sexual curiosity in aspie

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I think I see where pyraxis was going with this, and it didn't quite jump the gap:

I believe pyraxis was emphasizing (correct me if I'm wrong) that when you teach a child about how relationships are "supposed" to go, it puts pyschological pressure on them to follow that pattern, whether you mean to or not. The consequence is, the child can slide into a romantic/sexual relationship too early, emotionally speaking. Then, it's very hard to pull back and say, "Well, we know we told you that boys and girls usually are dating at 18, but we think you and Jimmy should take things more slowly. You don't know what you're getting into." At this point, the aspie boy or girl has a whole society telling him to go ahead with sex--rebel, if needs be--and reason falls on deaf ears.

There's much to what pyraxis is saying. It happened to me, too. I was 18, the girl was 20. I hadn't ever touched a woman before. Before long, we were deep in sexual exploration--though not the act itself--and it knocked me flat. I couldn't handle the emotional complexity of it all. I was very, very mature in most ways, but my emotions were years away from being able to handle sex. My parents had talked with me, told me everything I could want to know. The key omission was, they hadn't known to warn me about the emotional morass that occurs for both partners, or how magnified it would be for me.

I am 25 now, and I've had many girlfriends. But to be honest, as far as I am competent to judge, at this time I have the emotional maturity of an NT 18-year-old in many ways. That puts me roughly 7-8 years behind. I'm lucky: I've sorted out what happened, and I'm confident about a relationship in the future. But some--particularly girls--seem to come out of the teen rush badly bruised and angry at the whole sexual landscape.

I don't think hands-off is the correct approach, at least not for the parents. But a delayed-entry program into dating and mating might be a good option to keep handy. This would mean a great deal of couseling from you and a lot of support to counter-balance the pressure from friends, advertising, entertainment, magazines, and even school sex-ed telling her that teens and even early 20-somethings have lots of sex and it's all natural and fine. For her, that may well be false, and starting at the usual time in order to fit the mold could cause emotional backlash that dogs her for years.

Anyway, good luck with it all. It ain't easy, and I admire your efforts!

GroovyDruid that was a well thought out post... thank you for the insight. I kinda see where pyraxis is coming from, she's was just hoping that I'm not a parent that forces our child to be a certain way. We don't think our daughter is gay (and we're trying to "force" her to be straight) but she's currently at a real tough period in her life. At school she gets accused of being gay by some hurtful teenagers at her school. She doesn't know why they think she's gay. She isn't able to put together the 2+2 fact that if you dress plainly, don't show any interest in clothes, your hair, makeup, jewelry (and importantly->) boys ..... well, people are going to be suspicious of your sexual orientation. And in high school "suspicion" = teasing.

But on the flip side of all this, she privately tells her mom that she IS interested in boys, and that she wishes she had a boyfriend ! She's actually depressed because she sees her girlfriends one by one beginning to pair off with boys as they all get older. She sees how happy they seem and how all the want to talk about is their boyfriends. The problem is she's clueless on how to have a relationship like that.

Her Mom is constantly working on getting her to dress a little nicer, pay attention to her grooming and things. We've been hoping that once she graduates high school things will improve for her because the maturity level of the people around her jumps in dog-years once you get out of high school and into college. GroovyD has kinda given me some light to see at the end of the tunnel.

Hmm... I was just like that, except that I was yelling "indecent!", and refusing to look at and hear anything sex-related. This continued well into my 20s. I was genuinely uninterested in these matters. When I was nearly 18, I was asked by a classmate if I was interested in girls, to which I gave an honest answer and expressed a bewilderment about the concept. That caused me being mistaken for a gay, but it did not cause any social repercussions (I was teased and ostracised already, and too withdrawn to be affected by gossip). In my teens I had bad hygiene habits; these improved when I was nearly 21 (and that happened because my parents installed a shower cabin in the bathroom, which helped me develop an effective bathing routine).

I never became interested in the opposite sex and never dated; the whole concept seemed alien. But at age 33 I met an aspie girl. We started hanging out together, gradually got used to each other, and now we can't image being separate. My girlfriend has similar problems as I, so while we want to have an intimate relationship and work hard toward this goal, it is clear that this will be a long and difficult process. After more than a year, kissing is still on a "to do" list, but I learned hugging!

I learned about sex/sexuality/puberty at about age 9. I was usually very quiet about sex, especially with my mother (even though I am an Aspie I still didn't want to talk to her about it). But now I'm very open. I think a little too open.

But I'm still pretty asexual. I just honestly don't think about it very often. Which is probably a good thing. Too complicated and confusing (the relationship part, that is). I'm much happier with my books and the internet forums and my art and writing and school. Sexual pleasure is a very fleating experience. And despite that that spike has the potential to be addictive, I find I crave intellectual pursuits far more consistently. And their pleasure also last longer, hehe.

My oldest child is bipolar, and she was the most conservative human being I'd ever met. Thin and beautiful, she would only wear long dresses and pants. She didn't like tv shows or music that went past a pg-13 rating, and this was at 16 years old. Matter of fact, the morning of her 16th birthday, she went to see Ronald McDonald!

Fast forward two years, suddenly I don't know this person. She has a child, (who I've since adopted) moves in with every cab driver that picks her up from work. Oh and work? "Exotic dancer". I have NO CLUE what happened there. Now she's married and settled down, but still "dances".

My 11 year old son is my aspie, and he gave me a panic and a glimpse into the not so distant future last night. He walked into the living room and said Mom, what are hormones? With my heart in my throat I explained they are chemicals created by the body, and gee, what made you ask? This time it was a commercial for hormone free chicken. LOL However, my day is coming. Our school doesn't do the "movies" so it's all on me. We've already had many discussions about hygiene, but I guess I better start the ball rolling.

I did a quick internet search and found out how far behind I am. My daughter is going to be 7 soon. Apparently it is common for young girls to start to blossom by age 9. I'm so not ready for this. Barnes and Noble, here I come.

That would be me.

Also - your daughter may just do it if you show too much concern that she is not pursuing a relationship with a boy. I know I was teased and called names in school because I did not act like a typical ditzy girl swooning at boys. (Maybe I was looking for a relationship with someone mature and not some goofy boy either). Either way - I did not know enough about the social cues on what boys to avoid or even the nuances about sex. I think we focus too much on telling kids the PHYSICAL info about sex, but not the social aspect of sexual relationships. Alot of not so good boys may defintely show an interest in an inexperienced and passive Aspie girl. Who may also tolerate alot more abuse than an NT girl just to not have to deal with the "your not dating" problem or even know the difference that the relationship isn't normal or that other girls don't put up with this stuff.

My daughter is waiting to be dx with Aspergers, but it sure looks as though she has. her father my hubby also has Aspergers. My husband doesn't like talking about sex while the "children are around. The children are 19 and 20 years old. And daughter's boyfriend who lives with us is nearly 20 years old. Untill my daughter started courting with her aspie boyfriend she didn't like talking about sex except in an intellectual way. Our son also aspie loves talking about it. Now both daughter and her boyfriend talk about it with me, it's amazing how much I am learning. yes how much I am learning, it seems Adam has researched the subject himself and is a bagfull of information.

Like all Nts all Aspies have their own time to want to know and learn about sex, there not very different in this regard. I have read they do have low sex drives, but others have high sex drives just like Nts. try reading the mature forum and you may get some idea what other aspies view on sex is.

I am reminded of my sex ed classes in school. My teacher seemed to be terrified of answering my questions. I remember one lesson which was mostly a Q&A session where the teacher answered our sex ed questions. Like good little students, we would all put up our hand when we wanted to ask a question, and wait for the teacher to tell us when we could ask our question.

Well, I put up my hand, same as the other students were doing, and waited, and waited, and waited. She kept giving the go-ahead to other students who had their hand up, while completely ignoring me. I was persistent so I continued to hold my hand up while she continued to ignore me. If I was the only person with a hand up, she would talk about something until another kid put his hand up, and then she would give the go-ahead to that other student. She was willing to answer everyone's questions except for mine.

So I kept my hand up for nearly the entire lesson (30 mins?) but she could not bring herself to give me the go-ahead. Eventually the end-of-class bell rang, so I never did get to ask my question of her. I think she was too scared to have me ask my question in front of the whole class. I think she must have known that I would ask a sort of question that was in an entirely different class/type than what the other NT students asked.

After the lesson, I remember that other kids commented how very nervous she was during the lesson and joked about it a bit. I do not recall noticing that she was nervous, which is unsurprising considering my aspy status.

Unfortunately I do not remember what the question was Now as an adult I think this whole experience is highly amusing, but back then I did not understand it.