As a person with an autism (at the time “asperger’s”) diagnosis from childhood, I think this is very tricky territory. I agree that autistics are almost certainly more likely to make innocent-but-harmful mistakes in this context. But I’m a bit worried about overcorrection for that for a few reasons:
Firstly, men in general (and presumably women to some degree also), autistic or otherwise are already incredibly good at self-deception about the actions they take to get sex (source: basic commonsense). So giving a particular subset of us more of an excuse to think “I didn’t realize I would upset her”, when the actual facts are more “I did know there was a significant risk, but I couldn’t resist because I really wanted to have sex with her”, seems a bit fraught. I think this is different from the sort of predatory, unrepentant narcissism that Jonas Vollmer says we shouldn’t ascribe to Owen: it’s a kind of self-deception perfectly compatible with genuine guilt at your own bad behavior and certainly with being a kind and nice person overall. I actually think the feminism-associated* meme about sexual bad behavior being always really about misogyny or dominance can sometimes obscure this for people a bit.
Secondly, I worry that people who are both autistic or at least autistic-coded and predatory can take advantage of a perception that their bad behavior is always a mistake and not deliberate. I strongly suspect SBF, though he is not a diagnosed autistic, deliberately exploited a perception that “nerds” are not socially savvy enough to engage in deliberate deception.
Thirdly, I’m worried about being patronized.
Fourthly, I’m worried that if the association between “autistic” and (even accidental) “sexual misconduct risk” becomes too strong in people’s heads, this will actually lead to overcorrection in the other way, with people becoming too reluctant to hire autistics. (Probably not an issue in EA to the degree it would be in less autistic communities though.) We don’t actually know how much more likely autistics are to behave badly in which particular ways.
Alas 4 and 1 kind of point in opposite directions.
*My guess is that feminists who’ve actually written carefully and at length about sexual bad behaviour have more nuanced views than this, and often when they cite “misogyny” as an explanation, they mean something structural, not something in the psychology of people who behave badly.)
How can the EA community better support neurodivergent community members who feel like they might make mistakes without realizing it?
As a person with an autism (at the time “asperger’s”) diagnosis from childhood, I think this is very tricky territory. I agree that autistics are almost certainly more likely to make innocent-but-harmful mistakes in this context. But I’m a bit worried about overcorrection for that for a few reasons:
Firstly, men in general (and presumably women to some degree also), autistic or otherwise are already incredibly good at self-deception about the actions they take to get sex (source: basic commonsense). So giving a particular subset of us more of an excuse to think “I didn’t realize I would upset her”, when the actual facts are more “I did know there was a significant risk, but I couldn’t resist because I really wanted to have sex with her”, seems a bit fraught. I think this is different from the sort of predatory, unrepentant narcissism that Jonas Vollmer says we shouldn’t ascribe to Owen: it’s a kind of self-deception perfectly compatible with genuine guilt at your own bad behavior and certainly with being a kind and nice person overall. I actually think the feminism-associated* meme about sexual bad behavior being always really about misogyny or dominance can sometimes obscure this for people a bit.
Secondly, I worry that people who are both autistic or at least autistic-coded and predatory can take advantage of a perception that their bad behavior is always a mistake and not deliberate. I strongly suspect SBF, though he is not a diagnosed autistic, deliberately exploited a perception that “nerds” are not socially savvy enough to engage in deliberate deception.
Thirdly, I’m worried about being patronized.
Fourthly, I’m worried that if the association between “autistic” and (even accidental) “sexual misconduct risk” becomes too strong in people’s heads, this will actually lead to overcorrection in the other way, with people becoming too reluctant to hire autistics. (Probably not an issue in EA to the degree it would be in less autistic communities though.) We don’t actually know how much more likely autistics are to behave badly in which particular ways.
Alas 4 and 1 kind of point in opposite directions.
*My guess is that feminists who’ve actually written carefully and at length about sexual bad behaviour have more nuanced views than this, and often when they cite “misogyny” as an explanation, they mean something structural, not something in the psychology of people who behave badly.)
Yeah, I think there’s a lot more to be said about this topic, and I’m glad that your said some of it—thanks!