Society and Asexuality
The Impact of Asexuality on Wider Culture
Modern culture prioritizes sexual intimacy over other kinds of relationships, thus rendering asexual people invisible and causing many to misidentify with wider sexual culture. Thus, many asexual form relationships considered outside the norms prescribed by modern society. If awareness and acceptance of asexuality spreads throughout society, we will have to reconsider our expectations of what constitutes a romantic relationship. The idea that romance is dependent on the presence of sex will have to be evaluated and, possibly discarded. If the presence or absence of sex is no longer the determiner of being "in a relationship," relationships like those often formed by asexuals will come to be seen as more valid and equal to relationships in which sex is present. Already a new language to describe these relationships is developing in the asexual community; it may one day come into wider use.
Common Problems Faced By Asexual People
Asexuals remain largely invisible in the world, even within queer communities. They face erasure, denial of their identities, and rejection of the idea that they are oppressed in any way at all. When asexuality does not appear in mainstream culture it is usually appropriation, as in ads for birth control with lines like "Let me be asexual now" or "I wish I was asexual, then this wouldn't be a problem." This is similar to non-binary appropriation of intersex identities - wishing to be something without fully understanding the experience of those people and thus downplaying the difficulties of their lives. This invisibility can lead to a sense of brokenness, of feeling doomed to be alone forever, or being unable to love. It also makes it very difficult for asexual people to find sustaining relationships, which may be necessary for survival due to disability, class, or other reasons.
Asexuals are often patronized and treated as ideal for handling children, which ignores the very real fact that sexual assault is about power and not sex. They are tokenized, like the "gay best friend" trope, as safe and unthreatening. This can make it difficult to see them as real, complex people. The conflation of asexuality with celibacy and morality works similarly: the misconception of asexual people actually being celibate for moral reasons erases their struggles to navigate relationships which may include sex and a society in which sex is strongly emphasized. Alternatively, asexuals may be patronized as naïve and immature and told to grow up. Asexual people are particularly vulnerable to sexual coercion due to social pressures to participate in sex and the lack of visible alternatives. Not knowing asexuality is a viable option makes resisting sexuality harder. Asexuals are also in danger of corrective rape and other attempts to "fix" them, such as hormone therapy.
Any and all of these problems may, as with any sexual or gender minority, lead to a higher risk for depression and for suicide.
A study identified the following characteristics of asexuals.
1. More women than men
2. Slightly older than sexuals
3. Low self-esteem
4. Low socioeconomic status
5. Weighed less
6. Poorer health
7. More religious and attended religious services more often
8. Asocial
9. Social anxiety
10. Anxiety
11. Depression
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/magnetic-partners/201406/asexuality