hm.
Sometimes I think to myself “you can’t possibly be asexual. Only one percent of the population, as the very popular statistic says, is asexual. So the odds of you being one is crazy slim.” But then I think, “well nothing else makes sense and it seems to be like teenagers thinking they’re immortal and couldn’t possibly get hurt hurtling down a hillside road sitting on a skateboard. Even if it’s a slim chance it’s still possible.”
The way I usually view this is:
There is only a 1% chance that a random person you grab off the street is asexual. However - most of these people will never entertain the idea that they’re asexual. For most of these people, their sexual orientation - or the fact that they are sexually attracted to people - is obvious. Most of these people will probably never even have heard of asexuality before and not feel the loss.
If you are seriously wondering whether you’re asexual, the chance you are is going to be way higher than 1%, just due to the fact that you got to that point! “People who are seriously wondering if they are asexual” does NOT count as a random sample for this purpose. By that same sort of argument, I could say that someone who posts on the #asexuality tag only has a 1% chance of being asexual. How does that make sense?
In conclusion: ignore population statistics. They say nothing about individuals anyway. Do you think you’re asexual? Do you feel that the label “asexual” is one that’s useful to you? That’s what counts.
-a mathematician who has had people use the “but you must be straight because it’s statistically most likely!” argument on zer before.
