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As a "special interest", I mean in the manner of other special interests or fascinations, that we aspies typically have. I like to collect knowledge on various aspects of the subject of sex, including sociology and anthropology, history, even pick up the occasional book. I currently have a copy of "Sperm are from Men, Eggs are from Women" by Joe Quirk, a rather delightful romp through how prehistoric evolution affects the sexual instincts we have today.

On sexual frustration, I find it is waxing with age, too. The hassle for me is insomnia and a little desperation that can show up when socialising with women.

I guess the (young?) NT "obsession" with sex could be qualitatively different from an Aspie special interest. Maybe the NT "obsession" is mostly about the end result (i.e. getting sex), which is more of a drive than an interest. So maybe it never was an actual special interest with me. I've never gone a bundle on sex books, apart from very ordinary porn when I was young, which wasn't exactly studying the subject of sex, it was just the nearest thing I could get to having sex in those days. Though a few years ago I did borrow Masters & Johnson and was impressed with their info. After reading the part about women climaxing, I was sure for the first time in my life that my partner was not faking orgasms (logically it's impossible to know for sure unless you know the signs). I like the title of the Joe Quirk book...I've often pondered about the seemingly irrational behaviour of the mating game, and have a few theories (some original, some not), but there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

My desperation was more about the warmth and friendship thing than sex as such. I guess I was lucky in that my first couple of girlfriends could detect my desperation, and they treated me accordingly - i.e. as somebody who they could string along, confident in the knowledge that I'd still be available to them if nothing better turned up. The humiliation of all that must have been a powerful learning experience. I found myself projecting a more independent persona, and came to believe that it's best not to let a prospective partner know the intensity of my desire to become her partner. Letting them know I might feel strongly attracted to them is fine, but letting them know I definitely do is probably a mistake. Though it still goes against the grain not to just fess up and try to start the relationship on guts honesty. Paradoxically, I might have learned the lesson too well, because one of my problems in established relationships is that I hardly ever show any needs at all for my partner, although I'm sure that many women long for evidence that their partners need them. I faked it once and it was very well received. But that can't be the way.

Joe Quirks website : http://www.joequirk.com/

From psychodynamic therapy, I was taught that a relationship is about 40-60% nurturing oneself, and 40-60% nurturing your partner. In other words, a relationship survives through giving. Demanding and taking harms a relationship, though i understand it's possible to communicate your needs to your partner if it's done appropriately.

They also recommended a "Stor'ge" approach to developing a relationship (friends first, lovers next), you form a friendship with your partner alongside a relationship, and keep the friendship as strong or stronger than the relationship. I cannot fully remember how to go about it, You'll have to google it!

From the Joe Quirk book, the more primal instincts of women, in terms of long-term, mature, relationship bonding, are about "womb-protecting". Quirk claims women instinctively seek to find a committed partner who can find and invest resources and personal effort into the raising of children, and show evidence of being a good father and husband.

He claims women want to be made to feel special by their partners, receive emotional investment especially "love".

He claims various other instincts, too, but for older couples (I assume you're over 30) reason becomes stronger than passion, so they can be irrelevant.


So in summary, I hope this is helpful: hide any desperation and put your needs/wants aside, develop friendship, and in the relationship stage focus on giving to your partner.

^
Seems like good advice, but beware that while you're giving, you don't end up being used. In my experience, people don't respond all that well to large doses of generosity. Rather than realising that they're dealing with a good 'un, and reciprocating the kindness, they seem to start taking the giving for granted, and they lose respect for the giver. But maybe I've just been moving in the wrong circles?

So I think it's just as important to stay mindful of what a partner is giving you, and to be prepared to be firm about keeping things reasonably even. 50%, plus or minus 10%, sounds like the right kind of target, though it's hard to quantify emotional giving. How do you assess the effort somebody is putting in?

I agree 100% that the partner also needs to be the best friend, in fact if you get the friendship thing right then I think all other problems become a lot easier.

Also, humans are notoriously bad at staying as lovely as the remit requires, so for most of us there will be conflict sooner or later. I think it's wise to avoid full commitment to anybody until you've been through a significant conflict and resolved it. Because I think that the more you commit to another, the more important to you it will become that they also look after you properly.

ToughDiamond, I understand about not being used. It's something all aspies have to watch out for. As for Conflict Resolution, this is needed even in friendships, and even in aspies. Social experience with conflicts in friendships can be put to use in resolving conflicts in relationships.

Also, the young's obsession with sex is not confined to NT's. I went through it myself, as have probably many other aspies. I was VERY jealous of my friends who were getting it on while I wasn't. I fell strongly in love several times (sometimes simultaneously), passionately and impulsively. In short I was a complete dickhead!

I think it is an issue with the limbic system, with the hormones and genetics involved, which influence primal impulses and related behaviour. Some people naturally feel passionately about sex and love. From the Virginity threads and Adult Issues threads this is not rare!

And teens naturally feel more strongly about sex than older people. Hormonal sensitivity is stronger in adolescence, and (with hormone production) usually decreases with age after 25 for men.

Women can get a double-whammy in the years before menopause, when the eggs get low and the brain starts saying "use them up, use them up, I don't care if you go hammer and tongs just USE THEM UP!!" It's where the Milf and Cougar phenomenon may come from.

That's a good idea.....probably beats hanging about waiting for a blazing row with a prospective partner (which somehow never happens till after the first bonk - I guess everybody's on their best behaviour until they've passed the audtition). Another good wheeze would be to watch how the prospective partner handles disagreements and criticism from others.


Had to look that one up. Interesting, though I suspect most women don't go quite that mad. Nonetheless I'm glad I'm too old for it to affect me, unless I start chasing younger women. Not much chance of that.....I like being with younger women but I've no intention of getting sexually involved. Don't want to be 85 when she's at her sexual peak, the paranoia would kill me.

I hyperboled it for emphasis

Been reading a book called Asperger's Syndrome and Sexuality. There is a very rare situation when a Teen Aspie has a combination of obsessive/compulsive sexual desires, anxiety and low self-esteem. I realise I had this in my teens and early 20's. Without diagnosis and intervention it was devastating... Acknowledgement, counseling or talking about it, and treatment for anxiety/self-esteem is the best response to this, followed by social skills therapy that includes dating and romance.

If it isn't a rude question, what characterized the obsessive/compulsive sexual desires? What made you think that it was over and above the usual high priority that most young people give to sexual matters?

* Disproportionate desires, unwanted by the individual, of a deeply compulsive nature. Difficulty or inability to resist or control them even if recognised as harmful.
* The Sexual Passion becomes the strongest and only source of obsessive special interest above all other special interests.
* Major Anxiety frequently accompanies the Passion and fuels it while creating a barrier to fulfilling it.
* Frequent guilt or shame after attempting to satisfy the sexual passion, even if pleasure / anxiety release occur. This further fuels the compulsive behaviour.
* Repeated efforts to reduce, control, or stop the behaviour, on the individual's own accord, fail.
* Lack of fulfillment creates more anxiety, depression, frustration, and withdrawal.
* Often other parts of the person's life suffer. Behaviour occurs regardless regardless of the difficulties or problems this creates.

* The commonalities are: frequent Anxiety, Shame, Guilt, Depression, Frustration (Emotive); Overwhelming desire (limbic); Shame and Guilt, failure of self-management, harm to personal life, isolation and withdrawal (cognitive-behavioural).

Normal sexual desire in teenage-hood doesn't overwhelm the individual or overwhelm other parts of the individual's life. Such an individual can continue study, work, socialising, romance, home life and so on in the presence of sexual desire. An aspie with normal sexual desire may also have anxieties (including social), depression, isolation, frustration, inappropriate behaviour (due to not learning appropriate behaviour) and difficulty managing themselves (due to lack of education or practiced skills), yet not have an obsessive/compulsive sexual desire disorder, becuase they don't fit the cycle described here or express the necessary commonalities.

Hmmm......I think my desires were often disproportionate and compulsive, though I always accepted them with open arms. I never tried to resist them. It was as if I believed that a new relationship could take me away from all the crap in my life forever, and transform me into some kind of a god.

It wasn't really sexual passion with me though, it was more the closeness that I craved. Everything else went on hold, though I guess there must have been some kind of limit to it, as I never lost a job or came to any great material harm from the obsession.

I think the guilt, anxiety and shame in my case was just a massive fear of rejection.....if I were successful at all, those feelings would vanish. But until I had palpable evidence that they really were attracted to me, those bad feelings would always seem very close to overwhelming me.

Lack of fulfilment never got me down for long. I'd just put it behind me and move on.

I was never aware of it causing me any difficulties - I'd maybe feel mortified that important aspect of my life (such as going to school or work) got in the way of my romantic pursuits, but I never rebelled against them....under extreme circumstances I might throw a sickie to buy me a bit more time, but I'd never do that never twice. I never isolated myself any more than I was doing at any other time.

I could function OK, as judged by external appearances, but inside, my happiness was 100% dependent on the hope that the object of my desires might become my partner. When I lost my first girlfriend a few months before my exams, I grieved for a day or two and then threw myself into my studies hook, line and sinker. I've often wondered what I'd have done if she'd not ended the relationship so irrevocably.....quite likely I'd have put all my energies into getting her back again, and failed my exams.

I suppose that makes me relatively normal.

I agree. What you describe doesn't fit [Autistic OCSDD]. It's possible (as other members can attest) to have strong sexual/romantic desire and not have problems. It's the addition of negative emotive response to sexual tension, use of sexual behaviour to relieve tension/negative emotion, and negative beliefs as shame and guilt about the behaviour.
Fear of rejection is not uncommon in general, it is a response to the denial/cessation of closeness and romantic/sexual fulfillment, and can come with strong Social Anxiety. Grieving as you did is a healthy response. You show healthy beliefs about your feelings and desires.

"I could function OK, as judged by external appearances, but inside, my happiness was 100% dependent on the hope that the object of my desires might become my partner."

That is the exact same problem I face with every single girl whom I encounter that takes an interest in me whom I'm attracted too. All my life I have not been able to overcome it
or shift from it. I simply cannot have friendships with women whom I'm attracted to, they become the object of my desire and if I'm rejected I want to run and isolate and never
communicate with them again.

The only time I will even consider communicating with them, is if I sense they are weak and vulnerable and seeking love or affection from me. I don't intentially mean this but I'm
rather lonely, and I mean who does not like being the interest of a young beautifull women? mind you I'm only 26, so perhaps the maturity you guys have found comes after much
more experience, although I've had quite a few examples to base my assessment on.

Usually it does get easier to be just friends as you get older.

do you find you think about these women all the time, and do you think about romance and companionship as well as sex, or not?

When I was younger yes I found, whenever I had free time these women would dominate my thoughts. As I've gotten older I've sort of been
able to put them out of my mind on most occasions, because in reality all that thought doesn't achieve anything, and would just warp reality.

Typically no I don't think about sex much, its more the romance/companionship more or less. The one thing that I found that would bring them
to mind was hope, having that potential in my mind for something great. As I've gotten older and through more and more rejection or failure, I've
lost more and more of that hope, which enables me to drop them from my thoughts so to speak, much more easily.

I guess its living in reality and not letting those sh***y pipe dreams brainwash me.

One thing I've noticed is that, although I can still get those pipe dreams in spades, these days they don't pervade my entire life, I'll get all welled up with romantic thoughts for an hour or so, then I'll turn my attention to other stuff in my life and only occasionally return to the "obsession."

A somewhat dangerous but often effective trick is to partly deflect my amorous feelings onto a second lady, which keeps my head from getting too ga-ga about the first one, and gives me somebody to fall back on if the main plan should fall apart. Of course it depends on there being two women at the time who seem to like me enough for that to happen (which is rare for me), and it could backfire if they know about each other.....I don't want to panic one of them into committing herself to me just because she's scared she'll lose me to the other, or to put her off if she thinks I'm not really serious about her, so I wouldn't say much about it to them, and would strive to keep both friendships fairly platonic, though of course at that early stage, keeping it platonic isn't usually difficult. It's different from two-timing and cheating, and the final goal is to end up with just one lady of course.....the method is designed to delay commitment so that it doesn't happen prematurely, not to avoid it forever. But anybody who tries it should do so with caution, and be prepared to think carefully about such a complex social situation as it develops, which is quite a task, though it gives me less angst than being completely at the mercy of one female.

Just don't deflect your feelings toward the 2nd lady back onto the first, as that will create an infinite loop.

There's an old saying: The less a Man is Desired, The more He feels Desire.