ABSTRACT
As a newly emerged sexual identity, asexuality is a recent yet urgent topic of interest for practitioners of social work and psychology as well as academics working in such varied fields as cultural studies, sociology, and sexology. Since its emergence in the early twenty-first century, asexuality has been accepted as a sexual orientation and taken up as a sexual identity by many people, who often seek to further refine their self-identification through using sub-categories of asexuality such as demisexuality, grey asexuality, and others. This chapter provides a critical overview of the current work on asexuality, presenting debates about defining asexuality in medical and social sciences, delineating its boundaries, its intersections with disability and race, the impact of compulsory sexuality on asexual people, and the role of the Internet as a site of the community building. It also engages with research on asexuality in non-Western contexts, emphasizing the importance of specific cultural locations for asexual identity formation. Finally, the chapter summarizes the implications of research on asexuality for social work practice and research.
