Asexual (sometimes spelled “ace” for short, and likely what you’re looking for with “acesexal”) describes a person who does not experience sexual attraction toward anyone, regardless of gender. It is a sexual orientation, not a lifestyle choice or medical condition. Roughly 1.7% of sexual minority adults identify as asexual, though the true number across the general population is likely higher since many asexual people don’t identify under the broader LGBTQ+ umbrella.
Asexuality Is an Orientation, Not a Choice
The distinction matters. Celibacy is a decision to avoid sexual activity. Asexuality is the absence of sexual attraction in the first place. A celibate person may still feel drawn to others sexually but chooses not to act on it. An asexual person simply doesn’t experience that pull.
This also means asexuality is not a medical problem. The psychiatric diagnostic manual does include conditions like Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, which involves low sexual desire. The key difference is distress: people with those diagnoses are troubled by their lack of desire. Asexual people are not. They experience their orientation as a stable, neutral part of who they are, not something broken that needs fixing.
Some asexual people do choose to have sex for various reasons, whether to connect with a partner, have children, or simply out of curiosity. Engaging in sexual behavior doesn’t cancel out the orientation. What defines asexuality is the internal experience of attraction, not what someone does or doesn’t do in the bedroom.
Sexual Attraction vs. Romantic Attraction
One of the most important concepts in asexual communities is that sexual attraction and romantic attraction are separate things. You can want a deep, emotionally intimate relationship with someone without wanting a sexual one. This framework, sometimes called the split attraction model, recognizes that people can experience attraction for romantic, aesthetic, sensual, emotional, or intellectual reasons, all independently of sexual desire.
This means many asexual people still fall in love, date, and have committed partnerships. An asexual person who is romantically attracted to people of the opposite gender might call themselves “heteroromantic asexual.” Someone romantically attracted to the same gender might identify as “homoromantic asexual.” Others experience little or no romantic attraction either, and may use the term “aromantic.”
The Asexual Spectrum
Asexuality isn’t a single, rigid category. Many people describe it as a spectrum, with several identities falling under the broader “ace” umbrella:
- Asexual: experiences no sexual attraction.
- Gray-asexual (graysexual): experiences sexual attraction rarely, only under specific circumstances, or at low intensity.
- Demisexual: experiences sexual attraction only after forming a strong emotional bond with someone.
Someone who identifies anywhere on this spectrum might simply call themselves “ace” as shorthand.
Libido and Arousal Still Exist
A common misconception is that asexual people have no libido at all. Many do. Physical arousal is a biological response that can happen independently of being attracted to a specific person. An asexual person might experience arousal from general physical stimulation without that translating into a desire to be sexual with someone.
Research published in PLOS One found measurable differences in how asexual individuals process sexual imagery compared to non-asexual people. In the study, asexual participants did not show a visual attention preference for erotic images, meaning their eyes didn’t linger on sexual cues the way other participants’ eyes did. They also held more negative or neutral implicit associations with sexual words. This lines up with the lived experience asexual people describe: sex simply doesn’t register as something directed at or desired with another person.
Community Symbols and Identity
The asexual pride flag has four horizontal stripes: black, gray, white, and purple. Black represents asexuality, gray represents the gray area between asexual and sexual, white represents sexuality (as the other end of the spectrum), and purple represents community.
Another recognizable symbol is the ace ring: a black ring worn on the middle finger of the right hand. It emerged around 2005 from online asexual communities as a quiet way for ace people to recognize each other in everyday life without needing to disclose their orientation verbally. It functions like a subtle signal for those who know what to look for.
What Asexuality Looks Like Day to Day
For most asexual people, the biggest challenge isn’t the orientation itself but navigating a world that assumes everyone experiences sexual attraction. Conversations about crushes, dating culture centered on physical chemistry, and media saturated with sexual tension can feel alienating when that dimension of experience simply isn’t there. Many asexual people describe spending years thinking something was wrong with them before learning the term and realizing their experience had a name.
Relationships can require more communication than average, particularly when an asexual person partners with someone who does experience sexual attraction. But asexual people build fulfilling lives and relationships across the full range of human experience. The orientation shapes one specific aspect of attraction. It doesn’t define a person’s capacity for love, intimacy, or connection.