Autism and sexual desire

Just popping back to this thread with a related thought. 

My own experience has been of heightened or even excess desire and it's occurred to me that this drive may well have been linked to a need to self regulate, dissipate nervous energy and get close to another human being without having to engage in what I often see as excruciatingly embarrassing small talk.  

Is it possible to somehow hide behind sex (as part of a mask and an avoidance strategy) and, at the same time, use it as more of a stim?  I'm not sure I actually think about sex in the same way as others do, although I could be wrong.    

Am I in a minority with this?

I'm sure that is posable. I'm also sure its very effective. I've seen smart young women, who I suspect were autistic, use their sexuality, or at least aggressive flirting, to build tight friendship groups centred on them. They didn't have to fake normality, or at least not too hard. I'm sure it comes with down sides but the up sides seem pretty good.

Well, it was always part of my "fakery", or masking, but it did provide relief from social anxiety - i.e. let's cut to the physicality so's we can avoid all those faltering, stress-inducing conversations.

Not without significant downsides though.  Hypersexual females seem to be almost invariably judged quite harshly from all sides (incl. female friends) plus the risks of STDs and violence are ever-present.  I look back at my youth with horror, not with pleasure at the thrill of it all (which was momentary, really).  Thinking about it, I could actually have died on a very unwholesome mix of sex and alcohol and many would have said I deserved it!

Well, it was always part of my "fakery", or masking, but it did provide relief from social anxiety - i.e. let's cut to the physicality so's we can avoid all those faltering, stress-inducing conversations.

Not without significant downsides though.  Hypersexual females seem to be almost invariably judged quite harshly from all sides (incl. female friends) plus the risks of STDs and violence are ever-present.  I look back at my youth with horror, not with pleasure at the thrill of it all (which was momentary, really).  Thinking about it, I could actually have died on a very unwholesome mix of sex and alcohol and many would have said I deserved it!

Yes, generally speaking that rings true.  I adopted a mask based upon what felt safe and seemed acceptable, if not admirable.  But then, not only am I left with the feeling that I've lived half my life pretending to be someone else, I also attracted a lot of blame when I took it to the nth degree, somehow imagining that I was really good at it.  

I'm just hoping that the rest of our lives can be different.  

That is so deep. I can totally understand it (sorry if I am butting in your convo)

I am only just starting to really unmask now. I totally get about wanting intellectual converstations and it never happening.

Reading your posts, so much of it sounds like what I went through. Its almost like we had to lower ourselves to their standards and now we look back and think why wernt we just true to us 

Ah, the "weirdo" label.  This one has pursued me all my life.  At school I somehow thought it would be better at university and my parents encouraged this belief - something along the lines of finding my own crowd with similar interests.  Well, the uni crowd turned out to have the same interests as the school crowd, and most weren't very academically minded either.  So the discussions on literary themes, philosophy and art that I thought would go on long into the night never emerged.  :( 

I'm not sure about ways of moving from friendships to something more.  I'm sure I totally clarted it up, to be honest, or was too drunk to notice the transition.  Later in life, though, once I felt secure enough to join groups and courses in line with my own interests, it did genuinely feel as though there'd have been more possiblities if I'd been single.  It's still hard for me to drop the mask though and to move away from the though that using it is the only way anyone will like me.  

I've had to live with the consequences of masking and forming relationships that way, though.  Several men has obviously fallen in love with somebody but unfortunately that somebody wasn't me.  In fact she didn't exist at all.  And when the mask came off, I could tell they were puzzled.  "You've been a dream" one of them said, looking quite crushed about it.    

I think in my case the mask never worked. The only mask I ever developed was the mask of formality. The one I used dealing with adults as a child. Waiters, shop assistants etc. Makes me sound very stiff. Full of phrases like ‘with all due respect’ etc. Still gets me through lots of situations where I need to pretend to ‘adult.’

as a homeschooled kid I really didn’t have any opportunity to practice anything else till I went to university.

so all my friends at uni knew I was a weirdo. Surprisingly quite a few of those friends were girls. But that didn’t translate to any of them wanting to be more than friends.

Ah, I think I might have been seen as "fun", until I turned out not to be.  Not so much to do with the clothes but rather the stance and how long I could maintain it for.   No doubt I then said or did something that seemed a little "off" and not in line with the mask.  

And yes, I can see how being hypersexual isn't necessarily the same thing as having lots of partners.  But it's also possible to get through lots of partners on your way to finding something sustainable, for which the mask has to drop.  

I think my regret is having too many opportunities to be sexual without the real depth of relating that could have made it meaningful, if only I'd known how and also actually known myself a bit better.  

Mind you, I think I did actually come across one or two undiagnosed autistic men who were faking it too.  Maybe on one level the game was being played, but on another something more real and lasting was forming.  Could be why I married one of them.  

Jenny Butterfly said:

Some men seem to get away with it

Not I'm afraid autistic men. Not as far as I can tell. Also there is a distinction to be made between being sexual and having sex. Some of the most sexual women I've known haven't had many sexual partners. But they are always in skimpy dresses, flirting, telling dirty jokes, sharing stories of their exotic escapades or items on their sexual bucket list. Girls like that get labeled as 'fun.' Guys, not so much. Not unless, as you say, they seem to have some special teflon status driven by some invisible quality.

Looking back on my years, especially my teens / 20s I wish I'd had more opportunities to be sexual, which is not nessiserally the same thing as having lots of partners.

Well, I think it's harsh all round but in different ways and the effects will depend on the individual.  I think I might actually have been a bit of a predator at times, if I'm honest, but the men involved didn't respond with negative labels until much later on, long after the immediate pleasure had faded.  

So yes, at the time the sex can be utterly thrilling and intoxicating but in the longer run the consolation isn't so great if, for example, you've lost your friends, had unwanted pregnancies, STDs, serious kidney infections and the like.  It can cast a long shadow too.  The past is sometimes very hard to escape too because people don't forget.  You're always, "The one who...". I think Sarah Hendrickxs touches on this subject quite a bit (esp. poor boundaries and early pregnancy).

I appreciate that the horrendous labels of predator or creep can be enduring too though.  Some men seem to get away with it, especially those who might be more accomplished at what's seen as the social niceties, and I always found it confusing that men were always expected to be "up for it", women not so much so.  Plus it also seems as though the selfsame behaviours from one man turn out to be unacceptable from another.  And much of this depends, from what I can gather, on invisible cues and signals.  Maybe also social standing and perceived attractiveness.  All very confusing and, looking back, I think it's no wonder things can become so problematic, if not traumatic when they go badly awry.

The temptation might be to just move away and start again but even that is difficult if the person is still masking and still doesn't realise that they're autistic.  

I wish I'd been given more guidance earlier in life but I guess that's a common enough feeling.  

I think you'll find hyper sexual men with poor social skills are judged far more harshly. The hypersexual women with poor social skills may get labelled 'whore' or perhaps 'victim' but the hypersexual man with poor social skills is almost always labelled as 'predator' or 'creep.' Having been labeled as the latter I'd far rather be labeled as the former.

And of course in my limited experience hypersexual women with poor social skills do at least get the consolation of having lots of sex which their male counterparts usually don't.