Dear Dr Milrod:

Lately, I’ve been hearing about people who arent attracted to either sex Is it real, or were they abused as kids, and just dont want to relive it? I think there’s a comedian out there who says she is asexual. Do you think she is really lesbian and doesnt want to admit to herself, or does she think sex is dirty, and alot of work, and doesnt want to waste her time?

Not Sure

Dear Not Sure:

I believe there is a confluence of factors. In the current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, there is Sexual Aversion Disorder, which means that the person really does not want to engage sexually at all. You also need to separate desire from sexual orientation: yes, there are people who aren’t attracted to either sex, but:
a) they could be attracted to animals or inanimate objects (zoophilia or objectum sexualis). In the case of those attracted to animals, there are a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with the individual’s sexual scripting, proximity to farm animals, etc.
or
b) they could have hormonal issues where their sexual desire is so impacted that they would not feel any sexual excitement no matter what.

A note: the abuse paradigm has been beaten like a dead horse in abnormal psychology at this point. For a while there in the late 80s-early 90s, everything pertained to abuse. We had more recovered abuse memories, more scandals (McMartin pre-school) and more money spent on therapists than you could imagine, mainly because “abuse” was at the root of everything. Nowadays, we know that it’s not only abuse that creates sexuo-behavioral variance – sometimes it’s hormonal, sometimes it’s genetic variants or even brain organicity, and sometimes it’s a sexual scripting pattern where prior abuse has been completely absent.

As for sexual aversion, yes there is a minuscule amount of the population that has been diagnosed as such. But it’s not common. As to the female comedian you are referring to – I have no idea who she is and without engaging in sex therapy with her, I wouldn’t know what truly ails her. It’s never just “one thing.”

Christine Milrod, PhD