Average First Age of Attraction: Ten Years Old

[sciatrix]

So I wrote about this meta-analysis paper on my blog last week, and thought I'd share it here because I think it's a) really cool, and b) has some pretty strong implications about how the broader asexual community ought to react to teenagers wanting to take on an asexual identity.

It boils down to saying that the average age of attraction is 10 years old with a standard deviation of about 3 to 4 years. The paper also further specifies that this is common to both heterosexual and homosexual orientations (bi and ase people not apparently being included in the samples). Finally, it points out and discusses the fact that first sexual attraction doesn't seem to be tied to hormone spikes caused by internal gonadal maturation (that is, the beginning of puberty).

Discuss.

[murray]

Good lord, that seems young. But as I'm a teenager thinking "maybe it will show up before I hit 25...?" I imagine anything would seem young to me. I am very fond of the implications you mention, because if I'm being completely rational and considering all the possibilities, then I may well have to wait for five years before being able to give myself the full go ahead on my identity.

I am especially intrigued by the absent correlation to hormone spikes, creating (if I understand you correctly) a separation between sexual attraction and puberty. Sorry I haven't read the article yet; I'll have to do that and discuss with more information.

[noelandvoid]

I believe it. My peers are started talking about sex and the people they wanted to have sex with between the ages of 10 and 13. It was quite shocking to me as I didn't even think about sex as something that wouldn't horribly harm me until I was 15.

[sciatrix]

Which... yes. My first reaction to hearing about this data in my Psych of Women class last May was actually mild annoyance, because if I'd known about this I would have felt so much less anxiety when I was a middle teenager and wondering if I was "allowed" to be asexual. For all I knew, the sudden urge for sexytimes hit when you were twenty-odd years old. In my case, I actually wasn't paying attention to anyone outside my group of friends, none of which started dating until right before I moved away at fourteen, so I didn't really notice what everyone else was doing up until I got to college.

(For the record, I decided when I was about sixteen or seventeen to stop waffling about my identity--if I changed, I changed, but otherwise I was going to identify as asexual and to hell with anyone who said I couldn't. I came to that decision after about two years of self-doubt on the basis of my age, and I rather regret the self-doubt now.)

[you*hear*but*do*you*listen]

TEN??

Maybe I'm confused about the meaning of "sexual attraction" here. Do ten-year-olds actually feel full-blown lust and willingness to have sex with the object of their lust at the same level[i/] as adults? Or do they start feeling the first inklings of what will become sexual attraction when they hit puberty? When the ten-year-old boy in the article saw Kirk take off his shirt, he was "titillated." I see that as more of a feeling that would develop into sexual attraction later rather than the boy wanting to have sex with Captain Kirk then and there. I certainly believe all of the data given about hormone development at ten-ish, but I can't bring myself to think of a ten-year-old as a sexual being in the same way that a post-pubescent adult is.

-sigh- Yeah, I have a feeling I just don't understand what sexual attraction is.

[sciatrix]

Well, it says we're talking about an eighteen-year-old guy now. I assume he's experienced unquestionable sexual attraction since and is able to articulate what it feels like.

I'm not actually sure sexual attraction and primary sexual desire are the same thing, though. I usually go with primary sexual desire because it's easier for me to conceptualize, but some of the comments I've gotten from nonasexual people make me think that sexual attraction isn't necessarily always full-blown "want to have sex with you right here right now."

[you*hear*but*do*you*listen]

[quote author=sciatrix board=science thread=31 post=153
I'm not actually sure sexual attraction and primary sexual desire are the same thing, though. I usually go with primary sexual desire because it's easier for me to conceptualize, but some of the comments I've gotten from nonasexual people make me think that sexual attraction isn't necessarily always full-blown "want to have sex with you right here right now." [/quote]

Oh yeah, that...I actually do know the difference between primary sexual desire and sexual attraction, I was just articulating myself badly because I was kind of freaked out. I guess my point would be I can see an eighteen-year-old remembering the first inklings of sexual attraction at ten, but I can't see said eighteen-year-old thinking that sexual attraction felt exactly the same at ten as it does at eighteen.

[lizziegoneastray]

Hey, so I'm new to these message boards, but I happened across this and I just wanted to say THANK YOU! It's nice to hear some confirmation that at twenty-one years old, I am not, in fact, too young to know my own sexual orientation. And now I have a response for when people try to use that one on me! Yaaay.