i don't have ASMR but i think it's funny when people try to convince me it's not a sexual thing

it's totally a sexual thing

It's not a sexual thing

It's free real estate

i don't have ASMR but i think it's funny when people try to convince me it's not a sexual thing

it's totally a sexual thing

If I remember it right, the current best-scientific-guess with the root of asmr is as an evolutionary leftover from grooming in monkey-men.

'Close' proximity, pseudo-touch (a bit like mirror boxes and out of body VR experiments) and the soothing voice aspect is a sort of mimicry of proto-humans/current higher apes and how they groom each other within the troop.

So you could argue that it is, and there would appear to be enough lewd asmr to indicate that it certainly is for a lot of people, but there is definitely a 'platonic' (couldn't think of a more fitting word) aspect more akin to parent-child bonding, to use a modern parallel because you probably don't just start checking the guy on the bus next to you for fleas and mites.

It's a fairly interesting phenomenon either way and if I ever have to go into psychology research I'm fairly sure I'd look at something like clinical applications of ASMR (a bit like computerised CBT) because a lot of people swear blind that it helps them with their insomnia/anxiety/depression and the like.

I do know of a few studies currently investigating it too but the names elude me.

Either way, it's not a purely sexual thing but there is an aspect of that to it.

https://peerj.com/articles/851/

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17470919.2016.1188851

Found the two studies I was thinking of

Study 1
Provides an overview of what ASMR is and what people experience it from/through, it also looks at rates of synaethesia in conjunction with ASMR-experiencing people and I think the rate was significiantly higher than general population

Study 2
This one is an FMRI thingummyjig that looks at what parts of the brain are activated during ASMR and what the neurological differences are between people who do and don't experience it.