Asexual

**Asexual**, often abbreviated as **ace**, is a sexual orientation for those who don't experience sexual attraction, a strong attraction to a specific individual causing one to want to have sex with said individual. Asexual is used as both a specific identity for those who don't experience any sexual attraction at all, and as an umbrella term for all identities which involve experiencing a form of sexual attraction that isn't the "standard" amount for sexual attraction (allosexual).

The societal norm for sexual attraction is that everyone experiences it regularly. Typically, desire for sex is just regarded as something that's innate to all people, which results in many asexual people being rejected and struggling with self acceptance. Additionally, asexual people face rejection from many people in the queer community who don't recognize that asexuality is queer and falsely claim that asexual people are either not real or are just "trying to be special"/"trying to invade the LGBTQ+ community".

Often, people mistake asexuality with abstinence and celibacy, but, while distinctions historically weren't made between the two until rather recently, they are not the same thing. Asexuality refers to attraction itself, not sexual activity, whereas abstinence/celibacy refers to sexual activity. Asexual people may still have sex or participate in sexual activities, and celibate people may still experience sexual attraction.

Another common misconception about asexuality is that it means that one can't enjoy/want sex, but that's not true. While it's true that many asexual people don't desire sex, some do, because sexual attraction is not the same thing as sex drive, and one can still enjoy sex while not actively having a desire for it or having sexual attraction. Some asexual people don't experience sexual attraction, desire, and don't engage in sexual things at all, while some do enjoy sexual things/seek them out, they just don't specifically experience sexual attraction.

Asexuality is not the same thing as aromanticism, and not all asexual people are aromantic.

## History

The majority of prominent asexual history is a very recent history due to the fact that for a large part of queer history, asexual people were ignored and asexuality wasn't factored into most studies on human sexual behavior. Asexual community and history really kicked off around the beginning of the 21st century, when the advent of internet led to online asexual communities and information.

### 1800s

Towards the end of the 19th century, two German sexologists/reformists described asexuality. In 1896, sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld described people without sexual desire, relating them to the concept of "anesthesia sexual", in his pamphlet called *Sappho un Sokrates*. A year later, sex reformist Emma Trosse, who herself identified as asexual, gave the first known definition of asexuality with the German word "Sinnlichkeitslosigkeit", which means "asensuality".

### 1900s

In the 20th century, recognition for asexuality, both in communities and scientific literature, increased somewhat. The Kinsey Scale, a famous model for human sexuality, was modified to include asexuality as a spectrum as well as homosexuality and heterosexuality. The Asexual Manifesto was written by Lisa Orlando, a radical feminist who spread her manifesto within feminist circles. Though radical feminism is widely regarded as harmful, this manifesto was still revolutionary for asexual definition and self-identification.

In 1977, one of the first academic articles, written by Myra Johnson, described asexuality as a complete lack of sexual desire. Other academic-circle advancements were made in the latter half of the 20th century- in 1983, Paula Nurius published the first study giving empirical data about asexuality and its relationship with mental health, and a little over a decade later, in 1994, a conclusive study done by Anthony Bogaert, showing that 1 in 100 people identify as asexual, was published in *The Journal of Sex Research.*

### 2000s

In the 21st century, asexual communities and visibility really kicked off. The first online asexual communities began, including The Haven For The Human Amoeba, and the world's foremost organization dedicated to asexual visibility, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) was founded by David Jay in 2001. More papers and studies came out about asexuality and asexual demographics, scientific journals dedicated articles to asexuality, TV shows featured episodes and interviews dedicated to asexuality, and an increasing amount of characters confirmed to be asexual.

In 2010, AVEN held a competition for designing an asexual flag, and that competition produced the current asexual flag, and in the same year, Asexual Awareness Week was officially established and launched by Sarah Beth Brooks. More visibility came to asexual communities came with features of asexual marchers in a San Francisco pride parade, an official Conference of Asexuality at the London World Pride. The first official Asexual Census was promoted by AVEN in 2014, and platforms become more available for asexual dating sites, groups for Indian asexual people, and social media influencers and podcast hosts discussing asexuality and their identity.

## Symbols and Flags

One of the most well known asexual symbols, a pure black ring, was established in 2005 by AVEN. Another common symbol of the asexual community is the spade (the symbol from card decks).

The asexual flag, designed by AVEN member Standup in 2010, consists of four horizontal stripes- black, grey, white, and purple. Black represents asexual people who are fully asexual. Grey represents ace-spec people who aren't fully asexual, like greysexual and demisexual people. The white represents allosexual people. The purple represents the asexual community as a whole.

## Resources

Asexual Manifesto by Lisa Orlando

Timeline of Asexual History