Data on Autism and Sexual Experience and Relationship Status

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5789215/
according to this survey, 44.6% of autistic men were virgins as opposed to 0% of NT men, 35.7% had sex less than once a month as opposed to 3.5% of NT men, and this is despite having generally high sex drives. it's also worth bearing in mind the ages average ages of those surveyed were 39.2 for autistic men and 37.9 for NT men.
in terms of women 50% were virgins as opposed to 0% of NT women and 27.5% had sex less than once a month as opposed to again 0% of NT women. 42.5% also reported no desire for sex though, so that could explain most of it in this case.

in terms of relationships these were the numbers:
Of the individuals with ASD, significantly more women (n=18; 46.2%) than men (n=9; 16.1%) were currently in a relationship (P<0.01). Comparing the ASD individuals with the HCs, we observed that significantly more HC women (n=31; 79.5% ; P>0.01) and more HC men (n=47; 82.4% ; (P>0.01) than individuals with ASD were currently in a relationship.

so it looks like the idea that autistic women are relatively less hampered in the realm of dating than their male counterparts is grounded in reality, not that it's a competition or anything.

According to this survey 42% of Autistic people had never had a partner as opposed to 21% of NTs, and 60% had no form of sexual experience as opposed to 18% of NTs:
https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Artic ... 6-t001.jpg

According to this survey of parents of Autistic adolescents only 1.5% of them had sexual experience and only 7.7% were in a relationship despite 69.2% of them desiring one:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Disorders

And according to this study the fertility rate for Autistic men is about 25% of that of NT men:
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/ ... 13_322.pdf

of course this info won't be too surprising but i thought it would be interesting to see concrete data demonstrating the struggles that autistic people face in dating.

But those figures shouldn’t deter one from TRYING…….

0% of nt men ??

I agree.


This data does not mention the percent of autistic women who get in abusive relationships or used for sex compared to autistic men who do. Women in general tend to get used for sex, physically abused, & controlled more in relationships than men do & us autistics in general can have a harder time judging the character of others so I suspect that autistic women could be more likely to end up in dangerous relationships than autistic men. Having a lot more data on this would be helpful for the which gender of us has it harder with dating & relationships debate. I'm hoping there would be more in-depth studies done with a lot more participants to help us autistics increase our odds of obtaining a quality relationship or sexual partner.

again the average age in that study for NT men was 38 so it's not surprising in that light. of course if you increased the sample size you would see a few, maybe increasing it to 1 or 2%.


true i was more so just talking about the ability to get into relationships or have sex, not the quality per se.
there is actually a study dealing with the issues you mentioned. this is the summary:
"The researchers interviewed 135 autistic women, 161 typical women and 96 autistic men about their sexual experiences. They confirmed their theory that autistic women tend to be less interested in sex than typical women or autistic men. Yet they found that autistic women have more sexual experiences than autistic men do. And many of them report regretting these experiences or not having wanted them in the first place, suggesting that they are at risk of sexual abuse."
https://www.spectrumnews.org/opinion/vi ... n-and-sex/
so i guess that extra freedom can come at a cost, but it's still preferable to the extra limitations of being an autistic male imo.

Also, much higher rates of non-heterosexuality and paraphilias, both of which can make finding a compatible partner more difficult.

I also wish they differentiated sexual experiences as consensual / non-consensual.

Experience isn't always a good thing.

okay so I just realized that there are also datasheets split between men and women for this study:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 85256/full

this is the male one:
https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Artic ... 6-t002.jpg
and the female one:
https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Artic ... 6-t003.jpg

a few interesting comparisons:
sexual experience for autistic males was 26.8% while it was 59.3% for autistic females
relationship experience for autistic males was 42.5% while it was 81.5% for autistic females
autistic females had higher rates of sexual harassment and regret after sexual experiences or agreeing to sex without desiring it, but they did for NT women too. however autistic females reported more sexual harassment than NT ones.
i'll just leave it at that as there's far too many questions to go through.