Touch and Sexual Attraction

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This is a really weird thing I've noticed about myself. I feel VERY uncomfortable getting hugs from friends/family or giving physical affection in any way towards them. I also cannot console them. HOWEVER, if I have sexual feelings for someone, these issues are not a problem at all. In fact I am probably too touchy in such a scenario.

Is this an AS thing or something else altogether? Anyone else this way?

Possibly, there are different kinds of 'touching.'

i know how you feel. you're not alone.

Let me play Dr. Freud here for a second. Maybe you don't like touching your family members because you're subconsciously worried it might be construed as a sexual thing.

do you think this might have something
to do with having a very clearly defined role?
I mean when having sex most self-aware aspies
with some experience, know what goes where
and when to a great extent. However, when the
sexual energy ahas subsided and the subtle
interplay of tender touching and holding hands
takes over, this is when it gets hard, as this
is when expressio/communicationn of empathy
takes us out of the more clearly defined role
and objective of purely having sex.

What you reccon?

Okay, new theory: maybe you just don't like touching very much at all, but you know that touching people is the only way to initiate/perform sexual activity, so that's why you're only comfortable touching your sexual partners.

When I was a child I might harm myself (falling etc.): I immediately said "it'over, it's over!" (meaning the pain) because I didn't want to be hugged for consolation. Later I have always been clumsy in touching or hugging, also when I would have liked to do it. Even later, though I have been etero, I was fought internally between desire and fear and this resulted in very disturbed relationships with women I loved or who were attractive for me. I used to overcome anguish becoming "mechanical", that is shedding off emotion from sex.

When I was younger, I went through a long phase where the only people I touched were sexual partners......for some reason friends didn't touch, in my social circles at the time. Then I moved to another part of the city where people were a lot more touchy-feely. It felt kind of naughty at first, in fact that notion never completely wore off, maybe partly because the people concerned were relatively open to sex anyway, as they didn't particularly go for monogamy.

After that I got rather more used to the standard convention, though I must confess I still get some guilt and anxiety about touching people who have no sexual bond with me. Often when I chicken out of touching somebody, it's because I don't want them to think I'm coming on to them.

One factor is probably the fact that a sexual relationship by definition embodies almost total permission to touch........there's no longer any uncomfortable boundary between what you can touch and what you can't, so it feels much safer. Not that I've made any big mistakes with the other sort - just that I always seem to be mindful of the risk of possible sexual connotations. It's got a lot better now that I've got a number of platonic friends who like to hug me as a simple greeting. I think it's one of these things that I need to be used to before I can just take it in my stride........when it first started to happen I was pretty awkward about it and I think I gave people the impression that I didn't want them to touch me at all, and they'd look kind of rebuffed and wouldn't try again for a long time, which made me sad, because I wanted them to cuddle me but I was so nervous that I gave out the opposite signal.......it was always so unexpected that I'd just freeze up. Luckily enough people persevered and the whole process comes a lot more naturally now that I'm used to it.

I have the same feeling, it's much easier with sexual partners, and I think Toudh Diamond is on to something. With sexual partners, no touching is really off-limits and it's actually an activity in itself. With most other people I always have to check for what's appropriate, how the timing is, how hard or soft to touch, because the touching is some kind of social message. When sexual feelings are involved it seems the touching itself is more important than timing or content, if that makes any sense.

With my children I never feel uncomfortable (unless they touch me with their feet), but they came from my body and they have no judgements about me so it's a similar sense of freedom.

I don't like inappropriate touching of any kind.

I don't like to be touched by people, and didn't allow anyone to hug me growing up, although when I hit my 20's I decided that not allowing hugs was ridiculous, and caused more problems than it averted. I'm semi ok with it now, but will never initiate such a thing.

As far as sex goes, yes, touching becomes acceptable, even desirable, but not in any sort of "romantic" way, if that makes any sense. I mean, I need to turn sex into an impersonal thing in which the act itself is what matters, not who I'm with. And even then, I can never be 100% relaxed. I have never liked holding hands or other displays of affection, and when I was married (divorced now) I sometimes woke up from falling out of the bed after my warm-body-seeking cats and husband gradually chased my warm-body-phobic self right off the edge of the bed.