Understanding Asexuality

Well, maybe these colleagues are right. Why does sex matter so much? It is true that the vast majority of our lives, even during periods when our lives are extremely sexualized, is not spent engaging in sex. For example, in any given day, much more time is spent eating, watching TV, grooming, or sleeping than having sex. Indeed, sex does not even rate as an identifiable category when activities of the day are tallied (Longley, n.d.). Note that I am assuming a straightforward interpretation of these activities and not one more favorable to a turf-defending sexologist, who might argue that such tallies often do not take into account “hidden” time devoted to sex, such as viewing sexualized content on TV or other media, or “inner-life” activities such as sexual fantasizing. But no, let’s not quibble. It is true that sexual activities do not take much of the day at all, even if we include “hidden” sex time. So, what is all the fuss about?

In the 1970s, psychologists became more academically interested in human sexuality. This occurred for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that the sexual world opened up personally and scientifically in the wake of the 1960s sexual revolution. At that time, two publications by two social psychologists, Zick Rubin and Donn Byrne, put forward some convincing arguments that all the fuss about sex was in fact worth it, scientifically speaking (Rubin, 1973; Byrne, 1977). They catalogued a number of reasons for the importance of studying (and teaching about) sexuality. Here are some of their choice examples,[2] along with a few of my own.

Sex is intrinsically interesting to most people, even to those who are not in the reproductive prime of their lives. That my middle-aged colleagues often still turn to the subject of sex after a few beers is evidence that they are still interested in sex, even if their daily lives may contain little behavior that is actually sexual. The prevalence of sexual allusions, if not outright sexual content, in the media also attests to the fact that sex is capable of arousing curiosity in, along with titillating, the young and old alike. In 2010, the most “Googled” person was not the president of the United States or the pope, but Lady Gaga, the pop music star with a hyper-sexed persona.

The level of scientific curiosity about sex is also high, despite some of my colleagues’ views. There is a 553-page book (at least in the first edition) called The Female Orgasm (Fisher, 1973), and not even a small pamphlet on the female sneeze. Yet both an orgasm and a sneeze entail similar physiological processes: a buildup of muscular tension released in contorting spasm(s). There must be more intrinsic interest in the former than the latter, even among us (usually) disinterested scientists, to explain the disparity in research. Finally, my courses do not suffer from a paucity of student interest—a fact that even my most skeptical colleagues cannot ignore; indeed, sex courses are often the most popular offerings on college campuses.

In short, sex is very interesting to most of us, so why not study and learn about a subject that piques human curiosity? I think this “high level of interest/curiosity” argument is a convincing one, assuming that all else is equal in terms of sex’s scientific importance and health implications relative to other domains of life. But some of you are surely thinking, Aye, there’s the rub, because all else is not equal. Sex may pique our curiosity, but it is not on par with other domains of life in its scientific importance or its health implications!

I beg to differ. In terms of scientific importance, sex is on par with, or even trumps, some of the biggest scientific puzzles. Not only do we not fully understand why sex exists (i.e., why some species, for example, reproduce using male and female forms; see chapter 3), but sex is often the clue to unravelling the mystery of a species as a whole, or at least it is never ignored when biologists (e.g., zoologists) study a species as a whole. The same can be said for the study of humans. To understand our sexuality is to understand ourselves. There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says, “To understand the head, one must begin by studying the tail.” (Using an animal metaphor to make its point, this proverb is, of course, meant to reveal the secret to understanding human beings.) Sigmund Freud, the famous psychoanalyst, and evolutionary psychologists (strange bedfellows, indeed!) have thought similarly, suggesting that sex is the major scientific puzzle of human nature, and that to understand sex is to understand human beings. So, the hows and whys of the way we think, feel, and behave are determined, arguably, by our sexuality.