Aspergians in Love...Not a Pretty Picture

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The following is taken from my most recent post in my personal blog, "The Horrible Asp". This post is a summary of my personal experiences and a message to neurotypical women. While some people tell me that I'm "trying too hard," at least I'm willing to try...to reach out.


Much to the surprise of many people, Aspergian men have the same love of women that neurotypical men have. We have many of the same dreams and desires for loving, caring relationships with women. Beacuse we often lack the basic social interaction skills needed to initiate or maintain such relationships, we are often afraid to approach anyone. When we summon the courage make an attempt to reach out to women to whom we are attracted, even on a platonic level, our efforts are often met with rejection...and even threats of violence or legal action. Such rejection further reinforces our reluctance to interact with others. Once people come to know and understand us, they will find that we are not as "creepy" as they might make us out to be. This blog post will hopefully give you an insight on the problems in this arena that we Aspergians often face when reaching out to others.

It would stand to reason that many an Aspergian man has been accused of behaviors could be construed as sexual harassment or sexual assault at some point in his adolescent or adult life, even when his intentions were otherwise. Let me make an important legal distinction here. Sexual harassment typically involves either an inappropriate eye gaze or an out of sequence remark. This can also include well-intentioned remarks taken out of their intended context. Sexual assault, a more serious criminal offense, involves any nonconsensual physical contact of a sexual nature. While neurotypical men rely on subtle nonverbal cues from their partners to obtain consent, it is strongly recommended that Aspergian men overtly ask questions to obtain consent...as awkward as it may sound. At Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, for example, such overt questioning to obtain explicit verbal consent is actually mandated by the school's Sexual Offense Prevention Policy. This policy was adopted in 1992 after two female students were date-raped during the prior school year...at a college with a total enrollment of fewer than 700 students.

The real tragedy is that every red-blooded American male, whether he is single or married, or whether he is gay or straight, is increasingly vulnerable to allegations of sexual misconduct, wherever he may happen to be. It is indeed a very sorry state of affairs when we cannot check out the beauties on the beach, at a club, or anywhere else, let alone approach one and ask her for a date, without the very serious threat of being brought up on charges...and not necessarily by the lady herself. Even a platonic friendship or a business relationship with any woman can be very dangerous, as my personal experience has clearly proven to me over the years. There have been a few cases where I had such a basic platonic friendship, and very nearly my life, ended by a jealous husband or boyfriend...even when I was involved with someone else at the time. What's wrong with this picture?

The mere allegation of any sexual misconduct, proven or not, can have devastating, and often irreversible, effects on the lives, careers, relationships, and reputations of many an innocent man. Unlike those accused of other types of crimes, those accused of any type of sexual offense, from verbal harassment to forcible rape to extramarital adultery and everything in between, are often denied the rights of due process. These rights include the right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty and the right to face one's accuser due to "Rape Shield Laws" in some states. These men are usually presumed guilty until proven innocent. Worse yet, they are not always given a fair opportunity to defend themselves against the charges, let alone prove their innocence, in a court of law due to the stigma attached to such offenses.

The simple fact that a man is married or in a committed relationship can make him even more vulnerable to false allegations of sexual misconduct that a single man would be due to the additional threats of blackmail or other types of extortion. Call me paranoid if you will, but this situation can happen to any man, anytime, anywhere. While these allegations can also be made against women, the great majority of those accused are men. There must be an immediate cease-fire in the Battle of the Sexes so that we can learn to appreciate and respect each other as people. Is that too much to ask?

The point I intend to make here is that it is critically important to understand that Aspergian men are far more likely to be victimized by women than are neurotypical men. My personal experience shows that we are far more likely to be prey than predator. I have been victimized by several women with whom I had been involved on various levels over the years. They typically wanted to use me for money and/or someone with whom to cheat on their husbands or boyfriends, the existence of whom I usually learned about only from third parties. Some of them were drug addicts who wanted an enabler who would not only give them money to buy their drugs, but take them to meet their drug dealers. Drug addicts are desperate enough to resort to any lie, threat, or scam to get their next fix. It comes as no great surprise that I have developed a serious problem in trusting other people, especially women. Whenever someone does gain my trust, she usually takes advantage of me in one way or another. My greatest fear is that someone will take something I may say to her in confidence, such as the fact that I have Asperger Syndrome, and use it against me later on for her own personal gain.

My personal message to neurotypical people in general and to women in particular is, "We are much more afraid of you than you are of us."

Last edited by RoadWarrior7 on 24 Aug 2011, 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It goes both ways. I've been accused of "coming on" to men when I've never said an untoward word to them, not even in jest. I had one woman who was absolutely sure I was trying to come on to her husband and told everybody who knew us. I wanted to talk to him about subjects we had mutual interest in, is all. I didn't even want him to touch me on the back as we walked out the door because I found it repulsive!

I live in a part of the world where even in the nineteen nineties a woman who was raped on the beach had the jury rule against her because she was wearing lacy shorts.

I'm sorry, but women have been accused of being sluts for the slightest thing for so long it's hard for me to have much sympathy for the guys.

Same. Having been sexually assaulted as a teen doesn't help either.

Well the issue of this is usually linked to people who are having a relationship that tends to be of the following,

Drugs,
Heavy Smoker,
Heavy Drinker,
Involved with Crime,
Or are with or Assoiated with Street Gangs,

Usually these females who wear skimpy stuff like this tend to be with what NT Men would do as the list above, because they have lots of money and other stuff, it makes me wonder where also these issues can make Autistic men go crazy to rape a female and such.

Aw, teh poor menz are so oppressed they can't ogle womenz no mo.


"Aspergian" =/= Aspergian men
"In love" =/= horny

"Ogling" is not sexual harassment and if I were an employer, I would not take a sexual harassment claim seriously if it were only based on a man looking at a woman too long. If it involves inappropriate touching or something similar, then thats a different story. That goes for all men. There's a saying "a cat can look at a queen"

Aspies have trouble with eye contact. What happens if an aspie man gets accused of sexual harassment just because he tries to force the eye contact when talking to a woman and it takes a little too long? Would you then accuse him of sexual harassment because he was "ogling"? Strangely enough, Tony Attwood has mentioned cases of aspie men being accused of sexual harassment in the office for this very reason.

Judging by my own experience, ogling is viewed as sexual harassment and, therefore, a criminal offense where I come from. To make matters worse, the charge can come from a third party such as a possessive spouse or partner. It is now no longer enough to "keep our hands to ourselves." We must now "keep our eyes...and everything else...to ourselves." God knows how many times I've been accused of that type of sexual harassment, and not always by the ladies themselves. This sucks!

Male Sailors: "Aye aye, ma'am"
Female Army Officer: "Keep your 'ayes' to yourselves, sailors."

"Indeed".

No, nor would the vast majority of women, which is why this entire bit reeks of social-anxiety driven paranoia.

I have a neighbor who had the cops called on him because of this. He tells me he was only staring out daydreaming, and a lady across the dining area called him out on sexual harassment. Though, he says he was daydreaming, I can imagine he was really ogling instead.

Either way they had the cops escort him out.

no, you are incorrect. you are not more afraid of us than we are of you, because the threat of anything happening to you is miniscule in comparison to what a woman faces. we make allegations BECAUSE we are afraid. we have a very high chance of actually experiencing some form of sexual assault.


in the United States:

* 1 of 6 U.S. women has experienced an attempted or completed rape. (link)


in Canada it is either more dangerous or more women report:

* 39% of Canadian women (or 2 out of 5) have been sexually assaulted since the age of sixteen
* 24% of Canadian girls under age 16 have experienced rape or coercive sex.
* 51% of Canadian Women have been victims of physical or sexual violence since the age of sixteen.
* 24% of Canadian women have been forced into sexual activity by threat, by being held down, or by being hurt in some way. (link)


what fraction of men has experienced a false allegation, especially to the degree that it completely changes his life, for example requiring medical intervention, or resulting in PTSD, or even requiring legal proceedings, loss of employment or anything else that could be deemed serious? definitely not 1 in 6 or 39%, for example.


EDIT: The thread topic title says "Aspergians in Love...Not a Pretty Picture"... i don't really get how looking at pretty girls and getting accused of sexual harassment relates to being in love.

What Hyperlexian said +1

I think what the OP is trying to say is that:

1. We all have a need for someone special in our lives, to be in love, ect..

2. Guys with AS in general have very little social skills and when they come across someone that interests them, they may stare, try to talk to even after the women rejected them. (IE women lets him down easy by saying she just wants to be friends. The person with AS thinks it means what was said, she is not interested in him romantically but still wants to be friends, talk, ect. So the women that says wants to be friends gets creeped out because the guy she rejected is still trying to talk to her. She knows that when someone says they ant to just be friends, its really rejecting them, so she knows the guy knows it, too.)

3. Guys with AS because of lack of social understanding may do things inadventally to make the women feel like she is being stalked, harassed, ect.. Eye contact too long, staring, trying to stay friends when shes rejected her. This leads to the women calling the cops, having charges brought on the guy, ect..

4. Because of these negitive experences, the guy losses confedence and won't try to find someone after sometime. So they will never find someone. It also has other long term negitive effects.

In no way am I saying stalking or assulting a women is ever acceptable. But the OP is trying to put a AS perspective on some things, IMO.

I have personally experienced numerous false allegations, one of which was serious enough to cost me my share in a small company that I co-founded. Women can file false claims for any of several different reasons, including attempts to extort money from a man or revenge for a relationship gone sour. In my case, she felt guilty about having a good time with me...and made the allegation during a drinking binge. Fortunately, no criminal charges were ever brought.

An even creepier case happened about 30 years ago when an innocent man was convicted of forcible rape and released from prison only after the victim recanted her story. She was engaged to be married at the time, but was cheating on her fiance and got pregnant as a result. The false rape claim was her attempt to save face with her family and fiance...and landed an innocent man in prison for 7 years.

In another extreme but true story, a former colleague of mine was caught up in a case of SAID (Sexual Allegations In Divorce). His wife was about to leave him for another man and the only, in her mind, that she could guarantee that he would never bother her again was to coach her children into making up false allegations of sexual molestation against him. The jury bought the story and convicted him of three counts of Sexual Assualt of a Minor. He was sentenced to three consecutive 10-year prison terms (30 years total), of which he served 12 years before being granted parole...which means lifetime registration and monitoring. No employer will hire him and he cannot ever be anywhere near children. He cannot even go on dates without permission from his parole officer. All this because of false allegations by his ex-wife and her kids.

My intent is certainly not to belittle the trauma that women (and some men) experience when they actually are sexually assaulted, but to point out that a false allegation can be every bit as traumatic. The mere allegation, proven or not, can have devastating, and often irreversible, effects on the lives, careers, relationships, and reputations of many an innocent person...and I speak from experience.

Ummm....false allegations of sexual misconduct are much more rare than unreported misconduct. If you were assaulted by a person who denied it, and it was severely emotionally traumatic to you, would you want to take it into court? Into court?!? The most insensetive "we are going to make you re-live that horrible crap that happened to you" place you can possibly imagine? Probably not. Probably you would only tell a couple friends and maybe call a sexual abuse hotline or see a theraist.

One sensational story about a guy who spent 7 years in prison on a false allegation does not in any way cause a chain reaction that renders other abusers innocent.

A big part of the problem is situations where the assaulter does not realize they are assaulting someone, or refuses to recognize someone else's claim as valid. They simply cannot accept that they would do such a think. Likely they had no intent whatsoever to hurt someone else. this goes for NTs as well as ASes. But something happened.

That they cannot accept or remember what they did doesn't mean they didn't hurt someone. A metaphor: a very sleepy man gets in a car and drives home from a friends house. Swerves across the center line and hits another car, killing the driver of opposite vehicle. Didn't realize how tired he was, can't remember the events very well, and the driver insists it was all some "freak accident" that happened to himself. Is he innocent because he didn't mean to do it, and didn't realize he was at fault? Nope.

that's just dumb...

I remember an era when people used to say their parents or grandparents were stuffy and repressed. Now I watch 30-50 year old movies that show far more sexual freedom than today. A less sexually repressed society is going to have a lot more unreported incidents.

I think there is a far deeper issue going on than simply high rates of sexual abuse. Males have an array of very real disorders that drive them to attack their victims. It is a spectrum that exists that can be passed down from parent to child. There is a lot of fear in the male community that they are next, not just because they can be charged easily but because it is highly possible that they will be driven to commit such acts. Some governments have even taken a pragmatic approach of just allowing it, which is probably not a good idea either.

What needs to be done is to improve the areas of psychology to diagnose everyone for every trait they have, using sessions, neurological diagnostics, and even gene sequencing. There needs to be a lot more research done involving stress, traumatic memories, and getting people who are traumatized to be cured of all effects. This is an activity that is on par with globally outlawing slavery and racism, and I think that sexual abuse will be just as prevalent in society for hundreds of years to come.

On the subject of looking, if you are going to be charged with harassment, better to do it from the bushes.