Godless asexual

ace-muslim:

Finds that asexuality may have the same kind of biological markers from the pre-natal environment that homosexuality and bisexuality do; also proposes a set of questions to help recognize people with asexual orientation who may not identify as asexual

Further summary: Homosexuality is known to correlate with digit ratios and left-handedness, and in right-handed men it correlates with the number of older brothers.  This study shows a correlation between asexuality and handedness, and asexual men had more older brothers.  There also appears to be an older sister effect.  The sample was too small to demonstrate a significant digit ratio difference.  These findings suggest asexuality relates to prenatal development.

Comment: The author motivates this study as a contribution to the sexual orientation/dysfunction question.  But note that sexual dysfunction as a category is not really defined by etiology.  But the results sure are suggestive

The second part of the thesis develops a questionnaire that distinguishes asexuals from allosexuals, and is valid for people who have not yet come across the idea of asexuality.  It’s a simple 10-question survey, shown in Appendix C.

Comment: Based on what little I know, designing an informative survey is highly nontrivial, so kudos to the author.  Though I hope I don’t see this later as an online test “to see if you’re really asexual”.  On a side note, I’m a little confused about how to score this survey, since it uses a scale from 0-50, whereas the number of questions points to a scale from 0-40.

(via nextstepcake)