Abstract
Sexual and romantic orientations are often considered one and the same, and attitudes about engaging in sexual behavior are assumed to be predominantly positive. The current study explored the concordance between sexual and romantic orientations among allosexual and asexual adults as well as the frequency with which they identify as having a sex-positive, sex-neutral, or sex-averse attitude. As expected, allosexual adults were largely sex-positive (82%) and almost all (89%) had a romantic orientation that matched their sexual orientation. In contrast, we found that only 37% of asexual adults had concordant sexual and romantic orientations and that most asexual adults self-identify as either sex-neutral (41%) or sex-averse (54%). Further, we used a semantic differential task to assess sexual intimacy attitudes and how they varied for adults based on sexual attitude. Asexual adults, regardless of sexual attitude, had less positive attitudes overall than allosexual adults. Interestingly, aromantic asexual adults did not have more negative attitudes about sexual intimacy than romantic asexual participants. Although asexual adults held less positive attitudes about sex than allosexual adults, there was considerable heterogeneity within our asexual sample. The current study provides further insight into the concordance between romantic and sexual orientation, and the associations among sexual and intimacy attitudes for both allosexual and asexual adults. These findings will have implications for future research on how asexual adults navigate romantic relationships.
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Appendices
Appendix A
Means, standard deviations, range, and median for the engagement in intimacy attitude semantic differential task for sex-positive, sex-neutral, and sex-averse allosexual participants.
Sex attitude | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sex-positive (n = 274) | Sex-neutral (n = 50) | Sex-averse (n = 10) | ||||
M (SD) | Range (median) | M (SD) | Range (median) | M (SD) | Range (median) | |
Negative/positive | 90.00 (12.27) | 20–100 (92) | 61.00 (19.76) | 18–100 (65) | 28.70 (25.00) | 0–85 (27.5) |
Disgusted/pleased | 88.57 (16.48) | 3–100 (92) | 61.44 (23.41) | 10–100 (60.5) | 38.90 (25.87) | 0–85 (45) |
Uninterested/interested | 88.14 (17.14) | 2–100 (93) | 59.88 (22.44) | 1–100 (59.5) | 26.90 (29.76) | 0–83 (20) |
Not aroused/aroused | 85.17 (18.03) | 3–100 (90) | 63.94 (24.25) | 1–100 (69.5) | 44.10 (37.36) | 0–90 (45) |
Averse/not averse | 84.31 (21.68) | 1–100 (91) | 60.31 (23.46) | 0–100 (60) | 25.10 (23.38) | 0–53 (24.5) |
Unwilling/willing | 88.61 (17.40) | 1–100 (95) | 62.76 (21.36) | 15–100 (60.5) | 23.40 (18.83) | 0–50 (23) |
Appendix B
Means, standard deviations, range, and medians for the engagement in intimacy attitude scale semantic differential task for sex-positive, sex-neutral, and sex-averse asexual participants.
Sex attitude | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sex-positive (n = 6) | Sex-neutral (n = 41) | Sex-averse (n = 54) | ||||
M (SD) | Range (median) | M (SD) | Range (median) | M (SD) | Range (median) | |
Negative/positive | 65.33 (35.09) | 1–92 (79.5) | 48.46 (20.89) | 0–85 (50) | 20.09 (20.36) | 0–83 (15.5) |
Disgusted/pleased | 66.33 (33.68) | 1–92 (75) | 47.41 (18.99) | 0–100 (50) | 17.65 (17.16) | 0–60 (15.5) |
Uninterested/interested | 52.83 (38.61) | 1–90 (65) | 25.88 (23.62) | 0–80 (20) | 4.65 (7.62) | 0–30 (1) |
Not aroused/aroused | 61.67 (31.30) | 1–85 (74) | 27.61 (24.56) | 0–80 (20) | 9.52 (16.02) | 0–70 (1.5) |
Averse/not averse | 71.33 (36.56) | 1–100 (81) | 51.05 (25.93) | 0–100 (50) | 10.17 (14.87) | 0–60 (5) |
Unwilling/willing | 62.17 (35.03) | 1–100 (65.5) | 49.37 (24.61) | 0–91 (50) | 11.63 (18.76) | 0–75 (1) |
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Clark, A.N., Zimmerman, C. Concordance Between Romantic Orientations and Sexual Attitudes: Comparing Allosexual and Asexual Adults. Arch Sex Behav 51, 2147–2157 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-02194-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-02194-3