There is also the possibility that sex would not have happened anyway but brining it up that that was your intention made them want to distance themselves from the situation.

I'm aware, unfortunately there's no way to tell. Asking does seem to lower the frequency, though, at leas as far as I can tell in my cultural environment.

And the possibility that it would have happened if you hadn't asked but only because the flirty/touchy behavior was leading them towards wanting to have sex but asking interrupted the process (this is distinct from the original claim in that the problem wasn't asking but asking too soon).

That's surely possible. Based on observations in my personal life though I don't deem it much probable... Anyway, the original point was that there are very important situations in which asking for feelings is very bad and quite far from a solution. In this regard, asking too soon to me is a subset of asking, not just an entirely different issue