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The Ace Community Survey

Asexual Flag. "The black represents asexuality, the grey represents grey-asexuality and demisexuality, the white represents non-asexual partners and allies, and the purple represents community."

The Ace Community Survey is an annual survey by the Ace Community Survey Team, which collects valuable information on the demographics and experiences of members in the ace community. It is the largest survey of ace communities, and creates a valuable pool of data for future ace community activists and researchers. The Ace Community Survey was originally started in partnership with the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) as the earlier versions of the surveys were referred to as "AVEN census" or "Asexual Census." Later, it was changed to "The Ace Community Survey" in 2016, which became completely independent to operate with no affiliates since 2017.

History

Asexual community surveys were first conducted by AVEN Survey in 2008 that we know of. The survey had 29 questions that received 300 responses, organized by the AVEN project team. There were no data published for a while as the questions of the survey ware not intended for analysis, and the goal was to figure out what people expected from the project team. Ultimately an author impelled for publication of a subdivision of the results, however, the rest of the survey remains unpublished which became an obstacle to create more surveys. In 2011, Asexual Awareness Week (AAW) community census was conducted for political purposes, and to argue for inclusion of the mass amount of asexuals in the LGBT community. Having over 3400 responses in 2011, AAW community survey failed for attempt in 2013 due to the committee losing the momentum.

Surveys and Reports

2014

The Ace Community Survey, affiliated with AVEN, conducted the survey that received a total of 14,210 responses, where 10,880 respondents identified as an ace (a phonetic shortening of "asexual") or fell under the Asexual Spectrum. The survey includes a set of basic demographic questions and rotating sets of topical questions, in order to obtain better information on the makeup of asexual communities, and to track any trends on those communities over time.

The survey shows that 49.2% of population identifies as Asexual, 11.1% identifies as Demisexual and 16.2% as Gray-A. As the survey only had respondents from the range of 13-77, with a mean age of 22.45 and median age of 21, the majority were still students. The survey received responses from over 90 countries on 6 different continents with the majority coming from the United States of America. Only 74.9% of aces responded on having disclosure of their identity to another person, with a median age of 19 and mean age of 20.1 when they first disclosed, while 25.1% of ace respondents have never come out. 65% of respondents had never engaged in sexual activity, and of the 35% that had, 12.4% identified themselves as currently sexually active, while the other 22.5% indicated that they were no longer sexually active at the present time. The approximate percentages of aces who are, or have been sexually active selected a reason that influenced their decision to have sex were 75.5% to please a partner, 56.7% out of curiosity, 40.8% for social expectations and below 40% for other. When asked about respondent's personal attitude towards sex, 55% of Asexuals picked the label of 'repulsed,' 42.3% picked 'indifferent' and 2.7% picked 'favorable.' On the other hand, over 50% Gray-asexuals and Demi-sexuals picked labels of 'indifferent,' below 28% picked 'repulsed.'

The survey had several potential questions that were left or not talked about, meaning a lot more data to be attained in the future.

2015

The Asexual Community Census conducted the survey that received a total of 9,161 responses, with 8,663 respondents identifying as Ace, which is slightly fewer participants than the 2014 report. The survey reveal that the majority of respondents identified as asexual (69%), while some identified as gray-asexual (16%), demisexual (10%), and with none of these (5%). Respondents had a mean age of 22, with ages ranging from 13 to 79, and 65% of them were still students. The majority of responses were from the United States (61%) followed by the United Kingdom (10%), Canada (8%) and Australia (4%), and the selected gender identity of ace respondents were woman (57%), non-binary gender(31%), and man (12%). In addition, over 1 out of 4 respondents (29%) who identified with a non-binary gender also identified as transgender. More than half of ace respondents first learned of asexuality via the internet as Tumblr was the most common site (34%) followed by word of mouth (14%) and AVEN (8%). Ace respondents are less likely than non-ace respondents to currently be in any significant relationship (77% and 58%, respectively), as the data indicates 48% of ace respondents and 29% of non-ace respondents reported never being in a significant romantic relationship. However, the gap shrinks such that 56% of ace respondents and 48% of non-ace respondents reported having never been in a significant non-romantic relationship. One out of 3 ace respondents (33%) participate in LGBTQ+ communities outside of the ace community, as the vast majority of ace and non-ace respondents felt that asexuality should be part of the LGBTQ+ umbrella (81% and 77%, respectively) while a minority felt it should not be (4% and 6%, respectively). When asked about one’s feeling about personally engaging in sex, over 37% of ace respondents felt repulsed, 29% felt indifferent, 8% felt favorable, 25% were uncertain or said it depends, and a remaining 3% were in other categories. Additionally, 30% of ace respondents considered themselves to be sex-positive, 45% to be sex-neutral and 13% to be sex-negative.

2016

The Asexual Community Survey conducted the survey receiving a total of 9,869 responses, with 9331 respondents identifying as Ace. The majority of respondents identified as asexual (64.5%), followed by gray-asexual (10.8%), those who were questioning or unsure (10.7%), demisexual (8.6%), and none of the above (5.5%). Over half of ace respondents, ranged in age from 13 to 75 with a median age of 21 and a mean age of 23, reported that they were students at the time of the survey, with 39.2% reporting that they were not in school. The survey received responses from 76 different countries, with the majority of participants coming from the United States (60.4%), followed by the United Kingdom (10.1%), Canada (7.4%), and Australia (3.9%), which are similar percentages to the 2014 survey. Following a similar trend to the 2014 AVEN census and 2015 Ace community Census, the majority of respondents chose their gender identity as woman (63%), followed by non-binary (26.0%), and man (10.9%). Ace respondents who identified as women were most likely to be attracted to men (60.1%), followed by women (44.4%), non-binary genders (32.7%), unsure (29.6%), and none (15.4%). Male ace respondents were most likely to be attracted to women (61.2%), men (43.1%), followed by people with non-binary genders (35.1%), those who were unsure (19.2%), and none (13.9%). The median and mean ages to privately identify as ace were 18 and 19. In addition, the median and mean ages to come out to an asexual person were 19 and 21, and to a non-asexual person were 19 and 20. The data found that 43.7% of ace respondents reported that they have had a significant relationship that was romantic, 45.9% reported they haven’t had a significant relationship that was romantic, 6.5% were unsure, and 3.9% reported that they don’t differentiate between romantic and non-romantic relationships. 75.0% of ace respondents reported that they were single at the time of the survey, while 19.1% reported that they were in at least one significant relationship, and 3.8% reported that they were engaged or married. Only about 12.9% of ace respondents reported that they have had a partner who was asexual, gray-asexual or demisexual. 12.6% of ace respondents in 2016 considered themselves polyamorous, up from 9.5% in 2015, where as 60.2% of ace respondents are not polyamorous, and 27.2% are unsure. The most common reasons among ace respondents to engage in sexual activity were: to please their partner (72.2%), they were romantically attracted (64.7%), to show affection (63.9%), they were curious about sex (54%), they desired emotional closeness (53.8%), to experience physical pleasure (50.5%), or it seemed like the natural next step in their relationship (46.1%). Less common reasons included: they were sensually attracted (37.0%), aesthetically attracted (31.4%), or sexually attracted (23.2%). Among the write-in responses, the most common theme identified was having sex out of obligation (3.3%). When asked about respondent's attitude towards sex, 37.0% ace respondents said they were repulsed, 26.9% said they were indifferent, 8.0% said they were favorable, and 20.5% said they were uncertain. Just over half the ace survey respondents came from Tumblr (56.8%), followed by facebook (17.6%), and AVEN (8.4%).

2017

Ace Community Census 2017 was conducted by a community research project team with the purpose of understanding the diversity of the ace community. The survey was open to everyone over the age of 13, having questions about their educational, living conditions along with different parts of their identities such as religion, race/ ethnicity, country of residence, origin, sexual orientation etc. The results have not been published yet, as the analysis is still in progress.

2018

A community research project by the Ace Community Survey Team conducted the Ace Community Census 2018 with the purpose of understanding more about the diversity of the ace community, including asexual, demisexual, gray-asexual, and related identities. The survey had several questions about backgrounds, living situation, country of residence, sexual and religion preferences, relationship etc. which took about 30 minutes to complete. The results are yet to published, as the analysis is in progress.