Income/Employment Status and Sexual/Relationship Success

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*** Poll is for aspie/autie men only, or women who have a male aspie/autie partner who won't be voting here. Thanks! ***

Invader posted a thread, at: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt138290.html which asked:

Is there any correlation between income level/employment status and the likelihood of male aspies/auties having a steady/long-term partner/sexual relationship or getting sex as frequently as they would like?

I thought that a poll might be useful in order to gather as much data as quickly as possible on the subject.

Aspie/autie men, please vote for the option that best describes your situation.

... If you are female and have a male aspie/autie partner, who won't be voting/is not a member of WP, and know what their income level/employment status is please vote on their behalf.

I live in France, and have little idea what the average income levels in $ are in the USA or even the UK, so the income levels are described simply as low, average, etc.

NB. It occurred to me, but too late to add to the poll, that some male aspies/auties might want to vote for the following option: ... "Have little or no desire for sex". So that's a factor/variable which needs to be considered too. Please could any male aspies/auties who feel this way vote for "Other situation" so as not to distort the figures for ( presumably unwanted ) celibacy?

PS. If you aren't elligible to vote but want to see the results simply log out briefly.

PPS. If your income varies a great deal, or you are in an unstable work situation, etc please choose the option which best describes your economic status over the last year or two.
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Last edited by ouinon on 20 Sep 2010, 10:17 am, edited 3 times in total.

Hrm, maybe you should repost/bump this tomorrow. Seems like everyone is asleep or something.

oops, i didn't realize this poll was intended for males!

but considering that i was the major breadwinner for several years in my household (and now we have fairly equal income) i believe it is still relevant. for those years when i was the higher breadwinner, my husband was the primary caregiver of our child, or he was in university, or both.

he is not an aspie.

Of course a correlation between higher income etc and regular or long-term sexual relationships doesn't need to mean that women are attracted, however unconsciously, to men with money and the security it usually provides ... ( Edit. I see that azurecrayon has just pointed out something very similar on the other thread! :lol )

It could mean that those male aspies/auties that are able to get and keep jobs and earn average to high incomes are simply more "able" at the sort of "tasks" required by most steady well-paid jobs; eg. social interaction, the efficient use of time and other resources, aswell as "personal grooming", and that it is being more "able" at these things that makes them more attractive to women, not the money.

To explore that possibility we would have to create a poll capable of establishing whether having those sort of skills was correlated with steady/long-term or frequent sexual relationships, ( might be a rather long poll! ) . ie. whether the degree to which one is on the spectrum *does* indeed impair one's ability to form relationships with one's peers, ... as per the DSM diagnostic criteria.

I don't know what sort of statistical methods you would have to use to "control" for/filter out the skills/abilities ... would have to use surveys I suppose, so that could cross-ref the sexual activity rates with both the skill and income rankings ... Otherwise all we'd have would be a string of correlations, no basis for any conclusion.

It'll be interesting just to see if there is any correlation at all at this stage though.

Thank you very much everyone who is voting. Please keep doing so!
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I hope you're the only one who made that mistake! :lol

The poll is a first stage in attempting to establish how true or not the bitter refrain is that is so often repeated on here about women being genetically driven to seek out men with money.

This poll will only, at best, be able to establish if there is any correlation between income and sexual activity.

If there is none then that particular theory about women will be debunked. If there is then further polls will be necessary to ascertain whether it is just a correlation, ( connected to another causal factor, eg. ASD's ), or whether there is a causal relationship as so many on here seem to believe.
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The results are not surprising.

man, scientists and researchers have already proven this. Will this poll be better than ages of studies?

I'd think there'd be some level of coincidence here as well. My long-term boyfriend (not an aspie) earns less than I do, but that doesn't bother me in the least. I think when considering aspies in this situation, those that earn higher are more likely to be closer to "normal". Which means that there are more women that are likely to be interested in them. There are so many outside factors here that even if the poll shows what everyone thinks it will, it will not factually be backing up anyone's theory.

I've dated guys (at least one was a possible aspie) that didn't have jobs at the time. I've only been with 2 or 3 that earned more than me. Now, that is just me, but there is no way that I am the only one.

Yep, no surprises so far. I tend to tell people that I'm an artist, which is kinda true, rather than tell them I'm unemployed. Last time I told a girl who was interested in me outright that I was on the jam roll, you should have seen how quickly she dropped me. Like a hot brick made of spiders. I don't blame them, but it hurts.

Interesting poll. Currently observable (September 20, 2010)

- A linear increase of aspies/auties when you go down the payscale.
- Only one student has a temporary connection (has to be the new times), but noone who has an income has a partner.
- A linear increase of aspies/auties who have a steady long term relation when you go up the payscale.

...that is as far as the 26 voters have show.


Hypothesis:
- To have a good wage makes you more likely to find a partner, but there is no guarantee.
- The best thing is to be a aspie/autie student today and have a stroke of good luck.

Shouldn't think so! :lol

But there have only been 26 votes so far, ( one a mistake! ), and as more employed people vote, in the evening, the results may change.

However even if they don't it's interesting to see it in black and white. And think about how to explore how much of the correlation may be down to spectrum difficulties, ( social skill levels, executive function, "personal grooming", etc ), and how much to low income. Maybe post a poll asking people to rank themselves for social skills and income level and sexual activity, for example? eg. if people ranked themselves low on social skills but high on sexual activity would that correlate with more money ( evidence for the "women are attracted to money" thesis ) or not?

Thank you everyone else too, Ichinin, Moog, and nekowafer, for your comments and analysis. Inclined to agree about the "closer to normal" remark about those in higher paid jobs. ... but not sure if that is all there is to it.
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Last edited by ouinon on 20 Sep 2010, 11:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

i don't honestly understand the focus on money when it comes to selecting a man. it's sort of silly, and obviously it was not a factor in my choice. HOWEVER, my husband kept house and cared for our child when i was the major breadwinner. so we each had roles to fulfill.

also, he was driven to complete art projects and writings (he also made an artsy video that was in a local film festival) when he was not employed. i think it was good for our relationship, and also good for his soul, for him to work on creative projects.

I think your poll here was complicated enough. Maybe if you went off site with a questionnaire or something?

Actually, I think it's just too complicated. You'd need an objective way of measuring so many factors for this to make sense... social skills, income, looks, humour, ability to care, stability, confidence, energy level, blah blah blah... too many things.

Also there's a big difference between having 1 long term and many frequent relationships, but you've lumped them together here. It gives a distorted picture of what's going on in that area.

Sorry I'm being a negative Nelly. I am genuinely interested in this though.

No offense taken; I don't think you're being "negative" at all, just clearheaded about the complexity involved.

The aim of this poll wasn't to explore in depth the many factors involved, but simply to answer the question on Invader's thread ( which I linked to in my OP ) rather more concisely and quickly than looked like happening on that thread ( ie. is level of income correlated with level of sexual activity? ) .

But having done it I have begun to think about how one could extend the question/create further polls to attempt to see, in the roughest/crudest of ways of course, whether income/money is a causal factor on its own or not, eg. whether enough money, for example, can make up for low social skills and/or poor executive function, etc, or not. Invader's thesis appeared to be that money ( and the security that it usually provides ) would be a priority with most women, however unconsciously.

Obviously any results obtained with such small and simple polls as can create on here, or anywhere really, would only ever be talking points, inconclusive, suggestive only, but fun for all that.

I too used to think that polls with more than four or five choices were excessive, but have seen some super complex ones on here in the last couple of months, so thought/think it's worth trying! :lol

I agree that "steady/long-term relationship" and "frequent sexual relationships" would not usually go together but I was trying to be faithful to the spirit of Invader's original question, which was concerned with the degree of deprivation experienced by "low income/unemployed" male aspies/auties, and I figured that both "steady/long-term" and "frequent" sexual relationships would ( usually ) prevent deprivation, whereas less frequent and/or briefer relationships wouldn't! :lol
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this type of questioning can really be affected by length of relationships and age, so im not sure how accurate its going to be. financial roles can change over time, and the older you get and the longer you are in a relationship, the more likely you are to see varying roles.

to explain what i mean... i am non-autistic female, my partner is autistic male. when we met, he was employed and i was unemployed. when we began living together, i was employed and he was unemployed. we had a 2 yr period where we were both semi-employed doing a home based business together. then for a few years he was employed and i was unemployed or part time. and for the last 3 years ive been employed full time and he is employed part time. whoever is the least employed is the majority SAH parent.

wow, i never realized how often we've changed roles =P but its an example of how things can change over time. theres no way i could answer the poll except as a snapshot of RIGHT NOW in our lives. its likely to change again soon!

A snapshot is a good way of describing it!

Results so far continue to support the theory that lower income etc is correlated with lower level of sexual activity, ... but there are now four "highly-paid" and another two "average-paid" in the "no sexual partners" slot ( compared to six in the "high income with sexual partners" slot ) ... as if money is not quite as important as Invader was suggesting.

Looking forward to seeing more votes. ...

*** Just a reminder: Poll is for aspie/autie men only, or for women who have a male aspie/autie partner who won't be voting here. Thanks! ***
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