It is no revelation that autistic men find initiating romantic/sexual relationships more difficult than allistic men and that autistic women are more liable to suffer abuse in romantic/sexual relationships than allistic women.
After reading through 'The Definitive Book of Body Language' (Allan and Barbara Pease, Orion Publishing) I think I have gained some further insight into both problems. Many years ago I worked out that I had some sort of deficit in initiating relationships and did some research into body language, largely because I think I had good verbal skills and could even flash out the occasional witty remark that made people, including women, laugh, so my problem seemed to lie elsewhere. I had to root around in books and journals to get a working, though intellectual, grasp of body language, so I would recommend this book to anyone wishing to hone their body language skills. It being a 'one stop shop'.
It is generally perceived that men make the running in approaching women. However, this is not how it works in reality. The majority of men will not approach a woman unless they receive prior signals that their approach would be welcomed. Around 90% of flirtatious encounters are initiated by women. Unfortunately, the signals made by women, which are overwhelmingly subconscious, are very subtle, so much so that even some allistic men have trouble decoding them accurately. The subtlety of the invitation is, I think, the root of the different problems of both men and women.
Autistic men will have great trouble recognising these subtle body language signals, so will have no idea whether or not to approach a woman. Autistic women may not be able to accurately send out the appropriate signals.
Autistic men are either unlikely to make any approach at all, despite being signalled to, or make approaches to totally unreceptive women. No wonder autistic men have difficulties.
I said earlier that most men will not make an approach without being signalled to, however a minority of men will approach essentially any woman that they find attractive. For them it is a numbers game, they will get a lot of rejection, but will occasionally succeed. For autistic women who have defective abilities in signalling their interest, it will be the minority of men who approach any woman who will tend to approach them, I would suggest that this minority of men, who seem to be indifferent to the feelings of others, would tend to include a higher proportion of potential abusers.
