# Has a celebrity ever "come out" as asexual? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 17, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544 "2014-02-17T16:06:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bellhorn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@Bellhorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bellhorn)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/21 "2014-02-17T18:32:41Z")
I’m not sure why a celebrity would actually “come out” as an asexual. Maybe the rationale for Ms. Garofalo was to deflate the rumors that she was bisexual. I do remember, Patrick MacNee (John Steed from The Avengers tv series) claiming to have been celibate for a decade or so. Same thing with Orson Bean between 1979 and 1993 (between marriages. I thought it was a pretty odd topic bring up on a talk show. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/22 "2014-02-17T18:49:20Z")
> [@Bellhorn](#): > > I’m not sure why a celebrity would actually “come out” as an asexual. If people keep speculating that you must gay because you don’t have a man or woman on your arm, what else are you supposed to do but “come out” as asexual? Or if someone is interviewing you and asking about your personal life, it makes sense to disclose this information, since it’s relevant to who you are. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/23 "2014-02-17T19:07:48Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > And that’s the problem. If you say you don’t have any sexual feelings, most people, regardless of their own orientation, will call bullshit. I think the bullshit was about the rumor he said it (in that he probably didn’t say it), not that if he actually said it that the feelings were bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/24 "2014-02-17T19:22:35Z")
I am not sure who said it (Ian McKellen?) but I recall one actor saying, “I’m gay, but at my age, it is all just in theory anyway.” ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/25 "2014-02-17T19:36:25Z")
Malacandra quotes Stephen Fry: “I would be greatly in the debt of the man who could tell me what could tell me what could ever be appealing about those damp, dark, foul-smelling and revoltingly tufted areas of the body that constitute the main dishes in the banquet of love.” I would suggest that here, Stephen is just expressing – in a slightly novel way – a sentiment that many others (who have often not been asexual) have voiced in the past. I recall – from memory, probably not with great accuracy – something similar from Leonardo da Vinci, to the general effect of: “The sexual act, and the areas of the body most closely involved with it, are so disgusting; that the human race would have died out long ago if there were not pretty faces and sensual natures.” I have to feel that it’s possible to see where these folk are coming from with these views. Looking at the copulation thing coolly and objectively, it can indeed seem pretty revolting. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/26 "2014-02-17T19:50:03Z")
Indeed. But if it colours your view of sexuality so thoroughly that you can’t imagine wanting to do it, then that probably qualifies you as asexual; which was the topic under discussion, and not whether or not Fry had grounds for feeling that way or was in any way original. His novel _The Liar_, which wasn’t so much autobiographical as “how I wish my schooldays had really been” if I read it aright, had a protagonist who was happily seeking out all manner of homosexual experiences at school and after before settling down with a nice young lady at university via an informative but somewhat traumatic fling with an older woman… if, once again, my memory is recording the facts at all well after an interval of twenty-odd years. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/27 "2014-02-17T19:53:49Z")
Yes – sorry – I was just rather taken with Fry’s hyperbolic but hitting-home words, and thus led astray into off-topic-ness. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/28 "2014-02-17T20:21:12Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Indeed. But if it colours your view of sexuality so thoroughly that you can’t imagine wanting to do it, then that probably qualifies you as asexual; which was the topic under discussion, and not whether or not Fry had grounds for feeling that way or was in any way original. Yeah, but I think the tone of the article was exaggerated for comic effect. As you noted, Fry’s quasi-autobiographical novel as well as his own actual autobiography have made it clear that he’s not emotionally or physically indifferent to sex, and has had quite a lot of sexual experience over various stages of his life, almost all of it with other males. His temporary though long-term abstention(s?) from sex, and his satirical remarks in that article about the aesthetic shortcomings of sex (somewhat undercut, if you recall, by the article’s closing sentence, “Besides, I’m scared that I may not be very good at it”), do not IMHO equate to an actual orientation towards asexuality. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/29 "2014-02-17T20:44:48Z")
Tim Gunn has, IIRC, come out as something like post-sexual. He had his heart broken in the early 80s and hasn’t been in a relationship since. I’m not sure he’s been too explicit, but I believe he implied that he’s been celibate in that time. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/30 "2014-02-17T20:48:10Z")
Fry has also struggled for a long time with depression, and if it was something he wrote twenty years ago, that would put it right around the time of his nervous breakdown and brief disappearance. Even if the piece weren’t partly satirical, it probably wouldn’t be a very reliable account of Fry’s internal state at the time. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/31 "2014-02-17T23:59:40Z")
Morrissey has stated that he’s asexual. Whatever he is is his own business. Henry Rollins claims he’s straight, but he has always struck me as asexual, too. ---
**Author:** ![Esco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9de053/32.png) [@Esco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esco)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/32 "2014-02-18T00:54:34Z")
Wow, total number is at 1%. That means in North-America aboot 3.6 million dont enjoy sex. These poor, poor people ☹ > **[Asexuality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality)** > > Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity. It may be considered a sexual orientation or the lack thereof. It may also be categorized more widely, to include a broad spectrum of asexual sub-identities. > Asexuality is distinct from abstention from sexual activity and from celibacy, which are behavioral and generally motivated by factors such as an individual's personal, social, or religious beliefs. Sexual orientation, unli... ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/33 "2014-02-18T01:02:50Z")
Boy George famously declared that he would rather have “[a nice cup of tea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_George#Sexual_orientation)” than sex. Other things he has said, however, seem to contradict this. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/34 "2014-02-18T02:19:40Z")
> [@Esco](#): > > These poor, poor people ☹ I have nothing but pity for them myself. I bet they get lots of headaches from rolling their eyes so much. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/35 "2014-02-18T02:22:21Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > I am not sure who said it (Ian McKellen?) but I recall one actor saying, “I’m gay, but at my age, it is all just in theory anyway.” In another thread I was able to quote John Mahoney on the subject. I was not able to find the cite again. Mahoney long has been the subject of gay rumors. In the cite he still wouldn’t confirm or deny but basically said that due to decades of health issues(including a colostomy) sex was something that was in his past. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/36 "2014-02-18T02:29:01Z")
The authoritative source on this topic is of course Straightdope polls. So: “What type of sexual are you?” A(sexual) is chosen by 2.72% > **[What type of sexual are you?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=691724)** > > Today at work a 24 year old guy and myself, a 58 year old woman, got into a discussion of the joys and frustrations of being asexual. I realized that everyone within earshot was listening, and the crowd was growing bigger as other people came over.... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/37 "2014-02-18T03:29:31Z")
It seems to me that there might be a financial disincentive to celebrities coming out as asexual. If you’re a straight man or a gay woman, the tabloids can run articles about what woman you might or might not be romantically entangled with. If you’re a gay man or a straight woman, they can run articles about what man you might or might not be entangled with. Either way, you get your name in the media, people recognize you, and casting directors want you. Even if you’re a closeted asexual, the media can still run these stories, and they’ll just be 100% baseless instead of 90%. But if you come out as asexual, there’s not much more to say, and you lose out on all that publicity. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/38 "2014-02-18T03:39:05Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I have nothing but pity for them myself. I bet they get lots of headaches from rolling their eyes so much. Thank you! If it’s not cool to judge someone for being LGBT (and frankly, society has a long way to go before they truly accept transgendered people), it’s not cool to judge someone for being asexual, either. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/39 "2014-02-18T03:40:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It seems to me that there might be a financial disincentive to celebrities coming out as asexual. If you’re a straight man or a gay woman, the tabloids can run articles about what woman you might or might not be romantically entangled with. If you’re a gay man or a straight woman, they can run articles about what man you might or might not be entangled with. Either way, you get your name in the media, people recognize you, and casting directors want you. Even if you’re a closeted asexual, the media can still run these stories, and they’ll just be 100% baseless instead of 90%. But if you come out as asexual, there’s not much more to say, and you lose out on all that publicity. Yeah. Tabloid audiences are probably not that receptive to stories of exceptionally beautiful and/or charming people just staying home with a good book. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544/40 "2014-02-18T03:50:51Z")
Does the Pope count as a celebrity? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-celebrity-ever-come-out-as-asexual/681544.md?page=3)