Autism and Sexuality - IMFAR 2012
Now that IMFAR has wound down and I have a moment to gather my thoughts I’d like to describe a few of the less-noticed findings from this year’s conference.
One concerned autism and sexuality. I found that quite interesting because it’s a
topic I had not seen at IMFAR before, and it raised interesting and probably
controversial new questions. The key
finding: Several studies reported a marked
increase in the rate of LGBT identity as compared to the NT population.
In some studies identity was classified by self-report, while
other studies scored identity based on responses to a standardized questionnaire. Interestingly, the results seemed similar
between the two methods.
When I talked to one of the researchers, I was struck by her
description of what she called “flexibility.”
Others might call that bisexuality but she seemed to see it as different
from bisexuality in the NT community.
She described the one as a choice while the other was more “no
preference.” She further suggested that
our diminished theory of mind might leave us both uncertain and vulnerable to
sexual exploitation.
I don’t know if theory of mind is the answer but the
“exploitation” certainly hit home for me, as I recalled all the female
spectrumites who have told me awful stories from their own lives. At the same time, I consider the males, who
mostly talk of dating failure.
When I have written about that issue in the past, I suggested
that females are the principal choosers in our society, so a male who acts
strange (due to autism or anything else) does not get chosen and has a zero
result. But a female whose choosing
instinct is weakened by autism runs the risk of choosing wrong which can lead
to a very bad outcome.
I know it’s not totally cut and dried, and both parties have to
pick each other, but the evidence I’ve seen on college campuses where I’ve
spoken certainly corroborates that. Yet
none of the observations from my own life have suggested that LGBT identity is
more common among the AS population, nor have I ever sensed we are “flexible”
in that regard.
Of course, that may simply be because I am not very perceptive
in that area, either because I am autistic or for some other reason. The data presented described some hundreds of
people; enough to have a meaningful sample and the consistency of that
particular finding between the studies leads me to think it’s probably
valid. But why?
Why do we autistics have such a different distribution of
expressed sexual preferences? That is
the question researchers asked, and several possible answers were posited:
1 – We might have more “masculinized brains,” whatever that
means. I quote those words from one of
the summaries. I know Simon Baron Cohen
has advanced the idea before but I’d not heard it in the context of sexual
identity.
2 – Since our ability to read other people are limited, we may
be freer to think independently. So
freed we might make choices that NTs would be inhibited from making.
3- Our sexual identify might be inherently more flexible for
as-yet unknown reasons related to our autistic differences.
4- Our penchant for directness may cause us to be more truthful
in surveys of this type; in that case we may report truer percentages while the
NT group had many respondents who hid their true feelings. The difference may not be great at all; we
just answer differently.
While the reasons remain an open question, our willingness to
embrace LGBT choices seems undisputed. All
the studies agreed on that. I’ll be very
curious to see where this leads.
When I look at my own family, my brother has always been gay,
and I have always been straight. I am
not aware of any “lifestyle choice” either of us made to be the way we
are. I’m not sure if or why being
autistic would influence that; it’s a curious finding for sure.
One final point from this research: A significant fraction of the AS population
chooses asexuality, a choice that’s not really found in the NT population. I’ve long known AS people who felt that way
but until now I have never wondered why, or what it may mean.
Here are a few of the questions I had, when it comes to these
studies:
If we believe there really are more LGBT autistics - What sort
of changes might be needed in our social skills training to optimize or be more
inclusive for a LGBT audience?
If indeed we are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation how
might we protect young people from that outcome? To answer, we’d have to know how it comes
about.
Growing up LGBT presents any kid with additional complications.
When we combine that with the knowledge that autistic kids are already very
much at-risk for bullying, it paints a disturbing picture. What should or could we do to help?
If we believe autistics are simply more truthful about disclosing
their identifies in surveys, does that directness subject us to ridicule and
harassment, and if so, what could we do about it?
It’s an interesting question and I’ll be curious to see what
your thoughts are . . .
John Elder Robison
Writing from IMFAR 2012
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Comments
Thanks for writing in
I'm grateful to see someone say what I've been wondering for quite a while.
Of course, people on the spectrum can be gay. I see lots and lots of issues with sexuality in my personal research.
My Aspie son (7) knows no bounderies, is sweet as can be, prefers girls to boys' company, and recently told me he wishes he was a girl. Though I won't go too deeply into it, his father is on the spectrum .. gay-on-demand-boisterous-alcohol-slinging-slightly sociopathic father, my ex, who switches between genders as he needs physical comfort.
I guess I should try to make this shorter so, I have reason to believe a high co-morbidity on the ASD spectrum with all those disorders that make simple life hard to come by. Depression, anxiety,gender issues, sexuality, pychopathy.
Please don't kick me folks, while you're educating me.
I'll be looking forward to read everyone's answers to your questions. Thanks for putting it out there, John.
My Teenage son will not talk about his sexuality openly he tells me it's no ones business but his. Interesting findings though!!
As you said it's not cut and dry. As a woman I'm expected to lie (this is called flirting). I am fairly attractive but I do not get to choose men. I come on too strong, I show interest, I'm too loud, these are all things that could be off putting when done by either sex. I know that there are aspies of both sexes in happy relationships and that's great for them. The fact is though that not all of us have our pick. This is a common male misconception.
I often feel as though if I were a man and could go in and come on strong to a woman some women would actually go for that. It's not really the same in the opposite situation (in my experience, almost 30).
There is no point in a woman sleeping with a man that she is not at all attracted to (the ones who usually hit on me because they think I'm playing hard to get) because we don't orgasm the same as men.
This means that I've had much less sexual experience than someone with my drive actually needs and it sucks, plainly, it sucks, just like for a guy, it sucks.
I've come to the conclusion that my Aspie husband is asexual, after 14 years of struggling for his physical affection in our marriage. He's definitely not gay. He just seems to have little interest in sex outside of fantasies. We've recently decided that what we are is best friends, coparents, roommates, and that we're both okay with the prospect of an open marriage (as not to move the kids around, both of whom are ASD and finally in the right schools and classes). So who do I, a lifelong, NT, straight woman, develop a huge crush on? A transgendered (M to F) woman. I have to wonder if this is a result of being fed up with sexual and emotional neglect, and feeling I might get more affection from a woman? The transgendered woman I'm attracted to still has some male, or tomboyish, qualities. I don't know if this makes me bisexual, but I feel strongly that I need a partner with more romantic qualities, and since this change feels extreme to me, I wonder if being with an asexual Aspie for so long sort of pushed me to this awkward place.
A funny side story: My Aspie son, 12, was riding home from school one day with his dad when they had to stop for dozens of teenage girls running across the street for their cross-country class. My husband asked my son if he thought any of the girls were cute. He said, "Yeah, all of them." So we know which direction he's headed in.
Women tend to be placed as gatekeepers rather than choosers--we don't get to choose who might be interested in us, just whether or not we allow those guys who do show interest to be part of our romantic lives. Guys get to choose more than women, per conventional dynamics, women only get to 'choose' from the men who show interest.
This idea of a masculinized brain is indeed advanced, regrettably, by scientists, but this is not a scientific finding based in reliable, empirical evidence. It is a subjective value judgement based in heteronormative conventions that assign certain cognitive traits to gender roles, and often, as is painfully obvious with male bias surrounding autism, with a heavy and arbitrary bias toward assigning more socially advantageous or preferred traits to masculinity, when it manifest in certain ways.
Yes, I have a highly systematizing brain. But I'm female. I just happen to systematize as good if not better than men who are also good systematizers. It's not about my brain acting in a masculine way, just in a systematizing way. Besides, as I often like to point out, traditional jobs for women almost without exception require a very high degree of systematized thinking--teaching, nursing, clerical work, child-rearing (especially if there's more than one child to care for), running a household, etc. All of these require prioritizing information and actions in a relative hierarchy based in efficiency and efficacy, i.e. systematization. Even many traditional hobbies for women require a lot of systematic thinking. My mother's hand-made quilts are a board and detailed testimony to that fact. But these jobs and tasks are rarely appreciated as the result of highly focused, highly systematized thinking, because it's "women's work" and not "men's work." Again, subjective value judgements at work. Not the kind of thing I want an understanding of my autism based upon.
As for my sexual orientation and gender identity as an autstic person, I can ony speak for myself. I am female and hetero, and at 40 years of age, I can say quite solidly so. But all the same, I do not fit the heteronormative ideal for a hetero woman, and I have a very long history of conflicts with society over my gender and identity to show show for that, including being misdx'd as a teen with "gender confusion" and enduring institutional abuse to make me act more "lady-like". What they were trying to traumatize out me was, in fact, my autism and how that shapes my femininity in a way that is quite distinct from heteronormativity.
My experience of being a hetero woman is far too fluid and much broader and richer than the heteronormative ideal that I was expected to conform to as a teen and abused for when I refused. Being a hetero woman for me is the experience of who I am, not about what I am not or what I supposedly shouldn't be (i.e male, gay, bi, trans. etc).
And since it is my own experience, I'm the one who should get to define what being a hetero woman is. Whatever I am, whatever I do, however I act, however I think, I do it as a hetero woman. And if I do something *someone else* thinks is male, gay, trans, whatever, it just means THEIR understanding of heterosexuality and womanhood is too narrow and static.
Sorry for the long comment (just being true to my Aspergian nature).
Good points.
I fall for women as well as men; though most of my crushes and obsessions were on women. The couple of times I fell for men was when I worked intensively together with them. So, after a while of being together I would develop feelings, irrespective of gender.
Maybe it also has to do with my lack of understanding of love. I have not really an idea what love actually means. If someone gives me attention for a long time, I would be affected.
See my blog posts on this: http://aspiprof.blogspot.com/
There are papers on transgenderism in the autistic population. A few in the past couple of years. Some of these stem from the "extreme male brain" groups.
Another aspect of the sexuality question that I think needs more attention is sexuality among intellectually disabled (autistic and non-autistic) people.
Moonheart--it is going to be very difficult to predict at this point where things are going for your son. But puberty can be traumatic for a transgender person. It is worth looking into in advance.
--Matt Carey
The data described in the article does not surprise me at all, as my contact with AS and LGBTAQ friends and acquaintances had led me to the same informal conclusion - that people further along the AS than average (i.e. including subthreshold) are proportionally more likely to identify as non-heterosexual. However, I'd go further and say bi and A are even more over-represented than gay.
While I agree with previous posters that AS individuals are less likely to lie about their non-standard sexualities, I doubt very much if this is the only reason. It addresses the Identity aspect of sexuality but not the Attraction or Behaviour aspects.
Heteronormativity permeates most (all?) cultures and affects our development, including creating unconscious irrational beliefs and biases, many of which involve shared assumptions about 'right' and 'wrong' ways for members of the community to think and behave. I suggest that those with strongly systemising brains are less likely to take on board these biases if they do not seem logical. Put simply, they/we are less likely to follow the herd and do something just because it's the expected norm.
I believe that while many more people have same-sex attractions than admit it to others, that there are many more who do not even admit it to themselves. Everyone expects them to find opposite sex partner(s), so they do, without ever needing to acknowledge that they might have been equally happy with a same-sex partner. Hence bisexuality under-represented. (For that matter, currently there is considerable peer pressure to 'make your mind up' - ugh! - and identify oneself as either straight or gay, but definitely not somewhere in between.)
Personally, I am frequently confused and exasperated by (NT) people's bizarre and illogical assumptions and questions about my sexuality. They usually end with: Me "Why would I do/think that? It makes no sense." Them "Because that's what most people do/think." Me "Why would I care what most people do/think?"
Hope that makes some sense!
The data described in the article does not surprise me at all, as my contact with AS and LGBTAQ friends and acquaintances had led me to the same informal conclusion - that people further along the AS than average (i.e. including subthreshold) are proportionally more likely to identify as non-heterosexual. However, I'd go further and say bi and A are even more over-represented than gay.
While I agree with previous posters that AS individuals are less likely to lie about their non-standard sexualities, I doubt very much if this is the only reason. It addresses the Identity aspect of sexuality but not the Attraction or Behaviour aspects.
Heteronormativity permeates most (all?) cultures and affects our development, including creating unconscious irrational beliefs and biases, many of which involve shared assumptions about 'right' and 'wrong' ways for members of the community to think and behave. I suggest that those with strongly systemising brains are less likely to take on board these biases if they do not seem logical. Put simply, they/we are less likely to follow the herd and do something just because it's the expected norm.
I believe that while many more people have same-sex attractions than admit it to others, that there are many more who do not even admit it to themselves. Everyone expects them to find opposite sex partner(s), so they do, without ever needing to acknowledge that they might have been equally happy with a same-sex partner. Hence bisexuality under-represented. (For that matter, currently there is considerable peer pressure to 'make your mind up' - ugh! - and identify oneself as either straight or gay, but definitely not somewhere in between.)
Personally, I am frequently confused and exasperated by (NT) people's bizarre and illogical assumptions and questions about my sexuality. They usually end with: Me "Why would I do/think that? It makes no sense." Them "Because that's what most people do/think." Me "Why would I care what most people do/think?"
Hope that makes some sense!
Funny, I was describing this article to my wife and she said almost the exact same thing immediately.
Also -
The original article quotes a person who says bisexuality is 'a choice'. Could someone explain in what way this orientation is any more a choice than hetero-, homo- or asexuality? In any of the above you're (un)attracted to the people you're (un)attracted to - the choice is in what ways you express your sexuality through behaviour and identification.
Maybe because of our freedom of lifestyle, I only learned later than my son had Asperger's Syndrome, and it explained so many things about him. Things finally made much more sense in how he did things, and what he understood more easily, etc. I'd always just let him go at his own pace, so we never had any problems at home, but the older he got he had more problems in school. More specifically, he began to have bullying problems because of his appearance, which is basically androgynous like my own, and his feelings of bisexuality. That's a "definition" and "term" but its more about: he liked and was attracted to whoever it was, gender didn't and doesn't matter. He tends more towards other males now, and I am not sure whether it's because it was mostly girls who bullied him and he's decided, for the moment, he doesn't like any of them.
Because we had so many problems with doctors and therapists not understanding his unique difficulties or even recognizing his Asperger's, I returned to university and now nearing my degree in Psychology and close to deciding which specialized field I will choose. I have of course examined brain studies, personality adaptations and other theories, and tend to ascribe to the "unknown reasons" idea, but in the end I think that is rather immaterial, or irrelevant. What is more relevant in the immediate is helping other be accepting of the inherent differences and some challenges those with the range of autism individual's might have, which simply include sexuality. "Just let it be", in other words. That is somewhat cultural, in that many of us accept there are mysteries that we might never know exact answers to, but we don't need any exact answers to be happy or happy enough in the situations of our lives.
Specifically on protecting from exploitation, like anything else when explaining to a child or young person with Asperger's, we have to be direct and clear in our explanations and not shy away from those aspects. I am not suggesting being explicit, but rather being age appropriate, so they can clearly comprehend in their own way and terms how to avoid or respond to certain situations. As far as bullying goes, my son has an absolutely horrendous time with it, because he didn't understand sarcasm, took people at their word, and then got badly tricked or beaten up. It is not advertisement but just to explain it, but he and I wrote the experiences together to try to help others to recognize and get through the pain http://redhaircrow.com/2012/01/26/bulliedgayteen/
I think in many societies being more direct and honest can you subject to ridicule and harassment, because 1st) some people don't realize you are being honest and direct, not just ironic or sarcastic yourself, 2nd) too many people take the opportunity to try to belittle someone else for their perceived faults. We are American Indians, and we are quite comfortable among our people, because for the most part you don't get ridicule or censure of some kind for being different, but in some societies of the US, we do not feel able to live. We had ties to Germany and Europe, and we also feel comfortable there because again, there is less general ridicule simply for being different than what is considered "normal."