Autistic Girls Face Three Times the Risk of Sexual Assault

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^ I was referring to that study in particular. I’ve made multiple threads on this general topic because it’s SO important and affects SO many autistics.

What does your wife think now?

The problem we have had in the past is broaching the topic altogether. In her younger teen years she completely misconstrued the meaning of having a crush. While most NT teens have a crush on a boy they never act on that feeling. Unfortunately my daughter got some bad advice (from an adult!) that if she has a crush on a boy she should tell him. This resulted in her freaking out a couple of teenage boys who thought she was being overbearing.

She apparently told her grandma last night she got upset because she saw one of these boys at college and went and sat next to him to say "hi". He told her to go away and she was upset. I keep hearing this stuff from other people as she doesn't tell me.

I think she is capable of standing up for herself but I feel she is really vulnerable in terms of consent, it's summer now and she's into wearing micro-shorts on campus. I respect her independence and hope she can learn things for herself but I feel there are going to be times where she needs to understand what boys are thinking/ulterior motives.

Your wife might want to have a talk with her, show her videos, or something like that. I feel like short shorts aren’t the biggest problem. I never wore short shorts in college but experienced an assault. (My problem wasn’t just about being autistic. Growing up, I was highly sheltered as a fundamentalist homeschooler, received no sex ed, and was incredibly timid. That sort of stuff.) The biggest issue is probably most often centered around difficulties understanding that someone might have ulterior motives. Sometimes we are too apt to trust a person who appears nice (but isn’t) which can put us in dangerous or vulnerable situations. It’s really important to have a grasp on what consent is and isn’t too. Most college assaults happen at parties and in dorms. They often involve drinking and/or being drugged.

It is a really uncomfortable thing to talk about though. I wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it with my parents, not that they ever tried. Maybe your daughter would be more receptive to watching or reading stuff on her own. Just a thought.

of course it does - thats the main premise - to stop- undesirable behaviors and teach compliance.

ABA is not something that I’ve researched in-depth. I wonder if different people have different experiences with it as with other forms of therapies/interventions.

I didn’t mean for this thread to get off-track from the initial topic. We could start a separate thread about ABA specifically. In this thread, I’d prefer to focus more on the issue of SA for people on the spectrum. I didn’t have ABA or any form of intervention or therapy when I was a kid. Play therapy probably would have helped me with my anxiety and panic attacks.

I didn't mean to derail your thread T. P. and bring in ABA, but at the same time Autonomy, including Bodily Autonomy and Self-Confidence are SO much intertwined in both.

^ No, it’s cool. Those things are important.

Speaking of self-confidence, I found this study regarding survivors of SA in college interesting:

I was born in 1984 and was spanked with a belt and slapped regularly - much more regularly than my brother was, but I was naturally more independent and headstrong - traits that I encourage in my own kid. Anyway, that was considered normal where I lived and in my religious community. My parents weren’t happy when I chose not to use corporal punishment on my own son. They called me a “permissive parent.”

I feel like this stuff combined with other s**t contributed towards me staying in my abusive marriage for WAY longer than I should have. It was hard to stand up for myself and leave when my upbringing made me a doormat and made me think that I didn’t even matter.

I think an even bigger issue was my inability to see red flags in the beginning due to social difficulties. Looking back, there were red flags that I was completely oblivious to at the time. I tended to take people at their word without realizing that there could be ulterior motives involved. I suspect that this is a big reason why we are more susceptible to experiencing abuse. We seem like easy targets for this and other reasons. My ex said that I was “sweet and innocent.” He’d always say it in a creepy way, reminding me of Grima from Lord of the Rings. Anyway, I think my apparent innocence played a role in his choosing to target me and not someone else. It’s not like he couldn’t have easily found someone else.

Okay, this makes a lot of sense to me. I dealt with some creepy guys when I was in my teens. I've always felt both scared and embarrassed looking back and recalling that I had no clue that they were being creepy to me. I couldn't read it back then. I can now, but back then I was clueless.

Those interactions never went anywhere serious, I do want to clarify. My point is merely that I can see how not being able to read people makes you much more vulnerable. What I *did* deal with that was more serious I don't know if I'd attribute to this, and thankfully did realize that was wrong at the time.

I wonder what we can do to minimize this risk for autistic girls? Of course, like me.. I'm only now at age 35 recognizing that I may be autistic, so, I don't know. Raising awareness can only do so much when a teenager like me wouldn't have ever given the thought of being autistic one second. If I even knew the word at all.