Comments on: Study on Adult Sexuality in Autistic Individuals: Response from the Researchers

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:45:45 +0000

I have been dating a man who I believe has mild Autism/Aspbergers. Sex was trying and since we have backed off to being just friends…I need to understand. I still love him and would do what it takes to make it work. The quirky things have become special- I miss them…any ideas?

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:18:34 +0000

Intriguing questions—-not quite sure I have examples. I will note your question to the researchers of the study.

By: Autistic Soul

Autistic Soul — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:37:14 +0000

Someone who is Bi-polar will generally exhibits an obsessive compulsive sexually behaviour…..Can you give us a valid Sexually Comparison: examples for someone with Autism?

It seem that Autism is still a taboo subject with a perpenisty to shy away from honest straight foward answers and Classis symptoms

By: Melody

Melody — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:45:26 +0000

I took a look at it. I mostly had trouble with the questions involving the word “not” and agree/disagree or True/false. These types of questions trip me up a lot. Don’t know the alternative.

By: Patience

Patience — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 05:40:03 +0000

dkmnow, I’m generally lumped in the NT category, and I went through the survey to get a feel for it, too. Some of those questions were so incredibly wordy for the point I think they were trying to make, I’m still unsure what point they were really aiming for. The cost/reward section was incredibly difficult to parse and comprehend. I figure that if I (NT, exceptional language abilities) had problems with their phrasing, no one on the spectrum stands a chance. I don’t think you were overly cynical at ALL.

By: Norah

Norah — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:14:23 +0000

I agree that guidelines or examples would have been extremely helpful (and I don’t mean technical stuff, like we learned in biology class). I haven’t really had any negative sexual experiences (which seems to be rather surpising, hearing about other people’s experiences. I may have gotten very lucky), but figuring everything out, my own responses, sensory issues, etc, took… way, way too long. Still not fully figured out. I can’t help but thing this was a waste of time, not in the sense that I think figuring out your own sexuality is a waste of time, but that it really could have gone more than twice as fast if there had been education or help aimed at someone like me.

By: Marla

Marla — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:14:20 +0000

This is very interesting. A topic of interest in our home. I must say I would never consider doing what the family in your article did.

By: M

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:41:14 +0000

i’m alwas wondering what can be done to improve the comfort level of the topic, in terms of the public discussion. sexuality is ubiquitous in our culture…television, movies, have it everywhere; commercials are premised upon it. yet when “sex” is mentioned in reference to autistic individuals, I think it’s little too much for people to process. there is this very weird, very large silence on the topic. i suppose it’s an understandable disconnect…but getting that ball rolling, removing the discomfort for people, I wonder what accomplishes that.

on a personal note…very personal, but that’s sort of the point of this topic…I can say that having no guidelines or understanding of my own sensory issues turned sex into an infuriating ordeal. having a libido, yet finding touch to be overly-intense…very difficult tension there. i think knowing general information about what others experience, how they have coped, not coped, failed, succeeded, climaxed, withdrawn…it’s the sort of thing that can dispell a lot of confusion (for the public…and for those of us who have to get out there and wing it.)

When things have turned uncomfortable, the only coping skill I’ve found is to try and think of the experience as “funny after the fact”. (Which only works on the condition that the “funny” kicks in at some point, so I’m still waiting for that.)

i’m guessing there are quite a few Sexual Brechtians out there, so this is an interesting topic.

By: dkmnow

dkmnow — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:59:36 +0000

Interesting. Well, let’s hope my assessment of the survey and expectations of the authors were too harsh/cynical. At the very least, there seems little danger that they will eventually be arguing for forced sterilization of Autistics. That’s something, I guess.

S’pose I’ll try the survey again … later. But if they haven’t significantly reworded the item on “religion,” I seriously doubt I’ll bother to slog through the rest of it. That was by no means the worst of my beefs, but it was the first item that made me go “WTF are they thinking?,” and wonder if it was an omen of things to come.

We’ll see.