Template:Vital article

	Asexuality has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result December 22, 2011 Good article nominee Listed January 2, 2017 Good article reassessment Listed
Current status: Good article

Sexology and sexuality GA‑class High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of human sexuality on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Sexology and sexualityWikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexualityTemplate:WikiProject Sexology and sexualitySexology and sexuality articles GA This article has been rated as GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Asexuality/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

Although this is an important page with interesting and vital information, it is by no means a good wikipedia article, mainly because of its reliance on primary sources (university studies and opinion polls) and sometimes biased opinions.

A large proportion of the 'facts' claimed are based on research by Bogaert. - I followed a few citations from the main body and leading paragraph and found that of the 20 citations, at least 8 either directly or indirectly used Bogaert as a source. Bogaret's evidence from 1994 extrapolated asexuality based on an answer of no attraction to either sex when asked on sexual desire. While these positions are near, they are not synonymous and therefore his conclusions cannot be read as empirical evidence.

Another very large issue with this page and the evidence it is based upon is the fact that in surveys, rather than people with 'asexual' qualities and experiences being retrospectively labeled asexual, these participants are self proclaimed asexuals. I think that this has a bearing on how the surveys were answered. If i were to start a survey and first say 'yes i am an asexual', I would then (this is opinion) make sure that my answers were in keeping with what i believed asexuality to be. The survey i refer to is source [3] This study, in the intro, states its aim as to "provide exploratory data for future hypothesis-driven research". In its findings it also states: "further research is needed on the correlates of asexuality (it used a piece of 2004 Bogaret data in comparison to find this conclusion). This study is cited 13 times in the article, and considering that that is nearly 10% of all citations on this page, i think it must be taken into account that this pivotal and crucial piece of evidence says itself that it is only exploratory data, which used qualitative open question essays (which has lead to purportedly empirical evidence.

For me the section "Discrimination and legal protections" is really not great. Its portrayal of asexual struggles is not backed up by any empirical real world prejudice, just opinions and polls from people likely already interested in LGBT+ issues.

Of the 75 sources, under 20 appeared to be either secondary, reliable or even relevant; of the 146 citations, 50% (73) are from just 12 sources, which i analysed and found that 7 were written by or relied heavily on research by Bogaert. Meaning that 44 out of 146 citations (35%) are reliant on a single man's findings, which have been disputed (See source 31). I haven't got time to critique the rest of the article, but if you check out everything i've said, it quickly becomes clear that this article is not based on fact and is misleading - at best. Good, reliable, secondary sources are a must for any good article, and therefore the good article symbol must be removed and the evidence re-examined. Either better evidence must be found, or it must be accepted that as this is a relatively new field in social science, it will take more time before concrete, encyclopaedic worthy evidence is found.

(the 12 sources i researched were: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 15, 17, 22, 31, 32 (sources with 4 or more citations)) Callum radiator (talk) 13:42, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted you on your removal of the "good article" template. I realize that you might not understand this since your Wikipedia account has very few edits edits attached to it, but, at this stage, you do not have the power to remove the "good article" template. Looking at your account, I also very much doubt that you are a newbie, but I may concern myself with that at a later date.

Now to address your points, asexuality is not well-researched; the article is clear about that. As seen here, the article is based on WP:Tertiary and secondary sources when it can be. Otherwise, it is based on primary sources, which is fine, given the limited data out there about this topic. Even WP:MEDDATE, which applies to some aspects of this article, states, "These instructions are appropriate for actively researched areas with many primary sources and several reviews and may need to be relaxed in areas where little progress is being made or where few reviews are published." Bogaert is the leading researcher in this field; so it is obvious that a lot of material will be based on his findings, but there is also a lot of material in the article not based on his findings. Good articles can exist even for topics that are relatively new in the field of social science; being relatively new in the field of social science is not a valid reason to delist an article that is generally well-sourced and is based on the available literature for that topic. And, for the record, all sexual orientation identity material is based on self-identification; there is no biological test that identifies a person's sexual orientation. Surveys, polls and similar is how sexual orientation identity material is gathered.

This article has been subject to significant WP:Student editing since it was elevated to GA status, and, as the edit history of its talk page shows (for example, see here), I have encouraged the students to use secondary sources, not primary sources. In some cases where they have used primary sources instead of secondary sources, this can be easily remedied. WP:Good article reassessment is not article cleanup. You did not follow the WP:Good article reassessment protocol. For one, it states, "Where possible, editors should conduct an individual reassessment, while community reassessment should be used if delisting is likely to be controversial." Why would you think an individual reassessment would not be controversial in this case? WP:Good article reassessment also states, "The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. The goal should not be to delist the article, but to restore it back to its former good article quality, if possible."

WP:Good article reassessment also states, "Before attempting to have any article delisted through reassessment, take these steps:

Fix any simple problems yourself. Do not waste minutes explaining or justifying a problem that you could fix in seconds. GAR is not a forum to shame editors over easily fixed problems.

Tag serious problems that you cannot fix with appropriate template messages, if the templates will help other editors find the problems. Do not tag bomb the article.

Make sure that the problems you see in the article are covered by the actual good article criteria. Many problems, including the presence of dead URLs, inconsistently formatted citations, and compliance with the Manual of Style are not covered by the GA criteria and therefore not grounds for delisting.

Notify major contributors to the article and the relevant Wikiprojects. Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it."

You did none of that...unless we are counting this small edit you made (and I did re-remove that). Your main issue is with the sourcing. If you can find better sourcing, then you are supposed to do it yourself. This reassessment should be closed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:54, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise for not following proper protocol, i was rushed and honestly i find a lot of the methods on wikipedia infinitely confusing. My main issue is with sourcing, but that means that my main issue is with the actual information too. I could not find better sources if i wanted to, because the information is only available from these few sources who's scientific information i dispute. It feels as though you haven't read my assessment and have just ignored my issues. On another point, for a page to be a good article, it needs be neutral in point of view. I disagree that this article is neutral and scientifically based, particularly in the discrimination section. I looked at the original article and it is distinctly different from the article as it stands now. It is not the same article, it has different information, and different sources. This page should be reassessed anyway on the basis that it is too different from the page which was originally listed as a good article. My source issue is much greater than you make it out to be, as the article relies on primary scientific data, and news companies reporting this primary data - these do not make for reliable secondary sources. wikipedia defines a primary source as "the original publication of a scientist's new data, results and theories". The discrimination section is based on one single poll. I do not need to find better sources, i honestly think a lot of the information must be removed as it is based on (as i said above) too few studies- some of which self admit to only being exploratory. Without proper hypothesis driven research, many of the main points are simply not valid as each point is generally backed up by one or two 'sources' which once i looked into them, lead back to one of three studies. I'm aware that i may not be making myself clear, and i may come off as a madman. I apologise. I want this article to be good. I think that this article needs to have a community reassessment due to the facts that: -it is almost a different article from the one that was given its good article status some years ago. -Its inclusion of certain information (discrimination) shows a clear bias -Some of the information cannot be purported as fact because there is simply not enough evidence. Again, i am not an internet wizz-kid so i apologise for my methods. please take this criticism seriously Callum radiator (talk) 14:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I read your assessment, which is why I explained why I disagree with it. Your assessment is mainly based on the fact that you dispute the validity of asexuality/whatever science there may be behind asexuality because the sources are based on self-identified asexuals. Like I've noted to you above, "all sexual orientation identity material is based on self-identification; there is no biological test that identifies a person's sexual orientation. Surveys, polls and similar is how sexual orientation identity material is gathered." I've read enough people disputing asexuality on the article talk page in the talk page's earlier days. The fact that asexuality is disputed is made very clear in the Asexuality article (including in the lead of the article), but the fact that it is disputed does not mean that we are not supposed to report on what these sources state. Wikipedia goes by WP:Notability and WP:Verifiability first and foremost, and there are enough primary, tertiary and secondary sources reporting on the asexual identity and on categorizing it as a sexual orientation. These days, it is not unusual for asexuality to be thought of as the fourth sexual orientation, alongside heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality. This article does not state the existence of asexuality as a definitive fact; it is very clear that asexuality is not yet widely accepted as a sexual orientation. It's also clear about it being accepted enough that researchers debate it. See the WP:Neutral policy; actually read it. Being neutral on Wikipedia does not mean what being neutral means in common discourse. And either way, this article presents both sides when it comes to the existence of asexuality. Wikipedia does not state that we cannot use primary sources. It cautions against us relying too heavily on primary sources. In the case of asexuality, there are enough tertiary and secondary sources reporting on the primary research. I can easily find such sources on Google Books. There is certainly primary-sourced material in this article that I can source to tertiary or secondary sources; so the issue of using primary sources in some of the instances is easily fixed. In other instances, we can use primary sources until tertiary or secondary sources are available for the material, as long as we don't violate the WP:Synthesis policy or the WP:Editorializing guideline. The Discrimination and legal protections section is not supported by one source. If there are sources that challenge what is stated in that section, then we are supposed to present them if they are WP:Reliable and are not too WP:Fringe. If there are no such sources, then I do not see what you think should be done about what is stated in that section. Either way, the argument that this small section needs improvement is not a valid reason to delist this article. Your complaints about the article are not covered by the good article criteria, that is my point. Going by what WP:Good article reassessment states, it does not seem that you truly want to improve this article. It seems that you simply want to delist it because you dispute the validity of asexuality since we can't prove that asexual people exist other than by their claims and/or some researchers claims that they exist. That's not the way that delisting an article is supposed to work. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As for how this article looked in 2011 when I brought it to WP:GA status, a lot of it has remained the same with some alterations. Anyway, today, I will replace some of the primary-sourced material with tertiary or secondary sources since we should generally be using the latter type of sources. In other cases, I might simply place a tertiary or secondary source beside the primary source. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:30, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

With this edit, I added some tertiary or secondary sources in place of primary sources or in conjunction with existing primary sources, including this 2016 Introducing the New Sexuality Studies Routledge source that explains how a person might be identified as asexual by researchers. It's not simply a matter of a person identifying as asexual; well, not for a lot of cases anyway. The edit also shows that I removed some material. Most of the stuff in the article is indeed covered in the literature by tertiary or secondary sources; I'll see about replacing other primary sources, or adding tertiary or secondary sources alongside existing primary sources, at a later date. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Asexuality. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070927014407/http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/publications/PDF/PrauseGrahamPDF.pdf to http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/publications/PDF/PrauseGrahamPDF.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Y An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:22, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have checked this. —♫CheChe♫ talk 12:38, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted these recent changes made by this, this and this IP. The second IP is likely the first IP. I reverted because not only did they change text away from what WP:Reliable, WP:Secondary sources state, they overly relied on AVEN sourcing. AVEN is a WP:Primary source, and Wikipedia articles should not overly rely on those. AVEN does not trump the reliable secondary sources. We already give AVEN's definition of asexuality in the "Definition, identity and relationships" section. Per WP:Due weight, that is all the leeway it gets when it comes to defining asexuality. Edits like this are problematic because they add WP:Weasel wording "some" (which should be avoided unless needed) and focus on what "many asexuals have described" via AVEN. This alteration does not help. Furthermore, the source does not state "many or most asexuals would describe themselves as merely having a different type of sexual orientation." It simply states that asexuality is a sexual orientation; we already note that asexuality may or may not be viewed as a sexual orientation. The lead does not need to go into about gray asexuality. Per WP:Lead, the lead is a summary. All gray asexuality needs is a sentence in the lead, not a paragraph. And per WP:Lead, the lead should ideally not exceed four paragraphs. The IP made the lead into five paragraphs to focus on gray asexuality. The %1 aspect that the IP added to the lead should not be there since that percentage focuses on Britain and is perhaps not accurate regarding the overall prevalence of asexuality; this is made clear in the Prevalence section. This is why the 1% aspect was removed from the lead before.

The IP is more than welcome to come here and make his/her/their case. I will alert the IP to my revert and why I reverted, pointing the IP to this section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:24, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also go ahead and address the IP adding the following to the lead paragraph: "many asexual individuals prefer to define 'sexual activity' as being limited to 'procreative type sex' only, and prefer to consider other forms of physical contact with the opposite sex as not necessarily forms 'sexual activity,' as they would define them." This bit is unsourced and should not be in the lead paragraph. It also should not be in the lead since the "procreative sex" argument is not made lower in the article first. Again, the lead is supposed to summarize. It should not contain elements not already summarized lower (not usually anyway). Furthermore, the lead already states in the second paragraph: "Some asexual people engage in sexual activity despite lacking sexual attraction or a desire for sex, due to a variety of reasons, such as a desire to pleasure themselves or romantic partners, or a desire to have children." And that is enough for the lead on how asexuals may view sexual activity. And, yes, "some" is fine in this case since it is speaking of asexual people in general, not anyone notable. By contrast, the "some" that the IP added could make one wonder what authoritative source or what scholar has stated such, which can then lead to a Template:Who tag. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:43, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have noticed that the editorial-consensus-process does not seem to be taking place very much on this page. I hope that a more group oriented editorial consensus process might evolve here sometime soon. I was admittedly the editor whose last 16 edits here were most recently mass-reverted. I have now adopted an "alternate" user id specifically for the purpose of editing this article, which purpose, so long as I do not use any other user-id for the editing of this article (sock puppetry), is a legitimate purpose for the use of an alternate user-id. I have opted to use an alternate user-id here as I am a self described asexual myself who has edited here for some time, but due to what I pervieve as lingering biases against asexualism, I have opted not to associate my main user-id with my edits on this article.

While I can agree with a few of the explanations given for this mass-revert, other reasons, such as the preference to use the word "anyone" in the first sentence of the lead, may require a little more discussion and clarification before I could agree with the logic behind them. I must confess, the wording of the reverted lead currently appears to me to reflect a slight "anti-asexual bias" which so far, I have not been able to find in the actual sources on asexuality. Reading the reverted lead seems to me to lead readers to the conclusion that asexuality is still primarily viewed as a pathology, which the sources on asexuality do not seem to me to support. Rather, the majority of the current sources that I have found seem to me to support the view that it is now primarily accepted amongst researchers as a bonafide sexual orientation and no longer as primarily a pathology. It seems to me that we may have to do much more discussion on this page on these types of concerns in the time ahead in order to come to a consensus here.

Beginning with the first sentence, after carefully reviewing the refs already provided for the first sentence, I have slightly reworded the first sentence of the article to accurately reflect the refs. Please note that asexuals are known to masturbate, and as such one could say they are sometimes attracted to themselves, most probably thus the use of the words within the sources of "other individuals." I will go through the lead of this article line by line in similar fashion in the days and possibly weeks ahead, in my effort to try to improve this article.

Let us hope that we might be able to restore this article once again to its former "Good article" status as assessed in an uncontested peer-reviewed way by multiple established editors. May such a peer-reviewed assessment be achieved through a quality building editorial-consensus-building and genuine discussion process here. I would personally love to be able to provide a positive peer-review to the re-assessment discussion, thus strengthening this review, and enabling us to call our review a true consensus. Until we have had such fair and reasonable discussions here about this article, I feel I could not yet do so.

Thanks,

Warrenfrank (talk) 06:47, 13 June 2017 (UTC) (Notifications:@Flyer22 Reborn:,@Callum radiator:)[reply]

Proposed general direction for upcoming revisions to the lead

By comparing the last peer reviewed GA version of this article (from Dec. 22, 2011) to the current version, the wording in the lead seems to me to have clearly drifted away from preferring to highlight the preference within a majority of the sources to regard asexuality as a bonafide sexual orientation. During this same period, the lead of the article has stopped citing any statistics in the lead about researcher estimates for the percentage of the population that is asexual. As suggested, I agree that perhaps better cites and statistics on this one point could be used than previously used.

It also seems to me that the lead still lacks a clear and concise definition of what asexualism actually is rather than merely stating what it is not. EG paraphrasing the current lead. " ...asexualism is essentially a lack of sexual feelings..."

Any feedback from others on these concerns of mine here would be most appreciated, before I attempt to try to create a new revision of the rest of the lead. I like to believe that a good editorial consensus in an article can often reflect a broader and more helpful view than any one individual's opinion, and thus it can ultimately create a better article. Short of any willingness by others to try to freely discuss such things here, true consensus becomes undoable.

Thanks,

Warrenfrank (talk) 14:09, 15 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Warrenfrank. No need to WP:Ping me since this page is on my watchlist. Callum radiator was a new account that showed up out of the blue to start Talk:Asexuality/GA2. It was started without much validity, as I made clear in that discussion. During that discussion, I edited the article to address sourcing issues, however.

As for your issue with the lead sentence, I do not see what you mean. I reverted you again because asexuality, as shown by the sources, is not solely about sexual attraction with regard to others. The sources address having a low or absent sex drive in general as well, meaning toward masturbation too. Some asexuals masturbate; some don't. You argue that asexuals are sexually attracted to themselves, in the case of those who masturbate, but the sources do not define asexuality as people being sexually attracted to themselves. And if they were able to find themselves sexually attractive, there is an argument that they should be able to find the bodies of others sexually attractive as well. For asexuals, masturbation is not about sexual attraction, seemingly so anyway, although one does wonder how they are able to become sexually aroused if no sexual attraction is involved. In the "Definition, identity and relationships" section, we note that "the need or desire for masturbation is commonly referred to as sex drive by asexuals and they disassociate it from sexual attraction and being sexual; asexuals who masturbate generally consider it to be a normal product of the human body and not a sign of latent sexuality, and may not even find it pleasurable." In the case of asking how people are able to become sexually aroused if no sexual attraction is involved, we know that women can suddenly become sexually aroused a little before and/or after menstruation. And we know that men can get an erection for different reasons (meaning without even thinking of someone sexually).

So, because some asexuals do not masturbate, I am opposed to changing "or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity" to "or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity with others." I can agree to changing "to anyone" to "toward individuals," but this can leave people thinking that asexuals might be sexually attracted to non-human animals. Yes, I have seen questions regarding that. Although non-human animals are not considered to be anyone (as in a person), it's clearer to readers to state "to anyone" as opposed to "toward individuals." And as for using "towards other individuals," this can leave people wondering why "other" is there. Clearly, you added it there because of your argument about asexuals being sexually attracted to themselves, but I addressed the "attracted to themselves" aspect earlier in this comment. I'm not sure why you think stating "to anyone" is pathologizing asexuality, but it isn't. Neither is excluding "with others." The lead sentence should make it clear that asexuality may be defined as not having sexual attraction to anyone or as having a low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity. And per WP:Scare quotes, "sexual activity" should not be in quotation marks or italics like your editing did. The lead sentence changing from how it was in 2011 is a natural progression and improvement of the article. It is not a reflection of any deterioration of the article. In a number of ways, the article has improved from how it was back in 2011, and so has my knowledge of the topic.

You stated, "Rather, the majority of the current sources that I have found seem to me to support the view that it is now primarily accepted amongst researchers as a bonafide sexual orientation and no longer as primarily a pathology." We are not pathologizing asexuality; we are noting that it may or may not be considered a sexual orientation. And this is true. Asexuality still is not commonly listed among the sexual orientations heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality. It sometimes is, but not always or even mostly. Certain researchers, especially those specializing in or focusing on asexuality, defining asexuality as a sexual orientation is not the same as the wider sexual orientation and/or scientific community doing so.

You stated, "asexualism actually is rather than merely stating what it is not. EG paraphrasing the current lead. 'asexualism is essentially a lack of sexual feelings...' ." We go by what the reliable sources state. They mostly define asexuality by what it is not, which also happens to be what asexuality is. Asexuality is defined by "not having," "absence" and "lack of." It is not usually called asexualism.

I disagree with citing any statistics in the lead for precisely the reasons made clear in the Prevalence section -- that is, the much reported 1% applies to the British population and we do not know how many asexual people there really are.

You should reply to me here in this section instead of starting a new section. That way, an actual discussion is going on, instead of you simply responding to no one in particular and/or talking over me. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:27, 16 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]