Do guys think they'd be better off as woman with AS?

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You believe? Why is that?
I can tell you now that is not true.

I'd certainly pick being a woman if I had the choice. Partly because it'd be "easier" to get dates, and partly because I'm pretty passive and that's more "expected" in women than in men. I don't know whether it would actually make things any easier or not - I expect it would just mean I'd have changed one set of problems for another - but the grass sure does look greener on the other side of that thar fence.

If it were purely and only about getting casual sex, I'd want to change my sexual orientation, not my sex. I dunno about NT guys and Aspie women, but I'm quite sure that NT gay men are more accepting of Aspieness in potential sexual partners than NT women are.


In some ways it is and in some ways it isn't. I can pass for a woman on the Internet fairly well - better than most NT guys.


Ahh, you don't understand what's going on here. Read up on "Maslow's hierarchy of needs".

If you don't have air, your entire life becomes about getting air.
If you have air but not water (you're lost in the Sahara), your entire life becomes about getting water.
If you have air and water, but not food, your entire life becomes around getting food.
It's not that your entire life is around getting air or water because there's something unusual about you, but because of the situations you're in.

Maslow puts needs in big categories and ranks them: Physiological (air, water, food), Safety, Love and belonging (I'd put sex here, although Maslow put it in "Physiological"), Esteem, Self-actualization.

So someone like me has "getting sex" (casually or in a relationship) as a high priority because I've met the "Physiological" needs, "Safety" needs, and "Love and belonging" needs other than sex, leaving sex as the lowest unmet need on the hierarchy. If my life were to change so that I started having sex routinely, sex would stop being the focus and I'd move on to "Esteem" needs. Logically, I should just forget about sex and move onto Esteem, as effort spent on that would be far more cost-effective, but that's hard to do in the same way it's hard to ignore hunger (even if intellectually you know you're going to get food in an hour whether you do something about the hunger or not.)

Wow, if you were a different gender, you'd be a completely different person. Guess what.. now that you're female, its possible you no longer want all that casual sex that you changed gender for!

Different hormones. Different organs. Different person.

This argument is just stupid.

I, for one, would definitely not want to be a woman. I'd be insane if I did.

I wouldn't want to be a woman, because then I wouldn't be me. However, it would be nice if social gender roles were a bit less rigid, putting less emphasis on men to make the first move, be assertive, etc. Ironically, I believe that, in general, women are more resistant than men to equalizing social gender roles! Sure, women want equality in the workplace, but outside of work most of them don't. They still want men to play the traditionally masculine role. (If you're a woman, please don't say that doesn't apply to me - I'm making a general observation). There's a great scene in the movie Love Happens in which Jennifer Aniston's character takes a guy out on a date in a truck, and makes him feel special on his birthday. Great scene sure, but how often would a sexy, feminine, woman do something like that in real life?

However, the big advantage ASD men have over ASD women is that we have more time on our side. Many Aspies don't really mature until their thirties, or even later, and I think it's generally easier to rebuild your life as a 40 year-old man than a 40 year-old woman. I'm not saying it's fair (in fact it isn't), but men still have time to peak careerwise at that age, and even start a family with a younger woman. Sadly, 40+ women (unless they're Jennifer Aniston) are generally considered over the hill.

I thought that Maslow's hierarchy had been called into question.

Yeah, I think dating at least would be way easier as an Aspy woman. Being shy or socially awkward or being unemployed/underemployed and living with your parents doesn't hurt women's chances with men, but it does the reverse.

Well...I guess that's a fair point....woman being judgemental on a guy who lives at home vs a man being judgemental on a woman who lives at home is certainly an interesting one...but if I was an independant guy who didn;t live at home and I dated a girl who was....in a way I'd understand how the opposite situation feels...but then again, doesn't a girl want a guy who is socially and financially independant?

Socialising? I'd say both AS males and females have it hard and it's mostly down to luck. Personally I found being accepted hard until I got to University. Once at University I joined Sci-Fi and Fantasy Society (which also functions as the Uni's anime society). Though the majority of people at it are NTs they tend to be very accepting people who are easy to get along with. The University's Vegetarian Society has also been good for finding accepting people. I think fringe groups of people in general are well worth hunting down, which I think is easier for AS males than females as there is less of a judgemental attitude towards guys that engage in fringe activities than girls who do so (and so more of a chance males will explore fringe groups in the first place).

Dating? Don't really want to touch that discussion with a twenty foot pole...

Women highly value a guy's social status. which includes financial independence, yes, but also social skills. Women don't want shy or socially awkward guys.

By contrast, men really don't care about a woman's social status. They really just care about looks. I'm a guy and I admit it!

It's debatable which one is actually more superficial.

I so do not want to be a guy. I would have actually have HAD to get in fights.

Actually most NT guys care a lot about personality. NT men typically like women with outgoing, bubbly, energetic personalities. They don't want Lilith (Cheers/Frasier) or that girl from "The Big Bang Theory". They don't want women with male attributes to their personality or mannerisms, and so on.

Really?

I often do think that I would find life easier as a woman than as a man in many ways. Particularly surrounding sex--the majority of women can do virtually whatever kind of experimentation they want in this regard, and often even with quite attractive guys. The idea of a "pervert" practically doesn't exist for women. Yes, there's the whole slut thing, but I think I'd be socially isolated enough that I would bare even be aware of, much less care about, such a thing. This of course is assuming that I truly were the same person in terms of emotions, including whatever genetic mutations (if any) would be required to decouple sexual psychology from body parts. What Hale Bopp brings up is a different question, one that couldn't be answered unless I knew exactly how being in a different body would (or wouldn't) affect my needs.

I do wonder often, though, how much harder it would be as a woman to be looked up to for being talented and creative without being able to emotionally connect with others.

Generalisation! I don't really mind how a woman looks. If I like her personality then usually I'll start to find her beautiful even if she doesn't fit into society's usual idea of attractiveness. Similarly no matter how much my peers drool over a woman's looks if I dislike her personality then I will find her physically replusive.

Whoops, my whiny virgin comment actually belongs here.

I wouldn't want to be a dude whether he has aspergers or not. But not because it's "harder" but because I don't give a crap about cars and trains, sport, and im really not inerested in dating women.