Asexuality and the Church

This week is Ace Week, formerly known as Asexual Awareness Week, an “annual campaign to raise awareness, build community, and create change around the world” for people on the asexual spectrum. An often-invisible identity, asexuality has gained visibility of recent years, but it is still a new concept to much of the church.

What is Asexuality?

An asexual person typically experiences little to no sexual attraction. This usually means that they do not feel drawn to other people in a sexual way. Asexuality is different to celibacy, because it is not a choice to abstain from sexual activity, but an inherently different experience of sexuality.

Asexuality is a spectrum containing many different identities and nuances. Some people on the asexual spectrum (or ace-spec people) do experience sexual attraction under specific circumstances, such as once an emotional bond is formed, while others never experience sexual attraction. Still others have fluctuating experiences of sexual attraction.

Some ace-spec people do experience romantic attraction and do engage in romantic relationships. Others are aromantic, meaning they experience little to no romantic attraction.

Within the asexual and aromantic communities, there is an understanding that sexual and romantic attraction are separate experiences that may or may not align. This idea is called the Split Attraction Model, and it enables people within these communities and beyond to communicate about the nuances of their experience. These communities have also expanded the vocabulary of attraction to include experiences such as aesthetic, sensual, and platonic attraction.

What Does This Mean for the Church?

Olivia* is a young person in the Uniting Church who identifies as demisexual, demiromantic, and bi, meaning that she can only experience sexual and romantic attraction to a person after they have connected on a deep emotional level. She described how “a lot of things that are framed as ‘sexual temptation’ for Christian young people was never an issue I really faced.”

“As someone who doesn’t feel strongly drawn to a relationship… I think it shapes my understanding of faithfulness and who I am called by God to be,” Olivia told Insights. She wishes the church knew that ace-spec people’s “relationships and life rhythms are… likely to look different from allosexual [non-asexual] members of the church, and that’s important to understand.”

Growing up outside of the Uniting Church, she observed, “purity culture presumes that all people experience attraction and want to have sex in the same way, and that can be really disorientating and confusing as a young ace-spec person within the church.”

Olivia told Insights that the language of asexuality and aromanticism is also valuable for people outside of these communities, and that “having a [church] community that does not expect or require [being partnered] to be able to participate meaningfully is a really powerful and beautiful antidote to the rest of the world’s expectations.”

Kate is also a young person in the Uniting Church, and she describes her experience as fluctuating between asexual and demisexual. She expressed a feeling of brokenness before she knew about asexuality, and how “this revelation [that asexuality exists] made me even more in wonder at the creativity of God, that he creates us so incredibly different, and all the different forms and levels of love.”

Kate wishes the church knew that “it is very possible to be asexual and still have a partner and children; I do.” She even described that her asexuality makes her marriage “stronger.”

Kate told Insights that the church can support ace-spec people by removing the pressure to have a partner, get married, and have kids. “Also, when someone shares their story, believe them, don’t judge them, and don’t treat them differently.”

*Name has been changed for anonymity.

Gabi Cadenhead is a mission worker for Christian Students Uniting at the University of Sydney.

You can get involved with Ace Week events at the official website.