Being asexual

Jenni Goodchild is asexual and Joseph De Lappe is finishing a PhD in Asexual studies.

Jenni discovered as a teenager in college that “other people had these set of feelings that I didn’t have access to.”

She said it exists in the background of her day-to-day life. “I’d compare it to food preferences – it would impact aspects of your life, but you wouldn't have it as the centre point”

“You can have sex without sexual attraction” she added; the confusion being that “not all asexual people are celibate.”

Joseph clarified the distinction - celibacy is where people choose not to have sex, and asexuality is where they have no or low sexual attraction.

He said it’s more common than we might expect. The 1994 The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles estimated 1% of the survey responded they didn't feel interested in sex – and has been consistent in the last six decades.

Alfred Kinsey’s 1948 report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, labelled 1.5% of the adult male population with "no socio-sexual contacts or reactions" as Population X.