Claim promiscuity is frequently observed in women with AS?

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So I've been reading various books and sites about Aspergers and I found suprirsing that a lot of literature suggests that females with AS are promiscuous ? (I'm not making it up, names if you want specific names, for example are Isabelle Henault and Tony Attwood)

Surprising not in a judgy way, but rather because how does that fit with difficulties communicating or shyness which are also usually associated with AS?? (Me personally am a spinster)

Would you say that that statement about promiscuity is accurate or is it surprising to you too?

Sorry if that's a too personal question, but then again it's a pretty personal claim to be making about a whole lot of people based on neurology..

That's surprising to me. I have no idea how I'd go about finding people to be promiscuous with or enjoying various people putting their hands all over me.

Perhaps some are just less bothered by how others perceive their sex life or by what others would think.

It's possible that people with AS often do not conform to social norms. Not in a bad way, but just that they do not conform to social norms that identify them as part of a group and they usually don't understand them anyway. So, for instance, gender norms, as defined by society and people around them could be one of them. So, in the case of gender norms, just like men with AS may not make an effort to develop traits thought would be considered masculine by most their peers, I suppose that the same could be true of women (with making an effort to be feminine). How this relates to the promiscuity issue is that most women are afraid of being too sexual because they are worried about their "reputation", but aspie women probably wouldn't care as much about that if they don't care as much about group identity and social norms associated with it, including the so-called gender norms, which often seems to be the pattern with people with AS. So, it's not that AS women are more likely to be promiscuous because they have higher sex drives or whatever, they're just less concerned about what others might think about them.

It always seemed like all female Aspies I know have a sky high sex drive and are promiscuous with a high "count" but I have come to realize at my age the world's best kept secret: even though women (NT) like to act disinterested and always downplay it, they are usually far more sex driven than men! It was quite a shock to finally realize this. I think it's just that Aspie girls are very open about this side of themselves. Two Aspie girls told me flat out their numbers were 4 and 5 respectively when at the same time if an NT answered at all would probably round down by significantly.

I'm like that in the opposite way. I will say outright if asked my number is 1 and I was a virgin until 29. Most men would NEVER admit that especially to a female they were interested in. Most men if they answered at all would say something like "I lost count".

By what standard are they defining promiscuity? I suppose it could apply in my case.

Because they can.

And because men are generally way less picky when it comes to casual sex.

every book on aspergers I have read which is a lot and includes attwood, always quote maxine astons work on relationships, so they all are just giving the same inaccurate biased info as she is a vindictive ex wife of an aspie out to prove her point and very anti aspie and not peer reviewed or anything, but if you look in the references at the back of the book 9 out of 10 times its her work quoted.

http://www.maxineaston.co.uk/cassandra/

I have always heard that sex drive for people on the spectrum (both male and female) is usually on one of the extremes (either hypersexual or asexual).

I am on the hypersexual end of things.

Regardless of Maxine's motives, I think that the standard of her "science" is exceptionally low, she also should avoid the subject of AS and sexual issues as her failed relationship with an aspie casts doubt on her trustworthyness. How does anyone know if she has projected her feelings for her ex-husband onto all people with AS or not, only Maxine can answer this question and we would have no idea if she is being truthful.

Exactly. I don't think there is much of a middle ground. Safest bet is to assume any woman on the spectrum is asexual, until proven otherwise. For those who are actively heterosexual, I don't think I would say promiscuous, as much as incredibly forward and explicit. Since getting involved in the autism world a little over two years ago, I've had three turn on the charm and in less than a minute from letting me know they were interested, they were wanting to discuss sexual methodology. None of them gave me the grab, like a bar slut. Shall we say, spectrum girls can verbally communicat with incredible clarity when they are interested in the topic of discussion.

Post edit: From what I can tell, much less than half of women on the spectrum are actively heterosexual or have any interest. I've attended different groups ranging from truly disabled to those who are super high-functioning. In all groups, most of the women have never had a real boyfriend and have no desire - some have never had a date of any kind. They often don't have any outstanding sexual self-concept that would work with a significant other, so they have no intuitive place for a boyfriend. However, they almost always have a super strong political identity as a woman.

Post post edit: I just coined a new term! That term is "political gender identity." I think it will be particulary useful for women who only have a gender identity in the domain of politics, but nowhere else.

Last edited by SoftwareEngineer on 12 Jun 2014, 12:35 am, edited 4 times in total.

I think both genders (not just women) are more often into polyamory (if they get a chance). It is also more common to see sex as a contact behavior, which can have all kinds of side-effects.

If it can be considered part of AS or not is a matter of definition. It's certainly not part of the definition, and the crude theories of the relationship issues in AS basically has no merit, simply because no professional basically understand those..

This^^^

I always find it funny how people try to broadly generalize people with AS when in reality we're just as varied in our interests and proclivities (if not more so) than NT people. Our extreme nature lets us conform to two mutually exclusive stereotypes at once.

you always make such offensive posts, you seem a real know it all about women, you seem to have a deep core of misogyny always objectifying and dehumanizing women. Do you even see it? Do you have any insight into your posts?

You are just trying to bully me away from my honest observations. First of all, for anyone who checks my list of posts, your maximization of "you always make such offensive posts" is clearly a bogus distortion. Simply because you have an artifically acquired or distorted sense of offense, does not mean I really did anything truly wrong or offensive. Secondly, when my observations took place, I doubt you were anywhere near the place. You are trying to inflate flat land into a mountain.

Okay...getting back on the original topic here, it's not just women. Numerous studies have shown that part of the brain that's different in Autistic people is the hypothalamus--a part that has a lot to do with sex. Autistic people are a lot more likely than Neurotypicals to be either hypersexual ("over-sexed") or asexual/under-sexed. I've seen this in real life, too.

It's probably just more noticeable in women because, as has been mentioned previously, it's more socially acceptable for men to be super horny/perverted (which might also be why there's that huge stereotype about Autistic males--or Autistic people in general--all being asexual, when really, a lot of us are the opposite). That, in addition to the fact that a lot of Autistic people don't know any better than to talk openly about sex, probably makes it stand out more for women.

Seems as if aspies (of both genders) tend to go to extremes in many cases. They either are fully aware of their awkwardness/social disfunction of completely oblivious. Its very possible that seemingly asexual or hyper-sexual aspies have an average sex drive. Its just that the oblivious ones seems hyper-sexual because they are obvious to the taboo aspect of mentioning sex in many situations, and in addition to mentioning it too much, bring it up poorly. On the other side of the same coin, the seemingly asexual ones are afraid that by saying 'so-and-so is hot', or, by getting intimate with someone, or do any flirting or touching they will be labelled a pervert, and just don't see it as worth the label, as they are aware of what being labelled has done to them in the past. Since, as has been mentioned earlier, its less socially acceptable for females to be more sexual, the seemingly hyper sexual females stand out more, as do the seemingly asexual males. They aren't hyper sexual or asexual, they just come across that way.