Is Asexuality related to Asperger's?
Hey, saw this topic while googling stuff about Asperger's and asexuality and thought I'd chime in with my own two cents. I know the last reply was back in March, but seeing as there was a two-year gap in the replies (I checked) I'm sure this is OK ;3
I have Asperger's. I have a dick and I do get these "tingly" feelings in it. However, I've learned to associate these feelings with mostly emotional and aesthetic cues instead of thinking that they're sexual.
Feel happy about great weather or spending time with a friend? Feel emotionally hurt after a bad situation? Feel frustrated, uncomfortable, stressful, anxious or annoyed? Feel excited about something new or awesome? Looking at something that's cute, beautiful or otherwise visually pleasing? Taking in a sensual experience, like eating delicious food or listening to awesome music? All of these things register in my dick as well.
The libido is always there, I just don't consciously associate it with sexual stuff. Like my username suggests, it's more of an "all-purpose feeling" that just reflects the situation I'm in and the thoughts and feelings I'm having. Mostly, though, it's just frustrating as all hell! It does make sexual thoughts bombard my mind, probably because the feeling is happening in my dick, but I consider these thoughts intrusive, disturbing and unwanted, like if some as*hole is watching really loud porn in the next room, and you just wanna focus on what you're doing but the porn sounds are distracting you and making you uncomfortable. It might stir when I see people, and I might have passing thoughts about sexually touching them, but when they fade I remember that I don't even want to do anything like that. It's kinda like sexual OCD, you know?
I consider the thought of having an intimate romantic or sexual relationship with anyone intensely uncomfortable, and I am quite content satisfying my libido by just masturbating. So yeah, I consider myself to be a type of asexual.
I don't think so but it might be a common thing among aspies, since a lot of us don't feel comfortable being touched.
Never heard of demisexual until now, this answers some questions I've had to myself, as I have no desire to have sex and down right fear it but I can still feel... eheh. Anyways, still confused about my orientation. Thought I was straight but then I developed a crush on a girl, then I became fascinated with transgenders and intersexual and considered myself pansexual, except I recently discovered I have no desire to be with them and am confused because I don't think I am bisexual?
Ways I can distinguish a crush is if I am more interested in them than other friends or people and I have an urge to help them and stuff. I also tend to be more wary of my character and have an urge to tell them as much information I can about myself and want to know more about them. There;s something else but I don't really feel comfortable explaining it. I'm pretty sure we all have our own way of feeling or showing platonic connections, though. but I've never actually confessed or shown my crushes how I feel..
ALSO, I am able to develop hate-crushes. I can 'like' a person, solely based on hatred. It's kind of like, I want to argue with them all the time and 1up them in everything but in a way, I expect them to embarrass me. It's pretty hard to understand.. I really don't know what I should label myself as.
Yeeah, sorry if I went a bit off-topic, sexuality and orientation are different but they're both really confusing.
It's not that uncommon for people who can't manage to establish something they want in life long enough, to convince themselves they don't want it anyway. I suspect being Asexual can begin as a non-choice, and become a conscious choice. Of course I'm sure there are quite a few who choose from the beginning, or simply don't have any interest in sex. I highly suspect that's pretty rare though.
OK, firstly, being asexual is not about behavior. It's about desire. And it's not a choice, any more than being gay is.
It is possible for long-term celibacy to result in sexual feelings going 'underground', but the vast majority of people who identify as asexual have never felt sexual attraction. It didn't go underground - it was never there to begin with.
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Interesting thread. I posted to an evolutionary psychology list just to get some reasonable theories for the cause of asexuality, but nobody provided anything interesting (aside from some disease-models).
Thus, I posted my own model, and nobody really commented it.
In Aspie Quiz, asexuality has a peculiar gender pattern. It doesn't have a gender bias in the neurotypical population, but is much more common in neurodiverse females.
Average scores: (0-2 range, N=16,423)
Male neurotypical: 0.11 - 0.16
Female neurotypical: 0.12 - 0.18
Male neurodiverse: 0.32 - 0.39
Female neurodiverse: 0.41 - 0.50
Asexuality has the largest (negative) correlation to neurotypical social traits. Neurotypical social traits can be summarized as a desire to socialize with strangers. In humans, sexual behavior is not related to periods of estrus, rather humans have evolved concealed estrus. It seems like neurotypical humans have evolved their sexual preferences as part of their social preferences. The desire to use sexual intercourse as a way to keep relationships together is a neurotypical social trait that sometimes is missing in neurodiversity.
This predicts that disliking sexual intercourse as a social behavior, but not as reproduction, should be correlated to neurodiversity.
Average scores for disliking sexual intercourse expect for reproduction
Male neurotypical: 0.06-0.10
Female neurotypical: 0.17-0.24
Male neurodiverse: 0.27-0.35
Female neurodiverse: 0.47-0.57
It shows the same bias as asexuality. Even more interesting, is that this trait correlates best to being asexual (r=0.38).
This leads up to the model. Asexuality in neurotypical humans have no adaptive function. The sexual behavior of neurotypical humans evolved as a social adaptation and become a universal. In Neanderthals, this evolution never happened and instead they had the ancestral state (possibly modified in some way). Neanderthal could control reproduction by only having sexual intercourse in order to reproduce. The manifestation of asexuality in our current culture is driven by the expectation that relationships and sexuality is always primarily based on sexual intercourse. People that dislike sexual intercourse will then be driven to identify as asexuals in order to escape these expectations. The reason why both asexuality and disliking sexual intercourse other than for reproduction are more prevalent in neurodiverse females than neurodiverse males is that females had the strongest reason to avoid non-reproductive sex. In fact, such a behavior was the norm before contraceptives became common
Thus, I posted my own model, and nobody really commented it.
In Aspie Quiz, asexuality has a peculiar gender pattern. It doesn't have a gender bias in the neurotypical population, but is much more common in neurodiverse females.
Average scores: (0-2 range, N=16,423)
Male neurotypical: 0.11 - 0.16
Female neurotypical: 0.12 - 0.18
Male neurodiverse: 0.32 - 0.39
Female neurodiverse: 0.41 - 0.50
Asexuality has the largest (negative) correlation to neurotypical social traits. Neurotypical social traits can be summarized as a desire to socialize with strangers. In humans, sexual behavior is not related to periods of estrus, rather humans have evolved concealed estrus. It seems like neurotypical humans have evolved their sexual preferences as part of their social preferences. The desire to use sexual intercourse as a way to keep relationships together is a neurotypical social trait that sometimes is missing in neurodiversity.
This predicts that disliking sexual intercourse as a social behavior, but not as reproduction, should be correlated to neurodiversity.
Average scores for disliking sexual intercourse expect for reproduction
Male neurotypical: 0.06-0.10
Female neurotypical: 0.17-0.24
Male neurodiverse: 0.27-0.35
Female neurodiverse: 0.47-0.57
It shows the same bias as asexuality. Even more interesting, is that this trait correlates best to being asexual (r=0.38).
This leads up to the model. Asexuality in neurotypical humans have no adaptive function. The sexual behavior of neurotypical humans evolved as a social adaptation and become a universal. In Neanderthals, this evolution never happened and instead they had the ancestral state (possibly modified in some way). Neanderthal could control reproduction by only having sexual intercourse in order to reproduce. The manifestation of asexuality in our current culture is driven by the expectation that relationships and sexuality is always primarily based on sexual intercourse. People that dislike sexual intercourse will then be driven to identify as asexuals in order to escape these expectations. The reason why both asexuality and disliking sexual intercourse other than for reproduction are more prevalent in neurodiverse females than neurodiverse males is that females had the strongest reason to avoid non-reproductive sex. In fact, such a behavior was the norm before contraceptives became common
The problem with asking questions and studying them is that people lie. And this does not go away by having a lot of participants.
What do they lie about? Being asexual?
The questions about being asexual and disliking sexual intercourse other than for reproduction were mixed-up with 150 other questions related to neurodiversity, so it was not a traditional study of sexuality, rather I used these questions in the context of neurodiversity in order to find links. Even if some participants lied about asexuality, I find it hard to believe they also lied about the other issues in a consistent manner, which means such random lying gets filtered out with larger populations.
I'm not sure but I wouldn't be surprised if another autistic person told me they were asexual.
When I think about it; we typically have difficulty reading body language which is a huge part of sexual interactions, some of us hate to be touched, enjoy less social interaction and prefer being on our own to make our own decisions, and we tend to ignore or miss social expectations -we're not feeling the same pressure to do all the things society says is 'normal' -like entering into sexual relationships just to fit what society says is right.
That being said I've met autistic people who've identified gay, pan and bi so really I think it's more a people thing, less an autism/ASD thing.
<--- Been asexual for years. Likely will stay that way till he drops dead.
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I get pretty hormonal once in a blue moon for about an hour or so but other than that I am not really interested in sex and I never have been. I do it for my husband but other than that I could live the rest of my life without it and not even notice or care. I have also seen that trait on a lot of the girl Aspie trait lists that I have read.
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i have physical "urges" that are not attached in any way to people... i get "hungry" and i take care of it myself, which is better on my sensory and anxiety issues anyways, but this is not associated with people in any way... i do not think of people or fantasize about them during it, i do not feel these "urges" when viewing or interacting with people "attractive" or otherwise. i desire cuddling and non-sexual close contact with people, preferably in a asexual romantic relationship... i permit very little physical contact with friends so my need for human contact gets focused on my partner. i am not sure what the correct terminology for all this is...
I have to stress here that asexual just means "Does not want to have sex with other people." There's a lot of variety. Many asexuals want to have romantic, non-sexual relationships, probably with other asexuals. Many have physical sex drives that just don't point at other people.
This is something I've spent the last few years grappling with-- am I asexual? I'm not gay, I'm quite sure, but I really hate most physical contact, ESPECIALLY sexual contact. it just makes me feel sick, disgusted, repulsed even. But, I do I have, erm, sexual urges. I just can't stand the idea of having someone else touching my body for their/my enjoyment.
For me it's more psychological than physical- sexual contact can occasionally be enjoyable in the moment for me, but after the fact I feel utterly repulsed at myself. I think of it like doing drugs. Being high surely feels good, but it is not a lasting satisfaction and goes against what you psychologically reason to be the "right thing" to do with your body, leaving you worse off than before shooting up.
Does that makes sense?
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