First Advisor

Matthew Geraths

Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Sociology and University Honors

Department

Sociology

Subjects

Asexuality (Sexual orientation), Gender identity, Asexual people

DOI

10.15760/honors.159

Abstract

As a relatively new identity category, asexuality has received only a small amount of academic attention. With what little research has been done, it has been established that there is a great amount of variability of meaning within the label "asexual", particularly within the domain of romantic orientation. In light of this, and of asexuality’s invisibility even in comparison to other marginalized sexual orientations, this research sought to investigate the possibility that romantic identity impacts asexual individual’s relationship with the larger LGBTQ+ community by distributing an online quantitative survey to self-identified asexuals. The hypothesis was that hetero-romantic and aromantic individuals may report a more negative relationship with the LGBTQ+ community while also believing that asexuals as a whole deserve to be included within the LGBTQ+ umbrella. The results showed several significant relationships showing that being heteroromantic predicted a more negative relationship with the LGBTQ+ community. However, many items did not prove statistically significant, and the data on aromantics did not display the same patterns as the heteroromantic data. In order to fully understand the relationships found, future qualitative research is needed.

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Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/15411

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