Aspies For Freedom

I nominated Mr Newport and Mrs Newport as authors for an award I proposed for the worst book about autism or AS, for the book Autism - Asperger's and Sexuality: Puberty and Beyond I thought it was an odd achievement that a book by two authors who are autistic themselves should be nominated for such an award.

With regard to that book I was heaping *** on, I admit I didn't read it cover to cover, but the bit I did read seemed to be tips for very clueless young guys on how to get a girlfriend or a date. I'm a bit fed up with the common stereotype of the aspie as being a male person who is incapble of starting or maintaining relationships.

Personally, all of the people who I know who seem to be on the spectrum appear to be hetero or asexual, but some families do seem to have an unusual number of gays/lesbians and auties/aspies. I know some bigoted and homophobic aspies, I am sad to say.

Homophobia combined with Asperphobia is indeed unpleasent, and unfortunately rather common.

The 'scene' for all its talk about "diversity" can be an extremely cruel and shallow place.  I've had a number of aspie/gay friends who have been throughly chewed up and spat out by "Gay culture".  On the other side of the coin we have all the Autism/AS support groups (open to everyone... as long as your strictly hetrosexual). :roll:

I don't know whether female aspies are more likely to be non-hetrosexual or not.  I think in general though most AS people are more tolerant of differences in others because of the poor treatment they have suffered at the hands of an often ignorant society (although as Lili Marlene was saying their are always, sadly, exceptions to this rule).

I used to attend an AS support group in Manchester and as I recall you were the odd one out if you weren't "batting for the other team..."

Mr Newport,

You have written that "most men and women with autism are too similarly challenged to do each other much good as partners." in your article cheerfully titled "Why We Can't Just Marry Them All Off". This seems like hypocrisy to me as you and your wife are on the spectrum I believe.

I disagreed with just about every point you made in that article. Perhaps this is because the people who I know have not been diagnosed (with autistic spectrum conditions), and do not belong to support groups, and thus represent a different section of the population.

From that article it appears that you advocate marriages with NTs for autistic people, if they are to marry at all. I just can't disagree with that idea strongly enough. I have first-hand knowledge of some such marriages, between capable aspies who had careers before marriage and NTs, and the aspies were trashed, to put it plainly. The NTs left these marriages in good shape, but the aspies never recovered. They were bad, bad marriages.

I once read a book written by an NT woman who had been in a relationship with an aspie man. The general message of the book was that it was like being in a relationship with a child, from her viewpoint. Doesn't that make her some kind of paedophile?

My husband and I (both aspies but not officially diagnosed) have been happily married for many years. We both had long-term relationships with NTs before we met, and we both decided to end these relationships. I could see I had no future in a relationship with a person who is simply incompatible.

Being gay or lesbian or whatever is not a lifestyle, in my opinion, any more than being AS is a lifestyle. This is what they tell me, and who am I to argue?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were a lot of G&L aspies out there who do not accept this aspect of their own personalities, or are so generally confused about sex and relationships that they don't really know where they stand. Some aspies are religious and I think pretty literal and fundamentalist about it. So many people object to homosexuality because it offends their sense of order and it goes against "the rules of nature", and if anything I think aspies could be more likely to see things this way.

I think it was a quote from Stella.

Whereas believing in a 'God' is perfectly natural?

"Lili Marlene, I disagree with you. Gays have been trying awfully hard to find a 'gay gene' or some other way to prove that they are that way from birth. They have had no success, as it is a choice, and a lifestyle."

Sorry Uschi, but there is a lot of proof that being gay is genetic and inherited, it does run in families. People are less aware of relatives being gay sometimes cos of the stigma that can happen, as you said before that you know many aspies and all are straight, well I have met many too, and many are gay, but if you told them your views on anal sex and living a shorter life, they may want to jump straight back in the closet.
:?

Out of interest I found this-


How homosexuality is 'inherited'
Campaigners object to gay being labelled a lifestyle
Scientists say they have shown how male homosexuality could be passed from generation to generation.

Nature encourages mothers to pass on a "gay trait" to their male offspring by boosting their fertility, the Italian University of Padova team believes.

This would keep the pattern of gay inheritance alive, they told the Royal Society's Biological Sciences journal.

Critics of the theory argue a gay gene would eventually be wiped out because gay couples do not procreate.

Inheritance theory

There is controversy about whether sexual orientation is a matter of choice, the authors of the study admitted to the journal.

Campaigners say equality for homosexual people is the more important issue.

Back in 1993, US researchers suggested male homosexuality was passed from mother to son after they found strong patterns of inheritance in family trees.


There might be...reproductive advantages associated with male homosexuality.
The study authors
It has also been noted that homosexual males are more often the younger siblings of a number of older brothers.

Scientists have said it might be that the mother develops some kind of resistance to the male Y chromosome in her offspring that makes subsequent baby boys more likely to be born gay.

Scientists doing DNA studies on homosexual brothers pinpointed 'culprit' genetic material to a region of the X chromosome that mothers pass on to their offspring.

But other researchers in the US have not been able to replicate these findings.

Andrea Camperio-Ciani and colleagues argue genetic factors favouring homosexual male offspring could make women more fertile.

"Our data resolve this paradox by showing that there might be, hitherto unsuspected, reproductive advantages associated with male homosexuality," they said.

They looked at 98 homosexual and 100 heterosexual men and their relatives, which included more than 4,600 people overall.

Full story-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3735668.stm

Uschi,
From experience I know that arguing about homosexuality and religion and politics can be an emotive waste of time (as I am sure you are aware that some scientists have identified genes for right wing views and religiosity ), so I will agree to disagree with you on this point.

But I can't resist explaining my own theory. I would never categorically state that sexual orientation is gentically determined in all people or highly determined, but I do suspect that the gene that tips the scales in favour of autism is the same gene that tips the scales in favour of homosexuality. Apparently gay males and people with autism are two groups who tend to have longer ring fingers than index fingers, which is something to do with testosterone. We have longer ring fingers in our family. And gays are more likely than straights to be lefthanded, so something biological must be going on.

Thanks for that link, Noetic. I didn't know Wendy Lawson was gay. I think she might be from Australia.

This part of the book blurb I find irritating "She also examines the unspoken rules that exist between people in relationships and explains why these rules can be difficult and confusing for people with autism." I maintain that I don't find the rules of relationships confusing, I reckon I just live by a different set of rules. My aspie husband and I live by aspie rules of relationships.

From Uschi's post:

I normally don't like to involve myself with potential flame wars but I don't want anyone to think that this kind of homophobic rhetoric is acceptable. It isn't. Calling something unnatural and then ranting on about anal sex is the usual drivel that homophobic types spout because gay = anal sex to you because it is beyond your comprehension that anything like love is involved or simple attraction to someone of your own gender for all the same reasons that hetrosexuals like their opposite gender. Unless of course you are saying that the only reason you are with your husband is because he has a penis and you have a vagina?

Seriously though, if your going to come out this trite at least have the guts to admit you don't like gay people. Covering your reasoning with truth is still the truth when it's closer to opinion and and I don't attack them (since I know of several here, I COULD have done so, but obviously haven't) when you clearly *** have is laughably hypocritical. Unless of course you think that it is acceptable to call someone unnatural and disease prone?

There is more to homosexuality than anal sex. Do please try to keep your mind out of the gutter  

P.S. I hate to shatter your close minded little world but only about 20% of gay men have anal sex.

The first 3 paragraphs in bold are quoted from Uschi's post  

Good question though!

EDIT: I'll edit it to look better

I'm glad you have chosen to stay Uschi.

By the way Brightman, when people have no REAL and logical arguments, that's when they come out with nonsense words like HOMOPHOBIC. It's meant to make people feel bad, and it's meant as an insult, and was invented just to shut people up.

I didn't say you were homophobic to make you feel bad nor to insult you. Your comments were homophobic even if they were unintentionally so, but that doesn't change the fact that it was you who made them.

The word 'homophobic' wasn't invented to shut people up any more than 'racist' or 'sexist'.

If you're going to insult me by calling my reasoning illogical and false, perhaps you could explain why they are so wrong?


1. I don't have the energy for fruitless and ridiculous discussions, since it would obviously end up in me being insulted and ridiculed for my opinions (and obviously already has).

In that case I suggest you keep your bigoted, self-righteous comments to yourself.


I don't expect you to answer any of this as you have made it quite clear that you have no intention of apologising for any upset you cause. But please don't be under any impression that people wont stick up for what they believe when you make degrading comments about the way they are born. Especially here of all places.