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Study: Many Asexual People Fantasize About Having Sex

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A new study finds that people who identify as asexual still fantasize about having sex.

According to CNN, researchers from the University of British Columbia found that 351 of the asexuals surveyed, nearly half of women and 75 percent of men said they masturbate and experience sexual fantasies.

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"Further, there was significant overlap in the sexual fantasies experienced by participants, regardless of their asexual or sexual status. Sexual fantasies have long been thought to reveal an individual's innermost desires," the study said. "However, the current data suggest that if this is true, individuals do not necessarily act on these desires. An asexual individual may not experience sexual attraction, but may nonetheless engage in sexual fantasy, perhaps to facilitate physiological sexual arousal and masturbation. The sexual fantasies may not be reflections of innate sexual wants or desires."

The study also found that when asexual men and women have sexual fantasies, they usually don't include themselves in them.

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"I don't put myself into my fantasies. That is thoroughly unappealing to me. Instead, I imagine other people in sexual situations, and focus on their thoughts and feelings for a sort of vicarious arousal," a 32-year-old female participant said. "I don't want to do anything sexual with any of the people I imagine, and by themselves, they don't turn me on. I think it's because I'm not capable of feeling sexual attraction or lust, so I mentally conjure up people who are and empathize with them (though my ideas of how they experience lust are, since I'm asexual, awfully vague in some ways and probably way off base in others."

The study was published in Archives of Sexual Behavior.

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