Published on 12, July, 2020
At the end of my academic semester a month ago now, I was nearly sexually assaulted by another autistic person who I was asked to help by our welfare department. This autistic person is much more autistic than I am so whilst I struggle to read some social signals, for example, he struggles a lot more. Whilst I appreciate that isn’t his fault, what he did to me was unacceptable.
We were just friends in my view and I explained that to him, however he wanted more. He wanted for us to be in a relationship and I made it very clear to him that it wasn’t going to happen as I’m already in one with someone else. He wouldn’t accept it so pushed me onto the bed and started trying to take off my clothes and his clothes. Before things got any further I said to this person “Get off me now and do not touch me or do that ever again! It is completely inappropriate what you have just done.” He then said, if you find that inappropriate how I touch your breasts, so I replied to him saying “Do not touch me anywhere on my body. I made it loud and clear to you we are not in a relationship and you’re not respecting boundaries.”
It was then suggested I went to tell welfare about what happened but all they said was we have to let him off because he’s seriously autistic even though this is in our view close to sexual assault. My friends think that I should report or do something as what happened is not acceptable and that the response of the welfare team is not good enough. Does anyone have any views?
You can't just let someone off because they have autism. There are behaviours you accept due to lack of understanding and then there are behaviours that are just down right unacceptable. If he really doesn't understand the boundaries to that extent even when you are making it very clear then he needs help. He can't go through life doing stuff like that or he will end up in serious trouble let alone putting people through horrific ordeals. I would definitely be reporting that higher up. You should not have to deal with that. It is wrong of the welfare team, they are putting you and others at risk and ignoring it due to his autism is not supporting him either.