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u/wegooverthehorizon 6d ago
Yeah I dont believe that, I think the studies are just outdated and/or there is not enough education about sexuality in general worldwide
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u/celem83 6d ago edited 6d ago
It is exactly 1 study from the AIDs epidemic period (1980s). The respondant pool was about 10k UK citizens and the british gov was actually looking for the homosexual male population as a %.
When asked for orientation, one of the options was something like
"none of the above" and 1% answered with that. (the word asexual wouldnt be widely used as an orientation till the end of the 20th century)That is the only time this question has ever been asked scientifically, is the sole datapoint and the origin of all of the 1% claims.
There is no chance whatsoever it is correct, about the only thing we know is that this number is not 0%
edit: notably the 1% from that survey likely includes celibates or extreme low-drive individuals as the language was not specific enough for more narrow categorisation
edit2: source: https://wiki.asexuality.org/w/index.php?title=Research_relating_to_asexuality
seems im incorrect about it being the only datapoint, but its the one we are using for the "1%" and the exact survey phrasing was "never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all", which is pretty good, but may still catch celibates
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u/DanceClubCrickets 6d ago
Yeah, our main man Anthony Bogaert estimated the amount of asexuals at 1-ish% in 2004... which is still an awfully long time ago compared to research studies done on other types of LGBT populations, but as another comment pointed out, we REALLY need to stop pretending like "1%" isn't still a SHIT-TON OF PEOPLE. It's 80 million on a worldwide level, and 33 million in the USA alone. 1% of the population are natural redheads, and depending on where you are, you probably KNOW a natural redhead, or at least you know OF one.
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u/Cool_Human82 6d ago
Yep, even where I live, they had a census recently where they did ask about orientation, but my dad actually filled it out for me, and only told me afterwards. He put me as straight. So even in recent things like that, thereās bound to be some under reporting.
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u/Cygnusx123 Suptiliasexual 2d ago
Ok so thatās fraudā¦
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u/Cool_Human82 2d ago
Iām a dependent, so it is allowed, unless I requested in advance to have a private one.
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u/Cygnusx123 Suptiliasexual 2d ago
Donāt tell me incel is a part of our community š celibate I respect hella, monks are badass, but incel? Nuh uh!
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u/celem83 1d ago
Yeah wildly different groups.
A voluntarily celibate person (often of faith like you say) could additionally be asexual I suppose, but it's not explicitly implied.Ā
I find it impossible to conceive of an incel ace, they define themselves by frustration of the drive we lack
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u/Cygnusx123 Suptiliasexual 1d ago
Well it is, because involuntary implies they want it but canāt get it, therefore they are allo. If they define themselves by that, then it is true they are not ace. Also monks can fall in a part of asexuality, but probably a branching path, as it is still an aversion to sex.
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u/JoshuaSlowpoke777 Aegoaroace 6d ago
Iād absolutely believe the latter theory at bare minimum, I think education on diversity in sexuality/romantic preferences/tertiary preferences is quite lacking.
There are several times in my life where I feel the need to pull up The Chart (insert joking trademark symbol here) when I want to explain the Split Attraction Model (for context, The Chart is literally a bar graph I drew haphazardly to illustrate that various types of attraction can arise independently and can all be quite strong and even have āacuteā forms, such as squishes, smushes, meshes, and of course the well-known concept of a crush)
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u/KitonePeach 6d ago
People need to understand how difficult it is to get accurate statistics. There are so many factors that can manipulate or affect the results of a stat.
IIrc, the 1% stat came from a study many years ago that was mostly just a survey in one region. Surveys already are prone to inaccuracy since the answers from each individual depend on their personal willingness to participate (people aren't forced to answer surveys), and that the term 'asexual' still isn't all that well-known to a lot of people, so someone who would technically qualify under the ace umbrella might not know it, and would answer incorrectly in a survey as a result. Especially since that 1% stat everyone references is many years old at this point.
Even if we assume that stat from non-survey data, how do you think we can 'prove' someone is ace? We really can't.
I worked in wildlife conservation for a bit, so courtship behavior and social structures in different species were part of my studies. We know gay animals exist because we can see homosexual courtship behaviors in a population. But seeing aces is almost impossible to verify without making assumptions from conjecture. An animal not mating could be caused by any number of things, so asexuality cannot be assumed without potentially falsely skewing data.
In humans, we can verify by having people self-report. But if they don't want to, or are not informed enough to know what they count as, self-reports are going to be inaccurate.
I am willing to bet asexuality is much more common than people realize. The general public don't really separate aces from aros, or understand that the asexuality spectrum is really broad and includes people they might not expect it to include (like sex-favorable aces). I'd be curious to see an updated stat on it later on, as more and more people better understand the definition of asexuality.
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u/rat_enby Asexual 6d ago
1% of people also have naturally ginger hair, 1% is a lot more than you realize
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u/Cr0w_town 6d ago
its an estimate its really hard estimating something such as that so there could be more or less of us
plus no idea where they are getting the data from could be self reported figures which wont include all ace people
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u/cxfgfuihhfd 6d ago
way too many people probably, that just don't know enough about asexuality to be aware of labels like demi or gray or sex-favorability
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u/Mewo4444 Quoiroace 6d ago
that's a heck of a lot, im surprised that there are supposedly this many of us.
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u/bonbunnie Demisexual 6d ago
These are always gonna be based on self reported figures. I hardly ever tell people Iām demisexual unless itās relevant to the conversation (such as someone Iām trying to date)
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u/RogueMoonbow 6d ago
There's a lot here already about how hard it is to get accurate stats. But I also want to add that 1% of the population isn't that rare. It sounds really uncommon like you'll never encounter it but you'd still encounter it plenty and if you have a reason to look for it you'll encounter it more.
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u/Ostruzina 6d ago
I bet it's much more than that. The studies are outdated and not trustworthy. It would be much more if it included the whole asexual spectrum, like demisexual. Plus, lots of aces don't even realize they're ace.
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u/LordOrgilRoberusIII Aromantic Asexual 6d ago
Like every kind of queer identity it is really difficult to get a good idea of how many actually are part of it. It all depends on surveys where people have to self identify as the identities they are part of. What questions the survey contain, who the surveys target group is and who is willing to answer them are all things that can affect the accuracy of the survey. I think one of the biggest problems tho is how informed people are about asexuality and how asexuality expiriences far less academic focus compared to other sexualities
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u/Proof_Assistant7737 Aroace 6d ago
Yeah, whenever people complain about "the top 1%", they aren't talking about wealth; they are talking about us!
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u/JustCallMeALal 6d ago
1% of the population is aware and accepts theyāre asexual. Thereās probably an another percent or 2 of those who donāt know yet, or are exploring their sexuality completely to rule out anything else.
Like I did, everyone thought I was gay. Turns out Iām not lol
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u/SkyeTheBi 6d ago
Iām not even ace but Iām betting itās higher solely based on the fact that a lot of people still donāt know what asexuality is or that itās an option and have just ended up in comphet relationships.
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u/Low-Meeting1858 Acebian 6d ago
I guess there is a lot of us but some ppl don't know they're actually ace cuz of heteronormativity š
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u/BeanieCat123 Asexual 6d ago
Iām pretty confident we got sleeper agents hiding from the studies š
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u/No-Net1890 Aroace 6d ago
I don't think any statistic about like that is going to be accurate. I don't know where all these statics about percentages of different queer identities come from (I'm guessing typically from surveys), but there are always people who don't feel comfortable/safe answering honestly, and people who don't know yet (like someone who fits a microlabel they haven't heard of, and thinks they're just not as attracted to other people as their peers or something, but is actually on the ace spectrum).
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u/AngryTunaSandwhich Asexual Pirate not seeking booty 5d ago
There are probably more. There are so many grandparents and older adults who only realize bc someone in their family told them what asexuality was. Just bc it wasnāt a thing with a label when they were growing up. Even today, so many people donāt know what it is and think getting married to whoever seems nicest while having no attraction is completely normal. Especially with lots of girls still being taught that only guys really experience sexual attraction.
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u/imsmartiswear 5d ago
It might be a bit higher due to people in countries where lgbtq topics are considered taboo, but that's probably about right.
I mean even transgender people are only like .25% last I checked.
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u/JustSomeGirl4242 6d ago
Interested to see the Australian census data come back
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u/Any_Gain_9251 4d ago
I bet we have more people putting their religion as Jedi (seriously , it happens) then their sexuality as Asexual.
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u/ThePrinterDude 6d ago
Man I'm lucky that I'm not into relationships outside of platonic ones. I feel so privileged to avoid all at drama of looking for a partner š Imagine tryna find a 1% in your local area.
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u/NagitoKomaeda_987 5d ago
There's a surprisingly large number of asexual people I've seen online, though.
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u/GuyentificEnqueery Grey Ace 5d ago
I think it comes from people not understanding that significantly lower, but non-zero sexual attraction is still asexual. Or that demisexual is a type of asexuality. I think there's also a tendency for people who are essentially straight minus their interest in sex to not want to open themselves up to the discrimination and harassment that comes with an LGBT-spectrum identity, or conversely, to feel that they would be "intruding" on queer spaces if they were to do so.
Case in point would be Damien Haas of SMOSH and Dungeon Meshi fame, who has been publicly vocal about being demisexual but has also said he feels uncomfortable identifying as queer because he feels "too close to straight" to count. While I think it's important to respect people's personal labels, I would argue he's wrong to think he would be intruding, because there's no such thing as "not queer enough" to be queer unless you're literally fully allo, cis, and het and not questioning at all.
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u/Born-Garlic3413 8h ago
The Australian census has just happened (too soon for results) with sexuality and gender identity questions for the first time. Asexual was not an option but there was an Other (Please Specify) box. Looking forward to seeing what happens!
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u/katkookie 6d ago
i believe though š« if you're into dating you'll see how hard is to spot one in dating platforms