I used to do something similar to this when I was younger. Details are too embarrassing, but I actually ended up identified as "that kid who -" It was what people knew me by. Defining characteristic. Maybe I thought I was below the radar, but obviously not. When someone said this identification to my face, what everyone had previously only been saying behind my back, that pretty much snapped me out of doing this in public. I was made aware of it and embarrassed enough to become conscious of the behaviour and stop doing it.
And I think you're absolutely right about different presentations of autism here. Someone who is severely autistic is going to be excused doing inappropriate things much more easily than someone who blends in better and appears "normal," or their autism isn't as noticeable to others.
I once worked with people with both severe intellectual and physical disabilities, for example. Profoundly disabled people who required 24 hour complete care. These people could completely get away with playing with themselves, biting themselves, screaming, hitting, thrashing, pissing themselves, etc. Because people understood that this behaviour wasn't indecent on purpose - they were disabled. They could not control these behaviours.
I'm not saying someone as intellectually capable as you should not try to curtail his more inappropriate behaviour, only that if someone is obviously disabled, concessions are absolutely made by the general public around behaviour.
There is no way you'd end up with a criminal record for bad behaviour as a severely autistic person. It's like saying one of these intellectually disabled people would end up with a criminal record for punching people (which they did).
The same conditions do not apply to disabled people as they do others without disabilities.
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Alexithymia - 147 points.
Low-Verbal.