Autism and sexual desire

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.

Its interesting you do the accent thing too, I thought that was just me. I am from London but grew up in Slough. When Im nervous I tend to sound more cockney and Londonish to almost sound tougher if that makes sense, its like a defence mechanism.

I agree about the sharks, I find they tend to circle anyway no matter what I do though

As for masking, I still mask but I dont have the energy to mask as much as I used to. Im signed off work atm with my autistic anxiety and mental health issues from trying to cope in the work envoronment. 
Im hoping to start working for myself as a writer so hopefully that will reduce the situations where I need to mask and cope with "normal" people 

Yes, I certainly mask much less these days.  However, I'm not so dependent on work or others any more so I'm at a stage in my life (close to retirement) where it's safer to shed a lot of it.  I'm not sure how I'd feel if I were just starting out.  

The balance of power really matters in most situations.  As a customer, I mostly call the shots, but as a new starter in an entry level post, the mask would kick in automatically.  

Ah yes.  My sensitivity is very dominant.  And I do alter my voice sometimes, which feels wrong but also needed as a survival mechanism.  I live in the North East but my husband is from London and I've lived away a lot.  Still, he notices me revert to speaking "Northern" when someone comes to the door or I'm trying to get quotes for building work in.  

I also learnt, over a number of years at through various experiences at school at at work, that it can be a big mistake to show any weakness.  All it often means is that the sharks start circling cos they've scented blood.  

I totally relate to that. It is an internal conflict, when I was at work I felt that conflict every day and it used to drive me mad. 

Some situations you may have to mask, like shops etc, but its honestly not worth being anyone but yourself and if people dont accept you for you then stuff them! What I have found helps is Ive realised I cant be fully me with most people but I am like a toned down version of myself and I keep some of my more autistic traits hidden rather than fully masking and being someone else. I find that really helps. Hope that made sense 

That is so true! I always feel intimidated around men and much more comfortable around women. I feel with men there is always that unspoken competition to prove whos the most manly and I dont understand that or want to be part of it.

I totally relate to having to switch on to being a normal bloke! I even have a special accent I seem to develop for it and everything! The thing is i have some normal bloke interests like I love football and like going to the pub but I just dont fit in with the rest of it. Im a very sensitive, emotional person and that is kind of taken as a sign of weakness in bloke land 

Fully agree.  I basically hate anything relating to cars and their maintenance but then so does my husband!  We basically need a "normal bloke" assistant for such things.    Plus some workplaces can be an utter nightmare.  Fortunately we have become better at tailoring things as we get older but it's been a long haul.   

It can be the same for some of us men, having to switch on a 'normal bloke' mode for work, or trips to the mechanic, or buying a car, etc..  Some places are tough if you aren't alpha'ish.  But at home, good to relax and just be true self.

Yes, definitely much happier being ourselves.  But, whenever I venture out into the world, it feels as though I might bump into situations which seem to require or push me into being "her".  And this runs way beyond sexuality into everyday encounters, e.g. in shops or in work situations.  It feels like a core conflict, to be honest.  My hope is to simply continue to widen the range of situations in which it feels safe to be myself, but hold the mask in reserve, just in case.  So it's very much a tempered version of the previous (disastrous!) situations, in which I use the mask judiciously and with greater awareness.  

I remember reading that about Marilyn Monroe too. I totally understand about putting on the mask. I bet we are both so much happier now we are just us and not trying to be this characture of what we think we should be.

Its so nice to talk to somoene whos been through this too

So true! We lose faith in our own judgement because everyone tells us we're wrong. In reality though we are not wrong we are just different from them 

My ex partner that I lived with for two years did exactly the same thing to me. Thankfully my wife is very different and supports me with my autism alot 

Yes, I think that the manipulation can be quite subtle too.  Plus I don't know about anyone else but, since I'd become so used to the people around me being "right" and me "wrong" (for which in many cases you could simply read non autistic rather than autistic), I unfortunately also became accustomed to deferring to others instead of trusting my own judgement.  And often I felt simply too scared to disagree.  

What a mess!

I being autistic when 1st married did not know which end was up and my wife took total control of things.I later learned that it is somewhat easy to manipulate people with autism and was really taken advantage of.The 2nd wife is very supportive especially when I found out about my autism.

Yes.  To be honest, and although I'm female, I felt as though i was in drag, giving an excessive, defensive performance of what I thought would succeed in the dating market.  

Also (and although I'm no Marilyn Monroe!), I'm reminded of the following story about her, because some of it was a stance, rather than just clothes and makeup:-

"I’ll never forget the day Marilyn and I were walking around New York City, just having a stroll on a nice day. She loved New York because no one bothered her there like they did in Hollywood, she could put on her plain-Jane clothes and no one would notice her. She loved that. So, as we we’re walking down Broadway, she turns to me and says, ‘Do you want to see me become her?’ I didn’t know what she meant but I just said ‘Yes’ — and then I saw it. I don’t know how to explain what she did because it was so very subtle, but she turned something on within herself that was almost like magic. And suddenly cars were slowing, and people were turning their heads and stopping to stare. They were recognizing that this was Marilyn Monroe as if she pulled off a mask or something, even though a second ago nobody noticed her. I had never seen anything like it before.”

~ Amy Greene, wife of Marilyn’s personal photographer Milton Greene

Except, of course, that in my case it was more like putting on a mask.  With disastrous results!

Just seen this as I havnt been on here this week. You litterally described exactly my 20's! I felt like I had to be an extreme paradoy of non autistic, drunken, laddish sexuality. Other people share stories of their exploits with pride but I just look back on it and think I wasted most of a decade and why couldnt I have just spent that time being me 

Just to mention that the first link copies part of:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A_survival_guide_for_people_on_the_autistic_spectrum#Sexual_relationships
I wouldn't agree with the generalisations about men and women, but maybe it has some useful basic ideas about dating and the article opens saying there is a lot of diversity of sexuality on the spectrum, which there is.

The second link may overgeneralise, as so happens to autistic people.  As mentioned below, a greater proportion of ASD women (and men) have less frequent desire to be with a partner, but that's not true for all autistic people by far.

Some more recent research (both open access):
Dubreucq and Dubreucq (2021) 'Toward a Gender-Sensitive Approach of Psychiatric Rehabilitation in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A Systematic Review of Women Needs in the Domains of Romantic Relationships and Reproductive Health'  https://dx.doi.org/10.3389%2Ffpsyt.2021.630029

Joyal et al (2021) 'Sexual Knowledge, Desires, and Experience of Adolescents and Young Adults With an Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Exploratory Study' https://dx.doi.org/10.3389%2Ffpsyt.2021.685256

Peter said:

Autistic people are hugely diverse and the one thing I think I can assert is we often tend to gravitate to extremes. So I find the 2nd studies finding that autistic people are more likely to be much more or much less interested in sex to be the one that rings truest to me and my personal experience.

Yes, making it even harder to make generalisations about autistic people.  If you look at Figure 2 in your second link (Bejerot and Eriksson 2014), there's a peak in the middle for NTs, but if you added autistic men and women together you would see a clear tendency to extremes of arousal.

Mostly we're not completely asexual, just more complicated.

I find it quite unsettling really, the way in which my thoughts, feelings, behaviours and my very sense of self altered with the menopause.  Upsetting too, because it felt as though what I'd thought were personal, autonomous choices (ludicrous though many of them turned out to be) were actually all down to hormone levels in my bloodstream.  Well, combined with my very neurodivergent ways of expressing these.  

In a way, it felt as though I was returning to my true self - the 10 year old who thought that sex acts described by my classmates were just too ridiculous to be true.  That bit felt like a homecoming But oh, those years of lusting and acting out!  I wish I could erase some of them because they were damaging to myself and others.  

I would have hoped those double standards had been long buried by now.  I would make no sense to me that a woman who sleeps with someone different every night is doing anything 'wrong' or a lesser person.  If it's enjoyable and safe, it's surely a good thing... but it sounds like for you it didn't fulfil your other needs.

I do relate to what you say about sexuality as 'a kind of mind control drug', although it is eliminated from the bloodstream more gradually for middle-aged men. The urge didn't really feel part of me from teenage years, rather that it was a kind of control from the outside making me spend time thinking about stuff I really wouldn't otherwise.  Male hypersexuality without an outlet can be depressing.