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[–]ausernamee 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

They're not saying "I can't tell if another person's feelings are romantic or if they're just platonic." They're saying "I can't tell if my feelings toward another person are romantic or just friend feelings." But that's not called nebularomanitc, it's called alexithymia. Research has shown 50-85 percent of autistic people having alexithymia. It's not a sexuality. That's like trying to say getting distracted during sex is a sexual orientation when you have out of control adhd. You can tell the alexithymia isn't a sexual orientation, because that same person has the same inability to understand/name emotions across the board, not just with romance. It has nothing to do with sex.

The same person who can't tell if they want to be friends or want to date can't tell if they enjoyed the first meeting at the knitting club or not. The fact that needing a million years to process every emotion you feel also applies to romantic and sexual feelings in the same way that it applies to all your feelings doesn't turn it into a sexual orientation.

Their sexual experience is bascially the same as everyone else's but with slower processing. The relationship is a pool. One person stick in their foot and then jumps in. Another person sticks in their foot and realizes it's too cold and says NOPE. Alexithymia would be you stick your foot in, hmm, you're not sure if it's too cold or not. Maybe you stick more limbs in and continue to consider it, maybe you you get it. After you're in, maybe you think you're gonna get out right away, but then you adjust and it's fine. Or maybe you thought it was ok, but it turns out it's too cold after all and you end up getting out despite at first not being sure and thinking you might stay in.

That might make you a bad partner for some people, and it might cause conflict with a partner who's a bad partner for you. But nothing about having it goes outside of regular courtship. To a certain extent, everyone needs to be won over. Someone with genius level emotional i.q. also doesn't decide on the first date every date "this is the man i'm marrying" or "i need to block this guy".

They are probably having a markedly different experience with engaging with their own emotions than a typical neurotypical person, but it's just not a dating or sexuality thing. Not knowing how you feel about someone is so much the norm that it's even sometimes used as a gender stereotype. When you see females stereotyped as not even knowing how to pick a boyfriend and you see men stereotyped as completely unaware of their feelings, how do you not see that this isn't exactly unique. It reminds me of demisexuals who also describe basic courtship and basic boundaries and basic communication and respect in a relationship as a special unique thing.

I don't get the need to flag that we have boundaries or that a kiss now doesn't mean you can take it for granted that i'm down to fuck as a special sexual orientation.

I wonder how this person would incorporate the fact that what they think is their sexuality is a clinical symptom of their brain wiring being outside of the norm into their identity.

Ok, now I'm imagining a neurodivergent person describing the thrusting motion of fucking as "stimming" and I'm giggling about it because that would obviously be pure nonsense. "You can tell i'm autistic because i like to rub on blankets and i like to rub on my necklace and i like to rub on cool glass and i like to rub on my genitals to the point of orgasm." No, one of those is just sex and nothing to do with autism.

It comes across as a little fetishizing of neurodivergent people to tie sexuality to autistic traits. "Oh, part of your coping mechanisms for your autism is you like to suck on things? Like what? Oh, you like to suck on ice cubes and always have candy on hand because the minty distracts you, and sometimes you suck on your necklace or chew the neck of your shirt or suck on your thumb like a 5 year old? oh yea, i remember thumb sucking, i can wrap my head around that's soothing for your autistic stress of the bright lights and loud noises. Wait, part of what you're attributing to your autism is your enjoyment of sucking dick? No, i'm pretty sure that now you're describing your autism fetish, not actual autism." i've seen these adult babies trying to play off their fetishes and immaturity as autism before. I can't say they are autistic or not, but autistic people can be have weird fetishes too.

Ok, now i see why people felt like this was pushing other's boundraries instead of reading it as a simple bad description of being ND. If you are in fact ND and you describe your neurodivergence in ways that could be confused for a non-nd person with a fetish, it's not an either or thing. Even if they are ND that's still kind of creepy becuase if they're not pretending to be nd to fetishize nd people then they're one of those nd people who don't understand boundaries enough that they make themselves out in ways that they seem like they have an nd fetish. My original inclination was to defend them with "alexithymia is a thing" but on second thought, this is pretty weird.

[–]lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yeah, I can't speak for everyone who's autistic, but personally, I don't think it's a typical autistic thing. While there are some autistic people who have sociopathy or alexithymia, it's a myth that autistic people don't feel anything or that most take a long time to feel anything emotionally. If anything, emotions can be strong, sudden, overwhelming, but they're not always expressed in the way neurotypical people express them, if that makes sense?

[–]ausernamee 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm talking about being able to name feelings and tie meaning to them and interpret them in a neurotypical framework, not feeling feelings.

For example, i just watched a video with a girl who mistook her anxiety symptoms for arousal. She felt feelings, she was just unable to name which feeling it was or tell you what it meant in the context of the social situation. That's actually not that uncommon. Sometimes you think you're nervous, but it turns out your excited, or sometimes it goes the other way around.

[–]lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ah, gotcha. That does make a bit more sense, if that's the case for her.