by René Mellema & Tristan Miller

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the interaction between the asexual and aromantic communities.  Following our review of extant aro community surveys, we contribute to the discussion by reviewing the information we have about aromantic and aromantic-spectrum respondents to the 2017 Ace Community Survey.

Main Findings

Although our survey recruits from asexual communities rather than aromantic communities, we are able to gather information about people on the aromantic spectrum, including some allosexual people. Some of our important findings are as follows:

1. Compared to aro community surveys, our survey finds a larger number of gray-(a)romantic, demiromantic, lithromantic, and quoiromantic people as compared to aromantic people.
2. Among our respondents, people on the aromantic spectrum were more likely to be non-binary.  Allosexual people (regardless of romantic orientation) were more likely to be men.
3. People on the aromantic spectrum, especially those who were also on the asexual spectrum, were less likely to have had romantic relationships.  Allosexual people on the aromantic spectrum were more likely to have non-romantic significant relationships, and to be polyamorous.
4. Both the asexual or aromantic spectrums are negatively correlated with sexual activity.
5. On average, allosexual people have a higher sex drive, and higher frequency of sexual fantasies, masturbation, and porn consumption, regardless of romantic orientation.

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