[CW: mentions of sex.]

Most surveys that discuss the matter almost certainly misrepresent the asexual population in one way or another. Fortunately, if you’re creating a survey, or interpreting results from a previously-conducted survey, there are ways to make your results more accurate!

This post is based on my previous post about asexuality, which contains more detailed sources and reasons why I think this topic is important. The idea of this post can probably also be applied to representing diverse sexual preferences or even gender identities (e.g. allow varied responses, don’t make assumptions), but the specific suggestions are targeted towards asexuality. Feel free to share this with people who are designing surveys.

Remember that asexuality and aromanticism exist

If your survey touches in any way on romance, sexuality, relationships, or related behaviors, the most important thing is to know and account for the fact that asexuality exists at all.

The basics: Asexuality is an umbrella term for people who don’t experience sexual attraction. 1-8% of people are or could be called asexual (more info here). Asexual people aren’t an easily-dismissed minority, and they are in your sample demographic. (Probably.) Aromanticism, similarly, is not having romantic interest. We don’t know how many aromantics there are, but they’re certainly out there. People may be aromantic and asexual, or either one, or neither. Some people consider asexuality and aromanticism to fall under the LGBTQ demographic, some people don’t. (The extended LGBTQIA+ acronym does include asexuals – that’s what the ‘a’ is supposed to stand for.) More information can be found here.

In representing asexual people in your results, the first question is what you’re using your data for.

My survey is about general identity/demographic information

We might expect 2x-4x as many romantic asexuals as aromantic asexuals (where do these numbers come from?). This is important because people on the asexual or aromantic spectrum have multiple identities – they might be biromantic and gray-asexual, or aromantic and homosexual, or heteroromantic and demisexual. This means that a question like the following is likely to lead to inaccurate answers:

What’s your orientation?

• Heterosexual
• Homosexual
• Bi/pansexual
• Asexual

One community survey found that the number of asexuals doubled when asexuality was asked about separately. You could do the same thing:

What’s your orientation?

• Heterosexual
• Homosexual
• Bi/pansexual
• Other

Are you asexual?

• Yes
• No

A solution that might be less confusing for people who don’t know what asexuality is, is to allow respondents to check multiple boxes, e.g.:

Check which of the following best describe your sexual/romantic orientation:

( ) Heterosexual
( ) Homosexual
( ) Bi/pansexual
( ) Asexual

It would also be nice (and more accurate) to include some other options:

( ) Gray-asexual
( ) Demisexual
( ) Other

You could also ask about romantic and sexual orientation separately:

What is your sexual orientation?

• Heterosexual
• Homosexual
• Bi/pansexual
• Asexual
• Other

What is your romantic orientation?

• Heteroromantic(attracted to another gender)
• Homoromantic (attracted to your same gender)
• Bi/panromantic (attracted to all genders)
• Aromantic (do not experience romantic attraction)
• Other

(Edit, 3/4/17: Siggy points out in the comments that it’s important to include an “other” or write-in response on romantic orientation questions, as well as sexual orientation.)

You could also just have a write-in response:

What is your sexual/romantic orientation?  ___________________

You can then bin responses like “straight” and “heterosexual” as meaning the same thing, or, say, “aro-ace” and “gray-asexual lesbian” as both being on the asexual spectrum.

There is a downside in that people don’t necessarily know what “heteroromantic” means right away, even if they are that. (So if you’re going with options with less-familiar words, include definitions.)

Weed out troll answers with a lizardman question

The problem with more questions or write-ins is that those open up options to troll or confusing responses, perhaps from people who disagree with the basis of the question, or don’t understand.

Since people who troll on a gender or orientation question are likely to troll on other parts of the quiz, you could throw in a lizardman question – an absurd question designed to weed out troll respondents (or at least calibrate the honesty of participants).

In middle school, we got drug use surveys that asked us to check if we had ever done marijuana, heroin, hallucinogens, amphetamines, perscription drugs, inhalants, or derbisol (also known as DB, dirt, wagon wheels, or hope.) We asked the health teacher what “derbisol” was after the test, and she looked it up, and derbisol isn’t real – it’s a lizardman answer. (Apparently, 18.2% of high-schoolers in some groups have claimed to use derbisol. Remember: if you don’t talk to your kids about wagon wheels, bloggers will.)

The point is that you can adapt a lizardman question to a variety of contexts.

My survey is about sexual/romantic/relationship behavior

The keys here are A) remember that asexuality and aromanticism exist, and B) ask about behavior or preferences rather than making assumptions.

• Many asexual people date people.
• Some asexuals sometimes have sex.
• Some people who don’t identify as asexual still don’t want to have sex for whatever reason.
• Someone who’s gray-asexual may normally round themselves off as “asexual” on surveys, but have experienced sexual attraction before.
• Some people are asexual but don’t know it.
• Asexual people may or may not identify as queer.
• Etc.

So if your question is about, say, attitudes from people who have or want to have sex with women, don’t ask if they’re heterosexual/bisexual men or homosexual/bisexual women. Instead, ask if your respondent has or wants to have sex with women.

Same goes for relationships.

The Asexual Identification Scale is 12 questions about behavior and preferences that capture 90% of asexual people, and can also identify asexual people who don’t realize they’re asexual. If you’re curious specifically about asexual-type behaviors, this may be your answer.

My survey is gathering data for both demographics and behaviors

State what you’re using the data for. For instance, if you have one question to ask college students about their orientation and who they’re likely to date, state that your study is  about dating preferences.

You won’t get a complete picture of people’s orientations, but you weren’t going to anyways with one multiple-choice question. And people with complicated identities (like “biromantic asexual”) are more likely to write in the part that represents who they’re planning to date, not have sex with. If you’re using the response to gather information about STD risk, make it clear that your question is about sexual activity. (And then clarify what “sexual activities” you’re talking about, since people define that differently too and it’s probably relevant to STD risk. Specificity counts!)

2. Avoid over-generalizing from your results. If you’re using data from a question like the first one (“pick one: homosexual, heterosexual, bi/pansexual, or asexual”), realize that your answers for who dates or has sex with whom are necessarily fuzzy, because your results are representing asexuals and aromantics poorly.