A BBC News article features the story of 21 year old Jenni Goodchild who identifies as asexual, meaning that she has no interest in having sex. She talks about how this impacts on her relationship with her boyfriend who is not asexual. Goodchild is a romantic asexual, which means that despite her lack of interest in sex, she does enjoy the intimacy of being physically and emotionally involved with her partner. Aromantic asexuals are not interested in sex nor in experiencing emotional and physical intimacy with another person within an intimate relationship. The article features British sociologist Mark Carrigan. He talks about the marginalisation that asexual people experience in British society, and how the activism of The Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) has helped to lift the social status of asexual individuals. Carrigan says that as asexuality is discussed more publicly, this may ultimately change how societies understand the complexity of human sexuality:
For instance there wasn’t a concept of heterosexuality before there were homosexuals,“ says Carrigan. "It was only when there were people calling themselves homosexuals that it made sense for anyone to think of themselves as heterosexual.
If it is true that up to 1% of the population are asexual and more people are aware of them, will that change how ‘sexual’ people think about themselves, because there is not really a good word to refer to people who aren’t asexual.
The Other Sociologist 