How Asexuals and Aromantics Create Intimacy and Family

When I published my first book on singlehood, Singled Out, I did not discuss asexuality or aromanticism because I had never heard of either. Now, asexuality is much more widely known. Aromanticism has been slower to get noticed, but one person who has been bringing more attention to it in her scholarly writings is Hannah Tessler of the sociology department at Yale University. One of her two recent articles on aromanticism and asexuality was published in the journal Sexualities, “Aromanticism, asexuality, and relationship (non-) formation: How a-spec singles challenge romantic norms and reimagine family life.”

What Is Asexuality? What Is Aromanticism?

Asexuals are people who experience little or no sexual attraction. In my book Single at Heart, I shared a tweet from @AsexualsNet to help explain it:

“To people who ‘don’t get’ asexuality: Think of someone you aren’t attracted to. Now imagine that is how you feel about everyone. The end.”

Asexuality exists on a spectrum (a-spec) from no sexual attraction to low sexual attraction. In scholarly writings, people who are not asexual are called “allosexual” and include people who are heterosexual, gay or lesbian, bisexual, and pansexual. I’ll just call them “sexual.”

People who are aromantic experience little to no romantic attraction. Tessler and other scholars refer to people who do experience romantic attraction as “alloromantic”; I’ll just call them “romantic.” Like asexuality, aromanticism also exists on a spectrum, from no romantic attraction to low romantic attraction. The abbreviated name for that spectrum is the same as for asexuality, a-spec, but the two are distinct.

People who are not sexual romantics can be:

• Asexual romantic: They experience little or no sexual attraction, but they do experience romantic attraction.
• Aromantic sexual: They experience little or no romantic attraction, but they do experience sexual attraction.
• Aromantic asexual: They experience little or no romantic or sexual attraction.

In an analysis of a survey of 1,347 adults in the U.S. on the aromantic spectrum, Tessler found that 45 percent of those aromantics were also asexual; the other 55 percent were aromantic and sexual. In an analysis of a survey of 2,340 adults in the U.S. on the asexual spectrum, 34 percent of those asexuals were also aromantic; the other 66 percent were asexual and romantic. Both samples were convenience samples—no representative national survey has included measures of asexuality and aromanticism—and the questions were different in the two surveys, so the results are not entirely comparable. What both surveys show, though, is that someone who is asexual may or may not be aromantic, and someone who is aromantic may or may not be asexual.

People who are single at heart feel powerfully drawn to a single life—that’s their most meaningful and fulfilling life. They don’t want to organize their lives around a romantic partner. As I explained here at Living Single previously, people who are single at heart are more likely to be asexual than people who are not single at heart, though most are sexual. I did not ask specifically about aromanticism, but the life stories that the single at heart shared suggest that they are more likely to be aromantic than those who are not single at heart.

Understanding Yourself as Aromantic

Tessler conducted in-depth interviews with 48 a-spec single people: 25 were aromantic asexual, 13 were aromantic sexual, and 10 were asexual romantic.

For aromantics, it can be a learning process to understand what romance means to people who are romantic. For example, River, an asexual, aromantic non-binary person (someone who identifies as other than male or female), said that they thought they were in a romantic relationship because they saw their partner as “super cool,” as someone they “wanted to hang out with all the time,” and someone they felt “really lucky to have” in their life. Eventually, River realized that their partner experienced romantic feelings in a way that they did not.

What People Want From Romantic Relationships Can Often Be Found Elsewhere

When Tessler asked the single people she interviewed why they wanted a romantic relationship (if they did), she found that their reasons included “having someone to text random memes to, having someone to take care of them if they get sick, or having someone they can be emotionally vulnerable with.” For some, it was an important revelation to realize that they did not need to have a romantic relationship to have those kinds of experiences. For example, Franklin, an asexual, aromantic 51-year-old man, described a man whom he considered more than a best friend:

“I have keys to his house, mostly for emergency purposes, and vice versa. I am his kid’s sort-of uncle. I can tell him a lot of things that I don’t tell other friends. I know that if I’m in a bad situation or whatever, I could call him for anything if something happens and vice versa.”

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People who flourish when single, such as the single at heart, understand that intimacy includes far more than just sexual or romantic intimacy and that family includes much more than just parents and their children. Tessler’s research suggests that the same open-minded, open-hearted perspective on intimacy and family is characteristic of people who are asexual or aromantic.

Many people experience nonsexual intimacy in friendship, as, for example, in the way Franklin described (above). They understand that caring and commitment can be fundamental to relationships beyond just sexual or romantic ones.

Similarly, friend groups, as well as circles of friends and relatives and other kinds of relationship partners, are often a kind of family for aromantics, asexuals, and the single at heart. They are “chosen families.” Another kind of family for people who are not following conventional life paths includes having children and raising them with a friend.

When Tessler asked the 48 people she interviewed about their ideal future relationships, a common response was that they wanted to live near or with friends. Of the asexual romantics, 20 percent wanted that; of the aromantic sexual people, 38 percent described that as their ideal future relationship; and of the aromantic asexuals, a striking 68 percent said the same.

The people Tessler interviewed offered creative ideas about the kinds of living arrangements they might enjoy. They included “adjacent townhouses, one large house, multiple houses on the same block, and a queer commune.” In my research for How We Live Now, I visited people who lived in all of those kinds of life spaces. I learned that you don’t need to be asexual, aromantic, single at heart, or any kind of single person to be drawn to creative ways of living and loving.

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