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!

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.    

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.    

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