Asexuality and Islam

Previously, I analyzed various demographic characteristics of Muslim respondents to the 2014 AVEN survey and found that they are very similar to non-Muslim respondents in most regards.

The 2014 survey also asked a number of questions about sexual experiences and attitudes towards sex. For this analysis I am looking only at the 59 Muslim respondents who identified as on the asexual spectrum (”Muslim ace respondents”).

• 46 Muslim ace respondents (78%) report that they have never engaged in consensual sexual activity. For comparison, 65% of all ace respondents report this.
• 8 Muslim ace respondents (14%) report that they have previously engaged in consensual sexual activity but are not currently sexually active. For comparison, 23% of all ace respondents report this.
• Thus, a total of 54 Muslim ace respondents (92%) report that they are not currently sexually active. For comparison, 88% of all ace respondents report this.
• 16 Muslim ace respondents (27%) identify as celibate. For comparison, 12% of all ace respondents identify this way.
• 13 Muslim ace respondents (22%) identify as sex-negative in their politics. For comparison, 10.6% of all ace respondents identify this way.

I chose this set of questions because I wanted to see if a group of ace respondents who identified with a particular religion (i.e., Islam) would differ from ace respondents as a whole in their sexual experiences and attitudes towards sex. There does appear to be some support for this, but there are also some caveats:

• Muslim ace respondents are significantly more likely than non-Muslim ace respondents to have never engaged in consensual sexual activity.
• However, Muslim ace respondents are only slightly more likely than non-Muslim ace respondents to be sexually inactive currently. Non-Muslim ace respondents are significantly more likely than Muslim ace respondents to have tried sex in the past before coming to their current state, but similar percentages have a current state of sexual inactivity.
• Muslim ace respondents are significantly more likely than non-Muslim ace respondents to identify as celibate, a term often believed to have religious connotations.
• However, the vast majority of Muslim ace respondents do not identify as celibate, and hold a range of views why the term does not fit them.
• Muslim ace respondents are significantly more likely than non-Muslim ace respondents to identify as sex-negative in their politics.
• However, the vast majority of Muslim ace respondents do not identify as sex-negative.

If we consider all of these characteristics to be “conservative” (which is arguable; for instance, sex-negativity can also be a radical feminist position), then we could say that Muslim ace respondents to the 2014 survey are somewhat more “conservative” than are non-Muslim ace respondents. However, the vast majority of Muslim ace respondents do not hold such “conservative” views, and their current sexual behavior is equally as “conservative” as non-Muslim ace respondents’ behavior is.

All of this suggests that those Muslim aces who engage with online asexual communities enough to have found the 2014 survey do so at least in part because they are broadly similar to such communities in behavior and attitudes about sex.