Friday, December 30, 2011

Love and autism

This article in The New York Times discusses issues arising when people with Asperger's syndrome and other autistic-spectrum disorcers enter into romantic relationships:
Only since the mid-1990s have a group of socially impaired young people with otherwise normal intelligence and language development been recognized as the neurological cousins of nonverbal autistic children. Because they have a hard time grasping what another is feeling — a trait sometimes described as “mindblindness” — many assumed that those with such autism spectrum disorders were incapable of, or indifferent to, intimate relationships. Parents and teachers have focused instead on helping them with school, friendship and, more recently, the workplace.

Yet as they reach adulthood, the overarching quest of many in this first generation to be identified with Asperger syndrome is the same as many of their nonautistic peers: to find someone to love who will love them back.
I believe that the mainstream LGBT community's emphasis on hyperemotionalism compounds the difficulty for queer Aspies. As one gay Aspie puts it:
In general normal gay men scare me. They're all feeling and illogical behavior and that just doesn't sit well with me.

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