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Not Just About Sex: Relationship Experiences, Beliefs, and Intentions Associated with Asexuality

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Abstract

This research compares the relationship experiences, beliefs, and intentions related to love and romantic relationships of 75 individuals who indicated they were asexual (from a sample of 2,665 young adults) with subsamples of individuals who indicated they were either heterosexual, bisexual, or gay/lesbian. Identifying as asexual generally associated with having generally less-romantic beliefs and less interest in marriage and parenthood. The asexual group also tended to have more in common with other sexual minority groups than with the heterosexual group. Multivariate analyses revealed that asexuality was especially associated with being single and with seeing oneself living with one’s parents after college.

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Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Early Childhood, Youth, and Family Studies, Ball State University, 47306, Muncie, IN, USA

    Scott S. Hall

  2. Department of Sociology, East Carolina University, 28590, Greenville, NC, USA

    David Knox

Authors
  1. Scott S. Hall
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  2. David Knox
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Scott Hall and David Knox. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Scott Hall and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Scott S. Hall.

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The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

Ethics Approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of Ball State University B (June 8, 2015/109122).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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No identifying information was gathered.

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Hall, S.S., Knox, D. Not Just About Sex: Relationship Experiences, Beliefs, and Intentions Associated with Asexuality. Sexuality & Culture 26, 2274–2287 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-09997-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-09997-z

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