Counting Asexuality and Aromanticism: Challenges, Best Practices, and Family Implications

• In Event: 40861 - Section on Sociology of Population Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: Sexuality and Sexual Behavior

Abstract

This paper advocates for improvements to measurement systems and demographic techniques that would recognize asexual and aromantic populations. Asexuality is a sexual orientation that usually refers to people who experience little to no sexual attraction to people of any gender. Aromanticism is a romantic orientation, referring to those who experience little to no romantic attraction. Both populations are underserved but growing identity groups with implications for family processes like relationship formation, marriage, and fertility. This paper explains the histories behind both concepts and discusses how their fluidity presents challenges for researchers. Best practices for including asexual and aromantic populations in survey research are also offered, followed by a discussion of demographic characteristics that have been observed through surveys of both populations. Overall, demographers are encouraged to consider how asexuality and aromanticism represent important, and often neglected, communities within the LGBTQIA+ umbrella that can help us understand broader trends in the demography of families, gender, and sexualities.

Author

• Megan Carroll, California State Univ-San Bernardino