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A Comparison of Mate Preferences in Asexual and Allosexual Adults

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Abstract

Asexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by a lack of sexual attraction. Sexual attraction is likely associated with preferences for certain characteristics in romantic partners, such as physical attractiveness. Preferred partner characteristics can be influenced by an individual’s sexual orientation, gender, and age. Allosexual (N = 239; male = 48, female = 181, other = 4; Age M = 20.48 years) and asexual participants (N = 149; male = 36, female = 88, other = 23; Age M = 25.54 years) recruited from a pool of psychology students and through online asexual communities were presented with a survey in which a total of 388 participants rated 13 characteristics according to how desirable they were in a potential long-term romantic partner. Characteristics that are related to physical attractiveness were predicted to be rated lower by asexual participants than by allosexual participants. Asexual participants rated the desire to have children as being less desirable in a romantic partner than allosexual participants did. However, preferences for other traits, such as exciting personality, creative and artistic, and religious, were dependent on interactions of gender and attraction to men or women. Because asexual individuals report generally lower levels of sexual attraction, it will be important for future research to consider romantic attraction as a more nuanced measure than sexual orientation alone when considering sex differences in asexual and allosexual populations.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of these studies are openly available in OSF at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ZBQFS.

Notes

  1. Participants also completed the Asexuality Identification Scale, Multidimensional Model of Sociosexuality, the Sexual Desire Inventory-2, and two versions of the Investment Model Scale asking about romantic relationships and friendships; the results from some of these measures were reported elsewhere (Edge et al., 2022) and will not be discussed here as they were not the focus of this study.

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Funding

No funding was received for conducting this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, 654 Pioneer Dr., Rochester, MI, 48309, USA

    Jared Edge & Jennifer Vonk

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  1. Jared Edge
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  2. Jennifer Vonk
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Correspondence to Jared Edge.

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The authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

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The questionnaire and methodology of this study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Oakland University (Reference #: 1428241-1).

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

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Edge, J., Vonk, J. A Comparison of Mate Preferences in Asexual and Allosexual Adults. Arch Sex Behav 53, 17–24 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02723-2

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