Autism and abnormal sexual interests

Post Reply New Topic

I have unusual sexual interests that is causing me distress in daily life.

I have been wandering if having unusual sexual interests or paraphilias is a form of developmental disorder, if it is caused by genetic mutations, deficiencies or environmental factors.


I feel like I was born with more than one abnormal sexual interests.


I used to mention that I also used to have some Learning Disability and some symptoms of ASD as well.

You're not alone, and I've been reflecting on these matters for quite a while.

One relevant factor is the well-noted trend where autistics will tend to work out what works for them in life, while having a reduced tendency to pick up and conform to the expectations of the majority.

Sometimes I think we see this expressed in differences of the lgbtiq variety.

There is also the sense, particularly for people without access to the explanations afforded by diagnosis, that they are different from others and struggle to relate to many others. They may then look for other explanations.

In the wild-west days of late 1990's, online, I found like-minded people in various chat rooms. On reflection, a significant proportion of those would seem to display autistic traits.

Being autistic does not equate to partaking of any paraphilias. It may, however, predict an increased openness or susceptibility to such.

Thank you

Here's what scientific research has found:

"Throughout history, many theories have tried to explain the causes of fetishism. However, today, there’s no definitive one. Among all of them, we can mainly highlight one: classical conditioning. This theory seems to better explain the dynamics and causes of this paraphilia. Classical conditioning explains fetishism as a reaction to conditioning that existed during childhood." Source: https://steptohealth.com/what-causes-sexual-fetishes/

I came across the research while studying the role of classical conditioning in autism and how it causes stress, anxiety, and an increased sensitivity to criticism.