Aspies For Freedom

Jerry Newport is known for being both loved and hated among the autism community.

There seems to be a lot of AS women who are lesbians and/or transgendered.

I didn't mean it in a negative way.

Review of Mr Newsport's work from Amazon.com

    Autism-Asperger's & Sexuality: Puberty and Beyond  
Teresa Bolick (Foreword), Jerry Newport, Mary Newport

Product Details:

Paperback 168 pages (September 2002)
Publisher: Future Horizons
ISBN: 1885477880
Category(ies): Science & Nature , Society, Politics & Philosophy , Health, Family & Lifestyle
Average Customer Review:  | Write a review

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 202,669
(Publishers and authors: improve your sales)
              

Customer Reviews

Autism - Asperger's and Sexuality: Puberty and Beyond, August 11, 2004

Reviewer: flifdk from København Denmark  

because the contents doesn't match it. The views of sexuality in this book doesn't match the nineties. It is out of touch with the ease most teenagers today talk about sex, and seems mostly like a book sent from the fifties by a time machine. Or from somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, where they still live like the fifties. It even goes as far as saying it doesn't "mean to encourage pre-marital sexual activity" in a warning before a chapter about "birth control" etc. This reads as a complete joke to a scandinavian guy.

It completely lacks any information about using the internet!!! How could such a book be relevant today? All my friends use dating sites for finding dates and friends. Everybody has a profile somewhere. Dating sites makes it much easier for asperger people to find other people, which they can relate to, and avoid the hell from normal teenager parties. But the asperger needs some good hints for dating sites, they are not without pitfalls (just like old-style dating, but just a different set of pitfalls). He just mentions it a couple of times and discards it with "As far as getting dates from the Internet, I just don't see it".

I agree with roguealleycat's critique of the very narrow view of valuable lifestyle(s).

The book is set with a large sans serif font, so it's hard on the eyes, and large sections are in italics as they felt is was very important the reader could see what was written by his wife instead of himself. A more professional publishing agency and editing would help the readability. The book is a weird mix of guidelines for the parent, and daddy comments to the young. So it doesn't have a consistent target group.

Conclusion: If you consider living in the fifties, the book might be useful, otherwise...

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Quack quack!  

Stella Maru

I do not think this is what he said - he merely stated that in his experience, from the many autistics he knows, there does not seem to be a greater number of gay, lesbian or transgendered people among their number than among non-autistics.

I must say that the publisher's attitude does seem a bit strange, because not only are alternative sexual orientations something that can't be denied or that should be allowed to be sweeped under the carpet, but issues of gender identity, along with general issues of "sense of self" and "identity", do seem to be something that needs to be addressed when discussing sexuality, finding identity etc. within the context of Autism.

IMHO, yes. However, I am also aware that in particular in some regions of the US, the attitudes are quite conservative and narrow-minded (as the elections have perhaps shown, because anti-gay-rights slogans seemed to have had some influence on votes), and unfortunately, some publishers are too worried about losing out on sales to be more open-minded when it comes to the issues they allow authors to be addressed.

I do not know the statistics, and where such issues have been discussed, I have often found that rather than more people who are openly and practising gay, bi or lesbian, or who are transgendered, it seems that it is perhaps more of a case of people being less influenced by gender stereotypes and expected gender identities. (Perhaps due to not being as much influenced by peer pressure, stereotypes or by a desire to imitate and fit in)

Noetic says:

some publishers are too worried about losing out on sales to be more open-minded when it comes to the issues they allow authors to be addressed.

Clearly these are not the publishers to be entrusted with the publication of any sort of book on human sexuality, and Mr Newport should not have entered into any sort of contractual agreement with the kind of publisher that entertains homophobic and transphobic views, if, as he appears to say, these antisocial attitudes are not his own, but have been imposed upon him.

He does, of course, have the opportunity to correct the unfortunate impression made by his book. In his busy speaking schedule for 2005, he has the opportunity to  make a clear statement about his manipulation by the unscrupulous publishers he describes above, and their suppression of fair representation for LGBT identities in his book, if this is indeed what happened.

Perhaps we'll get to hear of these progressive reforms by and by.

Stella

Another review of Mr Newport's offerings from Amazon.com

Only a veneer of tolerance for the rest of us, April 23, 2003

If this book had been around when I was beginning adolescence, it would have created more confusion than it solved. It is a great improvement on Newport's other book in terms of clarity and message. However, as an autistic lesbian, I would have found it very lacking.

While there is a short chapter that includes homosexuality (which it lumps in with celibacy, drug abuse, and cults!) it demonstrates little to no understanding of the subject. While it makes the point that relationships are relationships no matter what, it completely neglects that gay and lesbian courtship differs greatly from heterosexual courtship. I do not know about gay male courtship, but lesbian courtship requires a lot more subtlety and attention to tiny non-verbal cues than straight people's courtship. This is not addressed whatsoever, nor are the obvious differences in sexual practice.

While the book tries to promote the idea of equality, the comment that one of the authors wouldn't want his child to be homosexual would not have been encouraging to me as a young lesbian reader. Neither would the big bold-print "Nothing in this chapter should be taken as endorsement of an alternative lifestyle." It seems that they are trying to keep both sides happy -- to say "You are okay" to gay people and "I completely understand why you don't want your kid to be gay, and it's your choice to make good choices for the individuals concerned" to homophobic parents, so as to keep everyone satisfied. Meanwhile, there are parents who use these kinds of ideas to prevent their gay autistic adult children from having any relationships at all -- this is a pressing and real problem that appears not to be addressed for fear of offending anyone.

Bisexuality is never mentioned at all, and the authors seem to believe that a lot of people "try" homosexuality as a way of fitting in (I tried heterosexuality and it never did work for me). It always presents homosexuality as departure from heterosexuality, rather than as a phenomenon in its own right. It also discourages any political activism for gay people, derisively referring to it as a "crusade" (I wonder what the authors think of political activism for autistic equality) and telling gay people to get over being gay. Compare to Luke Jackson's observation in _Freaks, Geeks, and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence_ that people willing to be visibly autistic and visibly gay have done a lot for human rights for both groups. I would think a real exploration of the similarities of the two groups would be more useful than prejudice with a veneer of tolerance over it.

I think that this book is good if you're straight and into conformity to certain gender roles, but for the rest of us it leaves a lot to be desired. I think it could have done with a few more co-authors who had a more accurate and inside view of homosexuality, so that it would not simply be a straight-sexuality centered book with a few paragraphs tacked on for everyone else. I found parts of the straight sexuality things applicable, and others completely useless and missing vital technical and health information. I think even straight people who don't completely follow the traditional gender expectations -- like my parents, for example -- would find parts of this book useless or demeaning. I showed the section on homosexuality to both straight and gay acquaintances, and they found it everything from unacceptable to insulting -- several asked me why I liked anything in the book at all after reading that part.

For more nuanced, accurate, and compassionate views of developmental disability and sexuality, I would recommend the works of Dave Hingsburger. While _Autism-Asperger's and Sexuality_ is better than nothing, and provided some useful ideas (the "What Do Women Really Want?" section had some very useful information in it for me), it's geared to a specific population, slightly against others, and suffers because of it. It could have been much better had the same sensitivity as it displays in the earlier chapters been carried over to the rest of us, who don't fit in those chapters. Skirting over the very real issues of gay and bisexual (among others) people with developmental disabilities does nobody any favors.

That quote is not from me, please look up who actually wrote it, and correct it.

Thanks

This is quite new but it addresses all the sexual issues (gay, bi, transgender etc.) that the other book left out: http://www.jkp.com/catalogue/book.php/is...4310-284-6

Has anyone read it?

I didn't know she was gay either, until I came across the link. I just knew she was divorced but then so am I so that doesn't make one gay (if the relationship doesn't work out I mean).

I agree it's more a question of different rules, but then if she is referring to relationships with NTs I guess the rules would be confusing.

tell me about it...
I have never met an Nt female my age who doesnt confuse the hell out of me...  but then judging by the multitude of jokes ont eh subject that might be something NT males ahve to dela with too.

That one at least counts for such things as cold weather and pregnancy as well...  :roll:

Also I am not entirely sure how you link lesbians with anal sex?

I don't "approve" of anal sex either as far as *I* am concerned, but surely what each person does with their rear end (as long as nobody else is involved against their will) is their business?

Thanks for making it clearer!

Great review overall, just one point to the above: I get the impression that, as you suspect, the emphasis on "formality" in dating is mainly down to this being aimed at a mainly US audience.

I don't know what this is like elsewhere, but the main impression I get from people's personal reports, and from people who spent exchange years in the US in their late teens, is that formality and rules in dating are given much more consideration in the US than in many other areas of the world. You have to watch everything from how you open the door to how much you drink because one small step and you "fail" the test.

This may well explain why the book seems to put a disproportionate amount of value on this.