Having sex seems to be moderately negatively correlated, for me, but that seems to be more of an artifact of my confusion regarding sexual relationships before I figured out that I’m asexual than anything having to do with the act itself.
Talking about the fact that I’m asexual is weakly positively correlated, but not observably causative: If I don’t feel comfortable enough around someone to be able to talk to them about that aspect of myself, it’s nearly guaranteed that I won’t bond with them (possible exception: if someone was very prudish, but we otherwise got along well, I would probably refrain from talking about the subject but would not count that against them if they weren’t aggressively judgmental about others’ sex lives) but the fact that I do feel comfortable telling them about that does not imply that we’re likely to bond. Someone’s reaction to finding out that I’m asexual can have a large effect on my subsequent relationship with them, but that carries similar weight to the effect of their reaction to learning other important facts about my personal identity, such as that I’m autistic—and the wrong kind of interest can be just as damaging as a negative reaction.
The other party in a relationship being willing to talk about their sex life is not necessary, but may be weakly useful; I don’t have very much evidence to draw from there. Of my two current very-close relationships, I know next to nothing about the sex life of the person I’m closer to, and a minor to moderate amount about the other person’s sex life, which does have an observably stronger effect than having a similar amount of information about, say, a person’s hobbies, but seems to be about on par with knowing about another aspect of someone’s identity.
Having sex seems to be moderately negatively correlated, for me, but that seems to be more of an artifact of my confusion regarding sexual relationships before I figured out that I’m asexual than anything having to do with the act itself.
Talking about the fact that I’m asexual is weakly positively correlated, but not observably causative: If I don’t feel comfortable enough around someone to be able to talk to them about that aspect of myself, it’s nearly guaranteed that I won’t bond with them (possible exception: if someone was very prudish, but we otherwise got along well, I would probably refrain from talking about the subject but would not count that against them if they weren’t aggressively judgmental about others’ sex lives) but the fact that I do feel comfortable telling them about that does not imply that we’re likely to bond. Someone’s reaction to finding out that I’m asexual can have a large effect on my subsequent relationship with them, but that carries similar weight to the effect of their reaction to learning other important facts about my personal identity, such as that I’m autistic—and the wrong kind of interest can be just as damaging as a negative reaction.
The other party in a relationship being willing to talk about their sex life is not necessary, but may be weakly useful; I don’t have very much evidence to draw from there. Of my two current very-close relationships, I know next to nothing about the sex life of the person I’m closer to, and a minor to moderate amount about the other person’s sex life, which does have an observably stronger effect than having a similar amount of information about, say, a person’s hobbies, but seems to be about on par with knowing about another aspect of someone’s identity.