Disabled people aren\u2019t a monolith, and not every autistic person is on the ace spectrum. But for me, the two parts of my identity are linked <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One evening in 2013, my boyfriend and I were squished together on the twin-size bed in my dorm room. With my back toward him, I settled into the heat of his body and the quiet of the moment. He reached between my legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI thought we were cuddling,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are cuddling,\u201d my boyfriend said, either oblivious to my discomfort, or uncaring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My chest tightened. We\u2019d slept together before, but I didn\u2019t feel any sexual desire that night, and I wanted to be held without the assumption it might lead to foreplay. This situation had come up before, and I never quite knew how to navigate it. I didn\u2019t know how to tell someone I loved that I didn\u2019t want to have sex with them, so I usually gave in to pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For most of my twenties, I identified as bisexual and went through the motions of adult relationships. I felt emotional and romantic attraction to my partners, and having sex seemed the best way to maintain my connections to those people\u2014even on days when I had no desire for sexual contact. Despite my fluctuating desire, sometimes I genuinely did enjoy having sex. As a result, the idea that I may be asexual never crossed my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, two years ago, at age 28, I was diagnosed with autism. The day I was diagnosed I felt extreme relief: my lifetime of feeling like an outsider finally had an explanation. This realization lit a fire under me\u2014I wanted to live as my authentic self. Although I\u2019d come out as bi almost a decade before, I still suspected there was even more to my identity. Over the following two years, I learned about the complexities of asexuality, thanks in part to Angela Chen\u2019s book Ace<\/em>. After reading the book, I reflected on what I\u2019d learned and how it might apply to my own life. By that point I was married, and eventually I talked the subject over with my partner as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I looked up various identities under the asexual umbrella, wondering exactly where I fit, but one simple answer felt true: I was asexual, or ace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Asexual: <\/strong>A person who has little or no interest in sexual contact. Asexuality exists on a spectrum. A person who is asexual may or may not experience romantic attraction, for example. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Compared to my autism diagnosis, coming to terms with being ace was much scarier. First off, I worried about how it might affect my marriage\u2014thankfully, after talking things over, my partner reassured me. I also wondered though if, by coming out as asexual, I would reinforce harmful and enduring assumptions about autistic people\u2014through my research on autism, I had come upon dozens of autistic writers and creators who pushed back against the idea that autistic people must be inherently asexual. Not wanting to contribute to that narrative, I considered that perhaps I owed it to my peers to keep quiet about this side of me.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Desexualization is something that starts early in life for autistic people, says Wendela Whitcomb Marsh, autism specialist and author of the books Dating While Autistic<\/em> and Relating While Autistic<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As their kids reach adolescence or adulthood, \u201csome autism parents maybe hope that their children are asexual,\u201d says Whitcomb Marsh, \u201cbecause it\u2019s easier for those parents not to think about [their child being interested in sex]. It\u2019s unfortunate that they have blinders on, but that\u2019s one attitude.\u201d Physically disabled folks, often painted as sexless and childlike, must contend with these stereotypes as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Chris Muise, 36, says he has been dealing with these stereotypes for years. He was diagnosed with autism at 15\u2014around the same time he became interested in dating. He didn\u2019t think much of his new diagnosis at first, as he\u2019d already experienced multiple health issues, including a vascular disease that required regular medical appointments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During one of these appointments, Muise mentioned he\u2019d started seeing his first girlfriend. The doctor was surprised and said he didn\u2019t think autistic people were interested in relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI got that misconception real early,\u201d says Muise, laughing. \u201cIt was him saying that, that made me go, \u2018Am I gonna have trouble dating?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Muise, who is straight, did eventually determine that he is demisexual. People who are demisexual exist on the ace spectrum, and don\u2019t typically experience sexual attraction when they first meet someone. However, that attraction may develop once they have formed an emotional connection to a person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Muise notes that the nuances of his sexuality have impacted his dating life. He doesn\u2019t think his demisexuality is a direct result of his autism, but, he says, \u201cI can see how one influences the other.\u201d His sensory issues can make some aspects of physical intimacy overwhelming, for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jay Butler, 32, says they\u2019ve also noticed parallels between their autism and their asexual identity. \u201cSex has never really been something I\u2019ve been interested in as an act,\u201d says Butler. \u201cI thought for a long time that I was just weird.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Butler learned about asexuality around the same time they were coming to terms with being trans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was almost like a gate that opened for me,\u201d says Butler. They now identify as demisexual and bi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Butler says they notice a lack of nuance when it comes to how people talk about asexuality. People tend to assume all asexual people are completely sex-averse, for example, when that\u2019s not always true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s a very narrow viewpoint for such a wide range of people,\u201d they say. \u201cEvery ace person is different, just like every bi person is different and every gay person is different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Butler, their autism and sexuality mirror each other in several ways. Like many autistic people, Butler tends to camouflage or \u201cmask\u201d their autistic traits around people they don\u2019t know or trust. Just as a certain comfort level is required for them to unmask, just as a certain level of comfort is required before they can feel sexual attraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be able to pull them apart in any way. It\u2019s totally linked,\u201d says Butler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, the more I learn, the more I notice social parallels between asexuality and autism. Both are spoken of as a spectrum, and both\u2014despite a recent increase in awareness\u2014are still largely misunderstood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Evidence suggests autistic people are more likely to identify<\/a> as queer or trans<\/a> than their allistic peers. However, there\u2019s not a definite answer as to why such an intersection exists. There is also little in-depth research on autism and asexuality in particular. One study<\/a> cautions against correlating the two, given how the study\u2019s subjects had various definitions of asexuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Historically, asexual folks have been pathologized, and their sexualities have been seen as problems to be solved. Whether due to the decades-old label of \u201cfrigid\u201d or the diagnosis of hypoactive sexual desire disorder, it would have been difficult for anyone to freely identify as part of the ace spectrum until recently. (The DSM still includes female sexual interest-arousal disorder and male hypoactive sexual desire disorder, but as of 2013, it also acknowledges asexuality as an identity<\/a> rather than an illness.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Autistic people have similarly been pathologized unnecessarily, and controversial therapies like Applied Behaviour Analysis have long been used to help them \u201cfit in\u201d with allistic people, sometimes to the detriment of the patient<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both autism and asexuality challenge what our patriarchal, ableist society deems acceptable. There has been recent hand-wringing about rising rates of autism diagnoses<\/a> and about the fact that young people are reporting having less sex<\/a>. This panic around the increase in autism diagnoses is driven by fear, and I can\u2019t help but feel the headlines bemoaning a \u201csexless generation\u201d are as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The more I speak with my autistic peers, the more I realize I wasn\u2019t helping anyone by keeping one foot in the closet. Disabled people aren\u2019t a monolith. We have individual experiences and sexual identities\u2014including asexuality. For most of my life, I expended too much energy clamping down aspects of my identity and personality. When I opened up about autism, I wanted to be truer to myself. I eventually realized that embracing my asexuality was no different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sex, for me, has never been a result of sexual attraction. Sometimes it\u2019s been about love, sure\u2014but not always. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I no longer want to be that woman in the university dorm, conceding to sex, just as I no longer want to bite my tongue or sit on my hands to hide my autistic traits. I wish I could say I\u2019ve left that frightened version of myself in the dust, but I haven\u2019t. I\u2019m still figuring it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we are to embrace ace and autistic identities as normal, or at least common, we have a lot of work ahead of us. For some, that is a terrifying idea indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Personally? It fills me with hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Disabled people aren\u2019t a monolith, and not every autistic person is on the ace spectrum. But for me, the two parts of my identity are linked<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1175,"featured_media":250835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editorial_slug":"4","_editorial_slug":"4","exclude_from_latest_block":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2863,4,11,13],"contributors":[2766],"topic":[159,75,87],"clients":[],"series":[],"timeliness":[58],"editorial_format":[31,34],"type-of-work":[2536],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250727"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250727"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251223,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250727\/revisions\/251223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250727"},{"taxonomy":"contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributors?post=250727"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=250727"},{"taxonomy":"clients","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/clients?post=250727"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=250727"},{"taxonomy":"timeliness","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/timeliness?post=250727"},{"taxonomy":"editorial_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial_format?post=250727"},{"taxonomy":"type-of-work","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-of-work?post=250727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Terms to know<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Demisexual: <\/strong>An identity under the asexual umbrella. Demisexuals typically do not feel sexual attraction upon meeting someone new, but attraction may develop alongside an emotional connection.
Allistic:<\/strong> A term used to describe people who are not autistic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n