Some time ago I spoke to a-20-year old woman who wanted to talk to me about her belief that she is "asexual". Unlike her friends she’s never had a boyfriend and she isn’t really interested. She had discovered the Asexual Visibility & Educational Network (AVEN) website, and she thought: maybe that’s what my problem is, I must be asexual.

The AVEN website was launched in 2001 by then 19-year-old student David Jay in Connecticut, with the goal of creating public acceptance and discussion of asexuality. When he was a teenager Jay discovered he wasn’t sexually attracted to anybody and decided his sexual orientation was asexual. He came out about this to his parents and friends and declared that his sexuality was as valid an orientation as being straight, bisexual or gay.

Members of AVEN (Asexual Visibility & Educational Network) march in San Francisco. Credit:Facebook/David Jay

Jay was featured in The New York Times and appeared on multiple television shows and, with his good looks, became the poster boy for the movement. In 2004 New Scientist magazine in Britain ran a six-page feature that made the movement even more popular. Jay appeared on several BBC radio stations and in 2005 he was featured in a movie (A)sexual Not everybody is doing it.

Relatively little research has been conducted into asexuality and there are no reliable statistics of the numbers of people who identify as such. Most research has been done by the asexual community itself. The AVEN on-line community, after 13 years, has between 50,000 and 60,000 members.