CHAPTER 4
The Prevalence of Asexuality
As if! I do not know if anyone has actually said those exact words to me. If not, they should have, because they capture the reaction I have gotten from some people when I have told them the prevalence rate of asexuality (1 percent), based on my first published study of asexuality in 2004 (Bogaert, 2004). In short, some people’s reaction has been one of disbelief (Fulbright, 2009, January 12), questioning that as many as 1 percent or more of human beings could be asexual. Frankly, I think that some people would question that anyone could be truly asexual, even if I had reported the rate at .00001 percent.
The 1 percent figure is intriguing, I must admit, perhaps if only because it is a memorably round number. Such round numbers, be they large or small, do seem to have a capacity to intrigue and stimulate debate, if not to polarize. Indeed, I think one of the reasons why I was drawn to publishing these data on asexuality was because this nice round number did, in fact, intrigue me. Hmmm, I thought. Could this figure be correct? Could it be true that such a mighty minority has been overlooked on the sexual landscape? Could it even be that 1 percent is an underestimate?
This figure is also likely one of the reasons why the media chose to publicize the asexuality story, or perhaps the reason why the story “had legs.” It is a good headline that reads, “Study: 1 in 100 adults asexual” (CNN.com, 2004, October 14).
In this chapter, I discuss the prevalence of asexuality. What exactly is the correct figure, and why does it matter? I also explore this “As if!” reaction. Specifically, why do some people have this reaction, and what does it reveal about the way we think and about our culture? In other words, what conclusions can be drawn about the human psyche and our society if some people do not believe that there could be a small group of people who are so different from them, sexually speaking?
Traditionally, prevalence research in the sexual orientation field has centered on gays and lesbians, who constitute a more visible and well-known sexual minority than asexual people. Most early estimates of same-sex sexuality were loosely based on data collected by Alfred Kinsey, the pioneer sex researcher, who, along with his colleagues, interviewed thousands of Americans from the 1930s through the 1950s (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebhard, 1953). The most widely cited estimate of same-sex sexuality that was loosely based on this work was 10 percent (Marmor, 1980; Voeller, 1990). Note that this 10 percent figure was only “loosely based” on Kinsey’s work, because it actually only referred to the percentage of men (and not women) in his original sample who had reported predominantly same-sex activity, and Kinsey himself never claimed that 10 percent of Americans were gay.
Like 1 percent, a 10 percent figure is a memorably round number that draws people in. Thus, it also has “had legs.” Over the years, gay and lesbian people have used a somewhat cheeky and/or subversive code[14] to identify themselves (e.g., “queer,” “bent,” “friends of Dorothy”), and, not surprisingly, some have chosen to rally around this 10 percent figure. For example, some gay people claim proudly to be a member of the “Ten Percent” club or society (Hecox, n.d.). There are also postmodern, consumer riffs on this figure and its meaning for gay and lesbian people, in which, for example, shopping online in gay-friendly establishments allows one to snag a 10 percent discount (10percent.com, n.d.).
Yet Kinsey’s sample, although useful even today for a number of different purposes, was never a good one to use for estimating prevalence rates of sexual behavior (or the people who engage in it). It was not representative of the United States and skewed to include a high percentage of sexual minorities, in which Kinsey had a special interest. Thus, the 10 percent figure is questionable, because it is based on an unrepresentative, although very historically significant, sample of the U.S. population.
The AIDS era (i.e., post-1985) is not a high point in the history of human sexuality, because of its effects on sexual minorities, but it did usher in the age of good sampling methods to study sexuality. These new, modern samples usually recruit people nationwide and are generally representative of the populations they survey. One form of modern survey research utilizes national probability sampling. This procedure selects people randomly from the population but also tries to ensure that different subgroups of a nation’s population (e.g., regions, ethnicities) have an equal or a “known” probability of being chosen, even if they are harder to sample for some reason (e.g., a population that is more remote, or difficult to contact by phone). For example, if Asian women comprise 5 percent of a nation’s population, then 5 percent of the sample should contain Asian women. As we will see later, these modern, nationwide probability samples are not perfect, particularly as the reality of sampling is different than the theory of sampling, but they are much better than the majority of other samples used in research. The majority of research samples are called “convenience” samples, because the participants are recruited at the researcher’s convenience (people who happen to respond to a recruitment ad in a magazine, an undergraduate class that a professor recruits for a study she is conducting, etc.). These convenience samples are certainly useful at times, but they do not represent the broader population.
Using modern, nationwide probability samples, researchers have found that the prevalence of both male and female homosexuality is lower than the 10 percent figure. The estimate based on one of the best U.S. samples, the National Health and Social Life Survey, is that gay and lesbian people make up about 2–3 percent of the population (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994). Other samples, including in other Western countries, have also suggested lower figures than 10 percent (Billy, Tanfer, Grady, & Klepinger, 1993; Sell, Wells, & Wypij, 1995; Joloza, Evans, & O’Brien, 2010). For example, using the Integrated Household Survey, researchers found that 1.5 percent of 238,206 British residents identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (Joloza et al., 2010). The author of a recent book on sexual orientation, biologist Simon LeVay, after reviewing the available data, suggests that approximately 2–5 percent of men and approximately 1–2 percent of women are predominantly or exclusively homosexual (LeVay, 2010).
Although they are the best data available, these modern prevalence figures of same-sex sexuality come with a few caveats. First, they are largely, but not exclusively, based on same-sex behavior or on having a same-sex identity. Yet how should we best define homosexuality: as same-sex behavior, as a same-sex identity, as same-sex attraction, or as perhaps all three? As discussed earlier, in chapter 2, many sex researchers, including me, place a high value on attraction over overt behavior (or even identity) in defining a traditional sexual orientation (Bailey, Dunne, & Martin, 2000; Bogaert, 2003; Money, 1988; Zucker & Bradley, 1995). I continue this emphasis on attraction in the present book on asexuality. I do so because sexual attraction is, in my opinion, the “core” psychological element of sexual orientation; it is less changeable and less subject to influence by social and political conditions than one’s behavior or how one chooses to define oneself. Based on same-sex attraction figures alone, the estimates tend to be slightly lower than, for example, those based on behavior: about 2 percent of men and 1 percent of women are predominantly or exclusively gay/lesbian (Laumann et al., 1994).
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This code is subversive at least in part because it turns the heterosexual world’s discrimination against gays and lesbians on its ear. It is empowering (for some) because it often “steals” back the negative words (e.g., queer) that others have used against gays and lesbians for many years, and thus reclaims for gays and lesbians the right to use their own language in their own way.