Autistic Sexuality (article)

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I'm currently unable to reply fully to everything I intended. However, I am able to reply to a few of the points quickly.

This has actually been studied several times. There were some papers in the '90s and a recent one I can think of where it was found that weak central coherence (WCC) was distinct from theory of mind deficits. However, it is acknowledged that WCC can contribute to social deficits (e.g., difficulty reading facial expressions and social context).



This is already being done (see AASPIRE), though not in discussion forum form. I was invited to contribute but had other commitments and cannot function even in online groups.



Just in the case this isn't known: in the article linked to by the OP, the author is not a scientist and is autistic.



True. I recall one group starting a journal to publish such studies. They thought it would prevent other researchers trying to unknowingly repeat such studies.

This is an excellent point that i seldom see acknowledged. It reminds me of that exercise where someone holds up a white piece of paper with a small black dot and asks people what they see. When the response is: "a small black dot" the person questions why they didn't see the white space.

This type of faulty construct was also the basis for gender studies, race studies, and even today is used to understand children (in education mostly). i seem to recall (when i was studying these things) that when anthropologists were trying to scientifically categorize physical racial traits, they quickly discovered that the variances between subgroups could be wider than the differences between the basic catagories.

FWIW, I agree with you 100%. We make jokes to my daughter that if you open up the book and look at the definition of "normal", her picture is there.

BUT. She has traits.

I am minded of a time when her boyfriend accidentally shut the door on her hand. She immediately said "don't touch me!" and basically rejected ALL stimulation (including her boyfriend's horrified apologies) until the pain had dropped to a manageable level, which took two minutes, max. Once she'd mastered herself, then she was receptive to me getting ice and her boyfriend apologizing again and looking at her hand and comforting her and all those nice NT things.

This is precisely how my son (undiagnosed but very likely Aspie) and myself (diagnosed Aspie) have learned to prevent ourselves from melting down and lashing out when faced with overwhelming stimuli, be it external or internal (like pain).

I suppose you could make the case that she just learned it from me, but this is just one example. The difference between she and I, honestly, is that her persevations follow socially acceptable channels--for instance, she's first-rate at intuiting someone's feelings, but I definitely see my own sudden laser-like beam of full attention when she's trying to figure out someone's emotional state.

I have met this guy. I think he knows a lot about autism and I think he is correct in his use of the word Autism to say that most do not want marriage. He is talking about Autism in the original sense of people who are profoundly alone. I think there are reasons for this, including the fact that people who are heavily dependent on support are often not exposed to the idea that they are able to have partners or even have the opportunity to form a sexual relationship. Once you start looking at Autism as a broader classification, people are much more likely to be wanting relationships and are more likely to have opportunities to form them.

I also agree that some people are diagnosed as having AS when they don't. It is problematic that some people know a lot about the diagnositic criteria and can tailor their recollections of personal experience to fit. I have met one woman who did that. She used to tell me how she related to my experiences due to a childhood of discrimination relating to ethnic ancestry. Later she decided that her experiences were due to autism, but she had no real characteristics. She did, however really, really want to belong to a group and I also think she saw an opportunity to take a very prominent role amongst people who were less able to deal with social situations than she was. After some years of trying and developing an extensive knowledge of autism by "pumping" autistics regarding their experiences and then re writing her own personal history, she recieved a dx. Grrr.

This is simply inaccurate. The spectrum refers to conditions that share a particular group of traits and Asperger Syndrome shares those traits and is therefore within the spectrum.

The autism spectrum does not refer to any relationship between the diagnostic categories within it, other than being mutually-characterized by the traits referred to by the spectrum. Since it is an organizational concept defined through construction and it is constructed to include Asperger Syndrome, we can be quite certain that Aspergers-Syndrome is on the spectrum.


I do not know of any recognized diagnostic criteria that allow diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome without impairment in all three areas of the triad.


It is wrong; evolution does not function consistently with this “theory”.

Your third point, actually makes no sense whatsoever. Curing an anxious person of anxiety, even if we accept pathologically removing the ability to fear-as-being-“cured”, will not prevent anyone else from feeling fear. Nor will removing everyone with pathological levels of anxiety from the gene pool result in fear being removed from the human genotype/phenotype.

By using a definition that is not cause dependent, for instance one based on observable traits, such as the presence of a particular triad of impairments…


And we have one.
That’s actually not all that true. The spectrum is defined by observable traits not causes, so you can chuck out obfuscating arguments about whether conditions share non-observable traits such as underlying causes or brain matter anomalies. Because of the very problems you outline regarding the lack of solid information the spectrum does not refer to these things. This facilitates diagnosis and research into the causes and similarities/dissimilarities in the absence of the information we are seeking.

As long as you define the spectrum from observable traits, you have an organizing concept to facilitate research into causes and other aspects. Try to define the spectrum according to causes, and we do not know what to include, and have no means of moving forward. This is why the spectrum is defined by observable behavior traits rather than underlying causes right now. One of these is plausible and gives us some chance of achieving the other in the future. The other is currently implausible and would be a barrier to further research and investigation if employed at this time.

Asperger’s Syndrome is a disorder by definition. Your question is a bit like asking parents when they name their child what makes them assume that this is their child’s name. They are not assuming it, but defining it. Aspergers Syndrome is not assumed to be a disorder, but rather is defined as such.


To be blunt there are measurable norms for human functions. Where there is significant deviation from the norm that is pathological in effect, and the deviation is of a “medical” or “clinical” nature, then this constitutes what is meant by disorder in the context in which Asperger’s Syndrome is described as being a disorder.

This kind of talk was very common when I was working in care. "Autistic people can't", "Autistic people always", "Autistic people never". It's understandable. We do it all the time too when we generalise NT's. The 2 groups are both widely diverse and each individual is unique, but from the outside looking in, from either camp, I think the only generalisation that we can say is an NT person cannot understand what it is like to be autistic, and an autistic person cannot understand what it is like to be NT. We can observe each other, we can note patterns and common behaviours, but we can't get inside each other's heads.

For example, I know a lot of women. I understand that women are completely equal to men, but at the same time they are completely and fundamentally different. I know how women "tend" to behave and react in certain situations, but I have no concept whatsoever of what it is like to BE a woman, nor could I advise a woman on how to be a better woman.

So maybe, when it comes to autism care, the NTs should stay out of it. There's plenty of autistic doctors and health professionals, they should be dealing with care packages and treatments for profoundly autistic people rather than a bunch of NTs trying to "fix" them.

[emphasis mine]

How true. The number of people who come anywhere close to really knowing me is so small that even after trying to stop a chain saw with my bare hands I would still have more than enough fingers remaining to count them. Still, from time to time, for what to me seemed like insignificant and innoccuous things I may have said or done, I am suspected/accused/asked about motivations which would never cross my mind in a thousand years. Having a very high "official" IQ but an extremely skewed profile of abilities resulting in a more modest functioning level, most people cannot even begin to comprehend how the person they know that can understand the most complex scientific discourses in one pass can be so utterly incapable of assessing people's obvious (to them) intents and motivations as to be completely unable, let alone unwilling, to initiate such activities as scheming or other displays of disloyalty. While it is well known that we autistic people struggle to understand non-autistic people (although in my experience our degree of impairment is consistently seriously underestimated), it is often overlooked that non-autistic people are equally incapable of understanding how we think. Our thought processess seem to be mutually alien.

As for the original article, the beginning parts make sense to me - emotionally a child well into the physical puberty years, first relationship on final approach to 30, extremely hesitant to approach anyone on the rare occasion of even the smallest hint of interest - yeah, I was (and largely still am) absolutely clueless in the relationship arena. It comes with an upside - there is no loyalty more fierce than that of an autistic person in a relationship of any manner - friend, intimate, professional - when she finds a person that will stick around long enough to even begin to understand her. This loyalty will frequently be questioned, since it is generally foreign to the non-autistic experience in this day of disposable relationships.

However, after a promising start, the article quickly runs off the rails. I understand that it is the author's experience, but in my mind, the article seems to suggest that the author's experience, and his understanding of its meaning, is too limited to provide any meaningful insight into the article's topic. A ho-hum collection of NSS tidbits and borderline (and occasionally passport-stamped, full-fledged) nonsense, at best.

Yeah, Melissa,

I had to register to comment. I think I probably read the article for the same reason as you, because I think that being autistic even though I'm really high-functioning, does affect my sexuality. I'm 31 and I still never had a relationship and I'm still totally clueless too, seriously, I don't even know what my sexuality is, if I understand what sexuality is at all. I kinda related to the bit where he said that he finds the idea of being 'happily married' inconsistent with the idea of being autistic. I definitely find the idea of being in an intimate relationship inconsistent with the way that I am at present and no one seems to know whether I will mature emotionally to the point that I will be capable of having a relationship when I'm older :'(

Sam x

I can say with certainty that autism profoundly affects my sexuality, as well as every other aspect of relationships. I also do not know what my sexuality is; if pinned down, I would have to say asexual and aromantic. I always thought of describing a person's sexuality as having both a direction and a strength. Stronger sexualities can be fairly accurately defined along a "totally straight" to "totally gay" continuum, with many people occupying a range, not a point, in that space. Weaker sexualities are much harder to qualify. I am autistic and have major tactile sensitivity issues. I don't generally like to be touched at all. I can go years without physical intimacy and don't miss it. Furthermore, the dynamics of relationships, with so many aspects defined during those pivotal moments, are beyond my abilities. What good will it do me to work out today what a person was trying to communicate in a relationship last night, or last week, or in 1986? If a relationship will not involve physical intimacy, and the autistic person is not capable of any significant emotional attachment, does it even matter whether the other person is male or female?




I would take it a step farther - the entire idea of being happy at all, or recognising when one feels that way, is inconsistent with being autistic. Successful relationships are possible based on mutual understanding, accommodation and loyalty, but can one be "happily married" if she does not actually really know what happy feels like?

Autism definitely affects my sexuality with tactile issues being one that is quite hard for other people to accept. So is the amount of time I need to spend alone. I have, however had a long relationship although I would only say 3 years were positive. I have had other relationships but they were not long lasting. At present, I have been in a relationship for a year. this one has the potential to last because we are older and more confident in accepting that a relationship with me will not be conventional and we don't worry about people judging us.

A relationship does not have to be sexual (although I am the opposite of asexual) but it can still be as committed as any traditional relationship. All a relationship has to do to be successful is to be mutually satisfying. In that sense, given the right partner, most people would be able to have a successful relationship or marriage.

I think it is arrogance for some people to impose their idea of what a relationship should be on others and judge anything that does not meet their criteria as less.

Difference rocks.

Or they just don't fit anywhere and wash up on an AS forum.....which is fine, IMO. However I know quite a few autistics who elect not to participate in any forum because over time they've been shouted down by people whose virtual lungpower far exceeds their actual intellect. Or maybe they are simply expressing their need to belong. Inversely, the louder they are, the less autistic they must be, yes?

I still don't seem to understand what this 'emo' is.
Can someone help me out?

I just asked some HFA kids this question: "If I were standing at a bus stop next to one, how would I know?" and I got this: they wear black, mascara and nail polish also (these do not point to sexual preference), are into death metal, dye their hair black and wear it down to collar length.

But remember I asked *autistic* kids and this group I spoke to today gets most of its knowledge of society from playing GTA.

:-}

I wasn't planning to be opposed to this article until I read it. I don't like how he puts everyone in little boxes and states "This is how it is" as if all autistics are the same. Granted I'm not one to say, I suppose. I just find it hard to believe because autistics are individuals like anyone else.

Whether or not Asperger's is actually on the autistic spectrum or not is irrelevant, what he really means is that he has not included people with an AS diagnosis in his consideration of this subject.

It doesn't seem like he offers anything particularly noteworthy or insightful in this article but makes a lot of generalizations. E.g. LFA's are incapable of love... I'd say you'd have to be one to really know what their emotions are, now wouldn't you? One cannot possibly back up such a statement with fact.
"Every thought, every action is evaluated by its relevance to the autistic person." ... as opposed to.... ? I'd say the same statement about every creature in existence.

And the edit at the end where he says "I don't care what anyone thinks, screw you" just makes him look like a jackass, imo He says he wanted it to be a catalyst for discussion but then brushes off the discussion as having no merit.

?