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Vaniver comments on 2014 Survey Results - Less Wrong
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Comments (279)
Thanks for doing this!
I find the "vastly" part dubious, given that 3% asexual already seems disproportionately large (general population seems to be about 1%). I would expect for asexuals to be overrepresented, and I do think the question wording means the survey's estimate underestimates the true proportion, but I don't think that it's, say, actually 10% instead of actually 4%.
Why do you expect this? It seems reasonable if I think in terms of stereotypes. Also, I guess LWers might be more likely to recognize that they are asexual.
Mostly the negative relationship between intelligence and interest in sex / sexual activity, especially when nerds are involved.
What actually demonstrates this? I know plenty of nerds with healthy sex drives.
See e.g. the post "Intelligence and Intercourse" on the blog Gene Expression (though it appears to only mention studies about people in the US).
There might be a negative relationship between intelligence and success in having sex, which is a different issue not connected to asexuals.
Well, it's possible the asexuals got that way from accepting that they were never going to have sex.
Also smart people are more likely to take ideas seriously, including the idea prevalent in many social circles that having a sex drive is evil. See Scott Aaronson's recent comment about how he once begged to be chemically castrated.
I think that, while it is indeed possible for asexuality to arise that way, most evidence seems to point away from that conclusion....
While many things are possible, I don't think this is quite the way it works with asexuals...
On the contrary, I think smart people are more likely to recognize that certain "prevalent in many social circles" ideas are bullshit or outright malicious.
Scott Aaronson's problems in this respect did not arise because he is very smart.
Keep in mind also that other non-heterosexual orientations are also overrepresented, and I don't think anyone is quite sure why, but the same effect maybe applies to asexuals.
I think it's less a case of over-representation and more a case of a group of people who believe strongly in giving honest answers to survey questions in order to get good data and who are reasonably sure their privacy will be protected. Most surveys on sexuality suffer from reluctance to self-report. This (and last year's) figure for bisexuality in particular is more in line with my anecdotal & lived experience than 'official' survey data on the topic (bisexual people <1% population).
Bisexual people (and bisexual men in particular) do exist! Yay! (We knew that, lol).
That's probably a function of your social circle.