AS Women and Relationships

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also.

4.54 am and i do not drink, so please imbibe on my behalf. I shall toast the Outlier's news with my morning coffee.

I used to. That is one of the things which seemed to be always true. Sex in real life, as opposed to fantasy, was never as interesting, exciting, etc etc etc, ( apart from, oddly enough, a couple of occasions exactly like you describe, generally when walking, and in a rush too!! !, or another couple of times when a sexual dynamic pushed all the right purely mental buttons, when I was almost overwhelmed by ... ). Otherwise it was never even remotely like, ... until I cut out gluten, and almost immediately I discovered that sometimes sex was as totally amazing and mmmmmmmm in real life as in books and daydreams. I am still sort of reeling from realising this. It's too weird.

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First off, outlier: congratulations!! !! Woo hoo!! !!

Excellent question. Hmmm.

I have definitely had experiences in the past (and like ouinon, I've had lots of sexual encounters, more even than she) where a really intense, exciting conversation made me feel a desire to be sexual with my conversational partner. In fact, I think most of my sexual experiences with "new" people (as opposed to long-term relationships) stem from that feeling. That was an emotional desire. I think. Not so much a physical one, anyway; as for logical, well, I didn't stop to analyze it.

Like many of the women in this thread, most of those sexual experiences were pretty crappy, not satisfying for me, and not at all a fitting climax (a ha ha ha) to the conversational headiness (usually talk of math or physics or philosophy) that made me want them in the first place. Every once in a while I got lucky, though, maybe because of hormones or a guy who took his time or both.

With my husband, my sexual desire stems from completely different sources. Simplest is the monthly hormonal cocktail that makes me physically desire sex (and that makes sexual touch not only bearable, but enjoyable). There's also an occasional emotional source, when I look at him with our kids or have some other thought about who he is and how much I love him and why, and I feel a fleeting desire to hold him and kiss him and be as close to him as one person can be to another, which takes on sexual imagery but rarely leads to me jumping his bones ; it's fleeting and I know that by the time I act on it (which is hard enough for me to do), that emotional nudge will be gone and I'll regret being sexually engaged.

The last source is ... logical, or emotional? It's guilt. When we haven't had sex for three or four weeks and I know he'd be pretty psyched if we did, I'll do it. He never puts any pressure on me, and as I mentioned (I think that was here), if he sees I can't get into it, he stops. (The man is truly a saint, a gift, a treasure....he never huffs about it or looks hurt or *anything*. And honestly, he'd rather *I* come than *he* come.)

On that last note (his wanting me to reach orgasm), I do sometimes say "just forget about me coming, because it's not worth the effort to me right now. Just have a nice time yourself, honey" .

It took us a long time to reach this point, lots of talking through rougher times, and I feel sort of charmed to have even gotten here...he's a unique and splendid man. On talking about sex--I always felt I owed it to him to talk about when things weren't working for me sexually, because he is so invested in my enjoying it and it being mutual. I would have felt dishonest not telling him something didn't work for me, or faking any part of anything.

(I've only faked an orgasm once ever in my life, and that was with a boyfriend who just wouldn't listen when I told him to stop trying to make me come....and then I told him afterward I'd faked. Which was maybe not the best idea, in retrospect, but hey, I'm nothing if I'm not honest. )

Just have to say how much I've benefitted from reading this thread. I'm so happy for you all that you've been able to have experiences and relationships and dates and all the things that people go through, and I wish I had some stories too, but all I've known is just the endless universal simmering sexual harassment - I could never tell the difference between them. I could only tell the guys who liked me because they didn't want to be with me, so that was the end of that every time.

I'm at the point now where I think I'm just a spiritual experiment and having the body is an accident.

This is something I´ve been meaning to answer, but I´ve been so bogged down by work lately that I haven´t been getting online much. (My diminutive presence on Wrong Planet has been dwindling lately...aside from the fact that when I do get online, it´s often VERY slow).

ANYWAY- yes, this is something I experienced for much of my life. To be honest, I wonder if many women, even NTs, experience this kind of thing. I think that, in terms of women´s sexuality, we live in a very strange and unhealthy culture. I think the sexuality of women is not very well understood, frankly, and we are pressured to live out many roles which seem to conflict, or go against our biology. My reason for thinking this, as well as believing that this is a problem for all women, is based mostly on books I´ve read, as well as a (very few) conversations about sex I´ve had with NT women- (by the way, "Women´s Studies" used to be a special interest of mine). What I´ve gleaned though my studying is that probably most NT women don´t experience sex in this "intense" way, the way it´s portrayed in movies, but that, instead, they get a stronger sense of a romantic feeling of "connection". As that is something that is more difficult for someone on the spectrum to feel- (as well as our tendency to not always know, immediately, WHAT we are feeling), this is a perfect setup for these feelings of detachment you describe. It just sounds like a man´s sexuality might be a little more focused and straightforward than a woman´s. In addition to that, when you describe "being in your head", I know that if I am feeling bombarded by a lot of different sensory issues, all coming in together in many different channels, I can feel quite distracted. So, basically, I think we have a few added challenges to an already complicated sexuality!

I wanted to touch on the subject of mixed messages. I remember when I was younger, I was constantly told that I should not do anything I did not want to do, and I should not let a man touch me if I did not want to. My parents were very open about sex and educated me well, which was very good. But on the other hand, when I was a teenager I was constantly told- (by my parents, as well as others)- that I was aloof, cold, that I was a "heartbreaker", and my parents even kept me away from boys at times- (long story, which I won´t get into)- because they thought I was going to hurt them! Talk about mixed messages: on the one hand, I was told I was allowed to choose, on the other hand, I was told I was "cold" and it was implied there was something wrong with me, I was too picky. As I said, the conflicting messages we receive as women are confusing enough, and for black and white thinkers, even more difficult: is it "this"? Or is it "that"? (By the way, my theory is that my apparent "coldness" was due to the fact that I didn´t pick up on signals that were sent, therefore I didn´t answer them one way or the other, etc. I was basically oblivious. I think this may have been true for much of my so-called "romantic life", I think many things just passed me by). For these reasons, and because of these mixed messages, I sometimes later threw myself into sexual experiences with no regard for my own feelings. It seemed strange that I just wasn´t really interested in anybody, so there were times when I thought more about the man´s passion than my own; I even sometimes hoped, on a few occasions, that he would have enough passion for the both of us! Needless to say, that doesn´t work.

As you are younger than I, I wanted to confirm what ouinon said, that it can get better with age. Hang in there...many AS people are "late bloomers". We have to bumble and stumble around a bit. I finally learned, after many difficult relationships, that if anyone is going to love me, it will have to be myself. Once I learned how to accept myself and put my own feelings up front, not always do what society deems the "right" thing, it got better. This is very hard for us, as we live in a world that rubs against us, so to speak. It may take time for you to figure out how to do this. In my case, a bit of stumbling, bumbling about and throwing myself into things basically taught me a few things about life, though I had to learn the hard way!

One more point I wanted to touch upon; I´ve been reading a lot about non-verbal communication and how NTs experience the world at the moment- (that and AS are my special interests right now). It seems that NTs have a kind of radar where they can pick up and "feel" each others feelings, even when they are total strangers. This is something I can´t fathom, if I am understanding it correctly; but, when you think about it, that alone would drastically change the dynamic of attraction. This would explain why many of us would need the intellectual connection as a starting point, or why it may take longer for us to feel a connection to begin with. From what I´ve observed, it seems to be the complete opposite in the NT world, where sex has to occur BEFORE friendship, and once you hit the "friendship" level, you are no longer considered to be romantic material.

I hope that I would never say anything so nauseating!

I don't remember saying, in fact am quite sure that I didn't say, that anything got better with age, ( and will be horrified if you can quote me saying so ).

However I did say that my sexual experience improved dramatically/changed significantly after cutting out gluten.

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Though it does. (Get better with age.) Probably through a better understanding of yourself, and if you're lucky, a good long-term relationship where you can get comfortable enough to be yourself and to totally trust the other person sexually (among other things).

But also, biologically speaking, something seems to happen when you hit your thirties that makes sex and orgasm much better. Don't have any idea what it is, but it happened for me.

My mother once told me she was worried I was going to hurt someone I was with! It was during my first encounter, and I was the one being hurt. Utterly clueless. I was the young, naive AS daughter; he was the several years older, experienced stranger!

I was oblivious to my rights and how I should not accept being disrespected; my parents never warned me about such things. I've only really grasped this concept about people in general in the last year or so (another skill honed somewhat by persevering through complaints procedures!) I think I can sense disrespect acutely now. There are multiple signs I've become aware of. I was never taught such skills growing up, nor anything about relationships (and a host of other life skills).

Sorry, I take it back!

This is exactly what I meant! All of life is a learning process. I notice things can get much better through learning and understanding.

Yes, you´re right; it´s a shame we don´t learn these things! And we learn a host of other things that we don´t really need in life.

Curious that my Nt mother also made a commentary or two to me about how difficult I would be ( I was teen by then ) for the guys to handle me or with me when grown up. I don't want to think about that like a disrespectful commentary but maybe cause as mothers they notice something 'different' in their daughters (aspies)
In the other hand my father (aspie), spent part of the time telling me when child not to accept candies from strangers, as a teen be careful with the guys, not letting me date until my eighteen, (opposite) .

I agree!

I remember now what prompted my mother to say it. She believed I couldn't have such feelings for others (or care about their feelings.) She made this assumption because I found it impossible to tell her I could care about someone in such a way; i.e., she assumed my external appearance of being indifferent represented my internal state.

My parents tend to willfully ignore my relationships. One counsellor I told accused them of wishing to keep me in a childlike state by not acknowledging such an important milestone of adulthood. I have to admit there seems to be something to it. She said they have me exactly where they want me. If this is correct, I have no idea why it would be so. It is mainly my mother who seems to be this way. She reacted badly when I reached adolescence, as though disgusted by me, and this is when she abandoned me. Actually, one time when I was about 18, she overtly and directly expressed this disgust. We were away at the time and I was casually showing her a piece of more adult clothing I was trying on for fun. She screamed in horror, shouting how disgusting it was. Her reaction scared the heck out of me and I felt ashamed and hid in the bedroom for hours. It was completely unpredictable.

Another inexplicable event occurred in my mid-twenties. One of my brothers became physically abusive and started violently kicking me right before her eyes. I was trapped in my seat so had to just take it. I know she's not afraid of my brothers and usually intervenes when there's a fight. However, this time, she just stared silently and didn't look at me afterwards. I later overheard her on the phone telling someone how bad she'd felt. However, it wasn't a caring sort of expression, more like what you'd say when recalling you saw a disabled stranger getting mugged and didn't care enough to intervene. Her conversation conveyed a kind of squeamish pity. I think that's the right word: squeamish. I make her feel squeamish.

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Last edited by starlighter on 10 Jun 2009, 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Last edited by starlighter on 10 Jun 2009, 12:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.