asmr has always been seen as somewhat sexual. the woman that coined the term said in an interview she picked the word meridian to replace orgasm, because she went looking for words that had a similar meaning to it and wanted words like orgasm or climax to be left from it, because she wanted to be as desexualized as possible.
but asmr can easily be sexual. i mean, half of it is someone whispering in your ear ffs. and sometimes the body can respond with something like getting you turned on from it.
lots of people want to steer from the sexual aspect of it, because they think it gives the community a bad name, and plenty of people see it as being somewhat sexual, while others fully embrace it
