Sexless and Proud

ByABC News
September 5, 2006, 10:27 AM

-- David Jay has had plenty of girlfriends.

But despite the 24-year-old Californian's success in dating, he's a virgin -- and he plans to stay that way.

He's not joining the priesthood or taking any vow of celibacy; he said he simply has no interest in having sex -- ever.

"I'm sure that life is really, really great when it's all about sex. But life is also really, really great when it's not about sex," he told "20/20's" JuJu Chang.

Keith Walker of Texas was married for four years, but said he had sex only a handful of times.

"I really had no real interest or desire for sex. It was certainly nothing that I would ever think to do."

Nancy Mulligan, a divorcee from Washington state, said her seven-year marriage was never consummated.

"We did other things. We'd watch out for each other. We were affectionate with each other," she said.

When ABC News first covered this story, Walker and Mulligan were just friends. They have since become romantically involved, but say their sex lives haven't changed.

Victoria Glancy and Karl Hodgetts got married in May. They had sex once, but have no real interest in doing it again and still consider themselves asexual.

For the remaining members, giving voice to asexuality is a proud mission.

"I don't really see any difference between our relationship and other people's relationships, except you know, we don't have sex," Glancy said.

Who are these people?

From different ages and walks of life, they share one thing in common -- not low libido, but no libido.

They call themselves "asexual," and they proclaim that they are not attracted to men or women.

Jay said his lack of libido was nothing new. He said he'd never experienced attraction -- to either sex.

"I realized that I was asexual because when I was young, all of my friends started being attracted to people, and I had no idea what they were talking about," he said.

It was the same way for Mulligan, who felt isolated for years.

"I thought I was the only one in the world. I had just kind of settled into the rut that I was different and decided to do the best I could with it," she said.

But now asexuals are building a community through a Web site -- asexuality.org. It has chat rooms, sells T-shirts, and says it has 11,000-plus members worldwide.