Krista Rhoades  |  Contributing Writer

On Oct. 6, some LGBTQ+ students and alumni came out, either publicly or anonymously, on APU’s “Door of Discussion,” the panels of wood next to the post office on the side of the wall surrounding the Seven Palms lawn.

One student who posted on this door came out as asexual, a much less-known sexual orientation. Some students may remember hearing the word in a high school biology class, but it means something much different in this context.

This term in relation to human sexuality may seem taboo to some. In 2010, a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas realized this and founded Asexuality Awareness Week. This year, AAW took place Oct. 26-Nov. 1. Many who identify as asexual use the term “ace” and for that reason use the ace of spades as their symbol. The asexual flag consists of black, gray, white and purple. Black represents asexuality, gray represents the “gray area” between sexual and asexual feelings, white represents sexuality and purple represents community.

What is Asexuality?

The standard definition of asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to anyone.  This does not, however, negate the ability to feel romantic or aesthetic attraction. There are also aromantics, who do not feel romantic attraction. Some asexuals are also aromantic, while some are not. Some aromantics are also asexual, but again, some are not. Many non-aromantic asexuals still desire to be in relationships and identify with a romantic orientation, such as: homoromantic, biromantic and hetromantic, and so forth.

For this reason, many asexuals use two identifiers which are completely separate from each other: sexual and romantic. There are also those who identify as gray-asexual and demisexual. “Gray-aces” do not, for the most part, feel sexual attraction. Demisexuals do not feel sexual attraction toward most people, but may after forming a very close bond with someone, usually during a romantic relationship.

History and Science

In 1948 and 1953, Dr. Alfred Kinsey, a psychologist, conducted surveys in an attempt to chart a person’s sexuality. People were rated on a 0-6 scale, 0 representing exclusive heterosexuality and 6 representing exclusive homosexuality with the rest of the results ranging in the bisexuality realm. Some people, however, did not fall on this scale and were rated as an X, which scientists now know to mean asexuality. In the 1948 survey which entirely consisted of adult males, 1.5 percent were reported in the X category. In his follow-up survey of both adult males and females in 1953, 19 percent of females and 1-4 percent of men were reported in the X category.

According to many current research studies, people will first experience sexual attraction by the age of 10, with a standard deviation of three years. While these studies estimate that around 1 percent of the population is asexual, many researchers believe the number is actually higher and that with more awareness and acceptance will come more accurate statistics.

Since this is still a new topic to many people, there is not an abundance of studies and information. However, this is changing with more awareness, and is gaining the attention of more researchers.