People with severe autism and romantic/sexual relationships

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I often wonder if there are cases of people who have what people conceptualize as severe autism (nonverbal/minimally verbal, needing staff support constantly throughout the day, usually living in residential care, etc.) actually being in a romantic/sexual relationship with somebody. It's just that whenever I see stuff about people with ASD in relationships, the people involved are always HFA or Asperger's. Has anyone on here come across any instances of non-HFA/AS relationships?

Also, if you are classified as having "moderate" or "severe" autism, have you ever desired to be in a sexual and/or romantic relationship?

I am just curious whether the reason why this population doesn't get into relationships is due to stigma or due to a lack of desire/capacity to maintain one.

I don't know the full truth to this, but I've known situations where some severely autistic folk cannot legally consent to sexual activity.

It's different for everyone though, the bulk of the issues people with autism diagnosis's face is sensitivity issues, mostly to touch or hearing. I imagine most people either prefer to stay away from it as a whole or are hyper-sensitive to sex. Everyone's different on the spectrum..

I wouldn't personally go so far as saying relationahips with ASD are conscious choices at all...

That's something I disagree with vehemently. People with ASD's fervently desire relationships with great frequency.

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with because I didn't state a perspective in my original post, just a question because I really don't have much evidence to argue either way.

My suspicion, however, is that many people on the "severe" end of the spectrum do crave some sort of sexual/romantic experience but don't end up going through that experience for whatever reason, but I could be wrong. If this is indeed the case, I want to know what prevents them and if there is a way to allow more people who want that experience to have it. The sensory could definitely be one factor but maybe there are other ones.

Sorry, Mathgirl, I didn't mean you--I meant the poster immediately before mine. I should have specified that.

Ahh okay, I couldn't infer that message from the above posts, so I got confused.

I personally think that it's pretty obvious - autism is directly characterized by impaired social interaction, and the development of romantic relationships relies almost exclusively on the subtleties of social interaction. Those who are on the more severe end of things often have other significant challenges to overcome as well. As you mentioned, if someone is nonverbal, it would be extremely difficult to form a relationship with someone if it is a challenge to even communicate effectively.

I'm on the mild end of things, and all of this relationship stuff is already painfully difficult. If I was on the more severe end, I imagine it would be that much harder.