexual                                             0.35%

Questioning                                       0.15%

 

 

I created a pie chart to better illustrate this data. The asexual and questioning slices are so small they can't be visually seen on the chart.

 

I find the 100% qualifiers before some of the options to be a bit intense for a survey question, but it shows how committed you must be to your gendered sexual preference to identify with it 100%. 

If I was answering this question on a survey, I would choose "mostly heterosexual." 

I'm nonbinary, but for the purposes of this question, I would default to my birth gender. I can be attracted to both men and women, but I am more attracted to women than I am to men. 

I discussed my sexual orientation at length in a previous article. 

I wouldn't call myself "mostly heterosexual" in person or online, but I believe that would be the most accurate option of the choices listed here, for the purposes of this survey.

A total of seven respondents, or 0.35%, identified their sexual orientation as asexual.

  

The overall results of the sexual orientation question are similar to the results of Gallup's survey of LGBT identities in the US, but the academic study has higher prevalence rates for bisexuality and homosexuality.

Homosexuality is a term that refers to gay men and lesbians.

The slightly different results could be due to the 7% who chose not to answer Gallup’s LGBT question, and because the academic researchers excluded adults over 70 in their sample. 

 

 

I find it unlikely adults over 70 would identify as asexual. 

If you assume no adults over 70 would identify as asexual, if surveyed, you can use the data from this study, and US Census Data, to generate an asexuality prevalence rate across all US adults. 

Using Census Data, I was able to calculate 0.31% of US adults identify as asexual. 

Many prevalence rates for LGBT identities are calculated across all US adults, and having a similar asexuality rate to compare them to will be useful.

 

 

So we now have our prevalence rate for asexuality in the United States, 0.31%.

It appears few US adults identify as asexual.

The number of asexuals is small even compared to other sexual orientation minorities. 

 

 

That being said, once we complete our tour of LGBT survey data in the United States, we’ll revisit this statistic to see how common asexuality is compared to the other LGBT identities.