Abstract
Autism is conceptualized in much scientific literature as being associated with restricted and repetitive interests, characterized by an ‘empathy deficit’, and negatively impacting social communication. Meanwhile, ‘good and healthy’ sexuality is largely considered to be a social endeavor: asexuality and sexualities defined by acts rather than by partner gender—for example kink or BDSM—are broadly pathologized. Perhaps, therefore, first-hand autistic experiences of sexuality challenge existing assumptions about ‘good and healthy’ sexualities within couplehood. As a theoretical starting point to explore this potential, we revisit Gayle Rubin’s notion of ‘sex within the charmed circle’ to ask whether autistic sexuality can ever truly ‘fit’ within this (neurotypically defined) virtuous sexual arena. We further consider the ways in which the intersection of autism and sexuality is understood and experienced in first-hand autistic accounts of sexuality within a specific context, through analysis of a Swedish online discussion forum in which autistic people discuss sexuality. In doing so we seek both to better understand autistic sexual experience, and to track and deconstruct potentially restrictive assumptions of (non-autistic) couple sexuality more generally. We also consider ways in which assumptions of deficit concerning both non-normative sexualities and autism may have a deleterious effect on autistic people and on research more broadly, limiting theoretical and conceptual understandings of autism and autistic ways of (sexual) being by a default comparison to sexual and neurological norms.
Highlights
The diagnostic criteria for autism laid out in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) revolve around deficits in social communication and interaction, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities [10], with ‘(O)bservation of aberrant behaviour’ as the basis for diagnosis [11]
Both versions are invoked by contributors on the forum to argue for the occurrence of a particular ‘autistic sexuality’, whereby autistic sexuality is considered to be qualitatively different to non-autistic sexuality (c.f. [39])
The history of autism is the history of a group of people characterized in the vast majority of scientific literature as ‘the disordered and damaged other’ [38, p. 5]
Summary
The diagnostic criteria for autism laid out in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) revolve around deficits in social communication and interaction, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities [10], with ‘(O)bservation of aberrant behaviour’ as the basis for diagnosis [11]. The literature concerned with autism largely follows a similar focus, taking as its basis a study of ‘negatively valued deviations from behavioral norms’ [12], and leaving the assumption of deficit in the areas detailed by the DSM largely unquestioned. This assumption permits the extrapolation of a variety of social deficits attributable to autistic people, including traits which may be considered as positively-valued should they be manifested by non-autistic people. Autistic participants donated at the same rate and generously when they were not observed, which may, for example, permit a hypothesis of increased altruism in autistic people. The authors concluded that people with autism ‘have a specific deficit in taking into account their reputation in the eyes of others’ [13, p. 17302]
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